Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

IMDb plot summary: A wealthy composer rescues unemployed Broadway performers with a new play.
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Starring Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, and Aline McMahon.

Early Hollywood musicals tend to be heavy on spectacle, light on narrative and coherent characterization. This definitely fits the bill, but the big musical numbers do look so stunning it's almost enough to carry it all the way through. If only there had been more than three of them! I did find myself often rolling my eyes at the poorly-defined characters and the half-written troubles they find themselves in, so I definitely wish the movie had gone the jukebox musical route of filling its runtime with so many great songs you don't realize until the end how thin the rest of it is. I found myself glued to the screen during some of these numbers, and choosing my favorite screenshot of the movie was incredibly difficult because so much of it looks fantastic.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Gold Diggers of 1933 > Ghostbusters
Gold Diggers of 1933 < Chariots of Fire
Gold Diggers of 1933 < At First Sight
Gold Diggers of 1933 > Star Trek Into Darkness
Gold Diggers of 1933 < A Separation
Gold Diggers of 1933 < Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken
Gold Diggers of 1933 > Swing Time
Gold Diggers of 1933 > Wild Zero
Gold Diggers of 1933 < The Ring
Gold Diggers of 1933 < Descendants
Gold Diggers of 1933 < The Gift
Gold Diggers of 1933 < Cat's Eye

Final spot: #1138 out of 2672.