David K
Good follow-up to The Golddiggers of 1933. And, it's Busby Berkeley who's almost always worth a watch.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
04/10/23
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william d
Like most movie musicals of the 30s, you sit through the lame story until you get to the big production numbers at the end. In this case, it's well worth the wait. One quibble: why did they let Joan Blondell do her own singing?
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
The best musical movie ever made!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
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Audience Member
Hugh Herbert is an eccentric millionaire who decides to bequeath his enormous fortune to distant cousin Guy Kibbee because he's a fine, upstanding moral citizen ... unlike his other cousin Dick Powell who's a producer of musicals. Herbert stays with Kibbee and wife Zasu Pitts, while their daughter Ruby Keeler hides the fact that she's actually dating Powell. Burlesque actress Joan Blondell blackmails Kibbee into bankrolling Powell's new musical, leading to the whole troop of characters descending on a theater for the debut of Powell's new musical. This pretty decent screwball comedy sets the stage for three increasingly mind-blowing Busby Berkeley musical numbers. The first is a somewhat sedate affair involving Blondell singing to dancing underwear, but the next number is the incredible "I Only Have Eyes for You" where Powell sings to dozens of women all with Ruby Keeler's face while it becomes increasingly abstract, descending into a kaleidoscopic display of female flesh with Ruby Keeler's face. This all ends with the salacious number "Dames" where Powell celebrates the need for putting half-naked girls on the screen while dancing girls lie in bed, brush their teeth and dance. I really enjoyed this.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
ashley h
Dames is a decent film. It is about a multimillionaire who decides to boycott the "filthy" forms of entertainment such as Broadway shows. Dick Powell and Joan Blondell give good performances. The screenplay is a little slow in places. Ray Enright did an alright job directing this movie. I liked this motion picture because of the humor and romance.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
'Dames' is a bit like two movies in one - the first, the drab build-up to the second, with a millionaire played by Hugh Herbert giving his money away to relatives under the condition that they lead moral lives. Herbert is horribly miscast and in several goofy, groan-inducing scenes. The only bright spots in the first hour of the 91 minute film are Dick Powell singing "I Only Have Eyes For You" on a ferry to Ruby Keeler, with older couples looking on, and the always-fun Joan Blondell, whose character scents a possible gold mine.
On the other hand, the 'second movie', that last half hour, is brilliant. Here the incomparable Busby Berkeley takes over, and gives us several enchanting musical numbers. You'll have to ignore the fact that there's no way these performances would fit on a stage which is the premise, but who cares. The Joan Blondell led washer-woman number "The Girl at the Ironing Board" has some fun special effects, with clothes moving on their own, and segues briefly into music from Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Saint-Saëns.
"I Only Have Eyes for You" is then reprised, with Powell singing to Keeler again, this time with people disappearing from crowded places and Keeler's face replacing other women's in advertisements to mirror the lyrics. It then segues into a wild dream sequence with an ensemble dancing about with giant cutouts of Keeler's face, sashaying around on giant stairways (one of them circular), and reassembling the poster of her face in puzzle-like fashion brilliantly by folding over the backs of their dresses. Berkeley then uses camera tricks to have Keeler appear out of her own eye and become miniaturized again onto the back of a mirror before waking up. Powell then romantically carries her across deserted train tracks. It's fantastic, and whatever you say about Keeler's dancing (which does leave a lot to be desired), she's charming in this performance.
The title song "Dames" is then sung by Powell, with wonderful tight shots on pretty faces, followed by a dance number with the dames (er, women) waking up, bathing, applying makeup, and then going in to the movie studios to perform numbers which make beautiful geometric patterns with their legs while shot overhead, among many other things. You have to youtube some of these to see the genius and creativity of Busby Berkeley.
It's unfortunate that the title was "Dames", based on the song of the same name, with the borderline-ugh lyrics like "What do you go for, go see a show for? Tell the truth, you go to see those beautiful dames", when it could have been "I Only Have Eyes For You", with romantic lyrics like "Are the stars out tonight? I don't know if it's cloudy or bright, 'cause I only have eyes for you, dear", which would inspire countless covers over all of the decades to the present. It's also unfortunate that the movie was made after the Hays code was in effect, with the result meaning that one of the musical numbers didn't make it to the screen, as well as (apparently) Blondell inviting everyone to see her cat with the line "come up and see my pussy sometime".
It's a hard movie to rate and far from perfect, but "I Only Have Eyes For You" and the musical numbers by Busby Berkeley are wonderful and carry the day for me.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
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