Some exaggeration is going on. The ad claims 12 big stars but I count only eight. The trailer isn't very helpful on this score, but it's something to look at, and TCM.com has got it.
TCM also has this film's show-stopper, "Remember My Forgotten Man." That Warners would use a big musical extravaganza to make this kind of social commentary makes this a definitive Pre-Code moment.
How does anyone compete with this? Paramount Pictures, at least, agreed with Warners that quantity equaled quality.
And you know what? A lot of people will say that this, too, is a masterpiece of its kind. And it has an ultimate Pre-Code moment of its own -- Cab Calloway singing "Reefer Man." GodGaveUsCannibis gave us this copy of the clip.
All right, then: how do you compete with them? The Garden's attraction may have had a fighting chance if the studio had left it alone.
The ad copy echoes the movie's original title. Walking Down Broadway was to have been Erich Von Stroheim's belated debut as a talkie director, but to the surprise of few Fox sacked him and largely reshot the picture.
Meanwhile, M-G-M tries for class -- with the usual Pre-Code spin.
And the Alhambra decides that the best answer to Busby Berkeley is a live stage show.
I give them credit for "Dusky Devastators of Depression." They don't write ad copy like that anymore. And there's a movie, too, an RKO melodrama about stuntmen. Overall, a lot to see in Milwaukee eighty years ago this week.
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