Footlight Parade

Footlight Parade (1933) is a Warner Bros. musical you can watch online on iFILM. James Cagney and Joan Blondell headline, with Lloyd Bacon directing.

Talkies are killing live theater, and stage director Chester Kent is suddenly out of work. His fix: snappy live musical "prologues" staged right before movie screenings, rolled out to theaters across the country. The business takes off, but everything gets in the way — rivals plant spies to steal his routines, the money keeps running short, and his loyal assistant Nan (Blondell) is quietly in love with a boss too busy to notice. Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell supply the younger romance.

The real draw is the Busby Berkeley finale: rows of dancers, cascading water and overhead kaleidoscope patterns, including the famous "By a Waterfall." This is pre-Code Hollywood — fast, cheeky, and capped by Cagney tap-dancing through "Shanghai Lil" himself. A prime slice of the 1930s studio musical. Stream Footlight Parade online on iFILM.