Stage Door is one of the most revered movies in the high canon of classic Hollywood comedies, deservedly. Probably the most utopian, non-heterosexist story produced by Hollywood by that time. Read as queer, it works. Read as women’s friendship and solidarity, it works, too. As critique of the whole infrastructure of romantic comedy, also works.Continue reading “Stage Door (1937)”
Category Archives: Ginger Rogers
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Gold Diggers of 1933 — directed by Mervyn LeRoy and spectacularized by Busby Berkeley — has been more thoroughly watched, interpreted, contextualized, explained, poked, prodded, and dissected over the years than any other comedy of the era. It has been glossed in terms the male gaze, the commodification of women, the reduction of female bodiesContinue reading “Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)”
Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934)
I obviously have a soft spot for the Dick Powell comedies of the Thirties. I have no explanation for it. I didn’t see any of them until I was middle aged. Twenty Million Sweethearts is a generic Dick Powell movie, other than that his female lead is Ginger Rogers, not the animatronic Ruby Keeler —Continue reading “Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934)”
Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)
Director Gregory LaCava’s enshrinement in the Hollywood comedy pantheon is mainly due to My Man Godfrey (1936), which is still considered one of the peak achievements of the period. I’m not as taken with that film as most folks, but it’s clear that LaCava was an original director with a strong personal sense of howContinue reading “Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)”
In Person (1935)
To set the context, by 1935 Ginger Rogers had delivered Busby Berkeley’s Golddiggers of 1933, in which she sings in Pig Latin sandwiched in a giant silver dollar, danced with Astaire in Top Hat, and did this weird thing called In Person. Directed by William Seiter, who seemed to staple shots together until he gotContinue reading “In Person (1935)”