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19 out of 21 people found the following review useful: Slight plot, great music, and Busby Berkley. Isn't that enough?, 18 June 2004 Author: d_john2 from Oregon
Dick Powell and the music of Warren and Dubin is reason enough to watch this otherwise average musical. Busby Berkley's choreography is an aquired taste - I prefer the elegance of Hermes Pan/Fred Astaire and the expert tapping of George Murphy and Eleanor Powell, or even the highly entertaining Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Shirley Temple duets. But these all came later than DAMES and Berkley's eye-candy style is highly entertaining and, sometimes, memorable.I never thought Ruby Keeler was terribly talented and her lack of acting ability does show, especially in the company of such accomplished players as Joan Blondell, Powell, Hugh Herbert, and Guy Kibbee. Keeler's acting is passable, if a bit clumsy, and I find her dancing adequate. (She was called, in some 1930s circles, "The Stomper" for her heavy-footed tapping.)What makes this film a winner is the music. The title song is wonderful and the splendid "I Only Have Eyes For You" is one of the best songs ever written for a movie. That song is fully performed twice, once about midway into the film and, differently, near the end. The later performance is fine, the former one of the screen's greatest musical numbers. Powell sings it with his beautiful high tenor and Berkley provides probably his best ever production. I dare the viewer to not get goose bumps when watching this.Take away the music and Busby Berkley and you're left with not much except a (mostly) great cast. I give "DAMES" my highest rating for the music and production numbers and a solid middle ranking for the plot. One could do a lot worse than spend 90 minutes with DAMES.
15 out of 18 people found the following review useful: The Ounce Foundation of American Morals, 24 February 2001 Author: lugonian from Kissimmee, Florida
DAMES (Warner Brothers, 1934), directed by Ray Enright, with choreography by Busby Berkeley, is another backstage story with more music than plot. The central character is Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), an eccentric millionaire and founder of the Ounce Foundation of American Morals, who wants to spend his money improving other people's morals. He decides to spend a month at his cousin Mathilda Hemingway's New York home (ZaSu Pitts), to see that she and her husband, Horace (Guy Kibbee) and their daughter, Barbara (Ruby Keeler) have been living clean moral lives. If so, the family then will inherit his $10 million. Aside from not liking women (!), the only other thing Ezra cannot tolerate is show people. It so happens that Barbara is in love with Jimmy Higgens (Dick Powell, in an energetic performance), a playwright/ composer who hopes to find a backer for his show, "Sweet and Hot," and her father, Horace, has encountered Mabel Anderson (Joan Blondell), a stranded showgirl, in his train compartment, leaving her money and his business card with a note written in the back "please do not mention this unfortunate incident to a soul." After Mabel meets up with Jimmy and his troupe, and learns that Barbara is the daughter of the "sugar daddy" Horace, she comes upon an idea of how to get the money from him to back Jimmy's musical show. Yes, by doing some gold digging.Songs featured in the story: "When You Were a Smile on Your Mother's Lips, and a Twinkle in Your Daddy's Eye" (possibly the longest title for a single song/written by Irving Kahal and Sammy Fain); "I Only Have Eyes For You" (by Harry Warren and Al Dubin) and "Try to See It My Way" (by Mort Dixon and Allie Wrubel). For the Broadway production numbers, all written by Warren and Dubin, and running about 10 minutes each, first comes Joan Blondell dressed in turn of the century clothes performing and singing with other laundry girls to the amusing "The Girl at the Ironing Board" which includes one witty lyric, 'When I'm off on Sundays, I miss all these undies'; followed by "I Only Have Eyes for You" sung by Powell to Keeler, with girls using picture puzzles of Keeler that later fit together to form one gigantic picture of Keeler's face; and "Dames" sung by Powell, performed by a parade of pretty chorines dressed in white blouses and black tights doing their geometric patterns, tap dancing, and Berkeley going crazy with his camera tricks, facial close-ups, leg tunnels, etc. Before the show meets up with a riot started by Ezra's stooges, Blondell comes out center stage in baby clothes singing "Try to See It My Way, Baby" along with other chorines.I find DAMES acceptable entertainment, although some of the comedy may be trite, with both plot and production numbers starting to repeat themselves. While many critics mention that Ruby Keeler lacks in acting ability, I find her bad acting very noticeable here more than in any of her other movies, past and future, especially when she plays angry and jealous over Powell's attention towards Blondell. This is one of those rare exceptions that I did find her performance annoying than likable. It's interesting to note however that with all the songs, she doesn't get to sing any of them (excluding briefly talking her lyric to "Eyes for You"), and tap dances a minute or two to piano playing to the tune "Dames" during a pre-Broadway tryout. DAMES also marks the fourth and final Powell-Keeler-Berkeley collaboration. In the age of 1930s screwball comedy, Pitts, Kibbee and Herbert fit their character roles perfectly, and all manage to later get drunk after drinking Dr. Silver's Golden Elixer. Also in the cast are Leila Bennett as the bewildered housekeeper, Laura; Johnny Arthur as Billings, Ounce's personal secretary; and songwriter Sammy Fain appearing as songwriter, Buttercup Baumer. One final note, "I Only Have Eyes For You" should have at least been nominated for Academy Award as Best Song of 1934. (***)
13 out of 16 people found the following review useful: In the Depth of the Great Depression, 16 March 2006 Author: B24 from Arizona
No one who lived through the Great Depression could possibly take seriously negative comments on the quality and content this film written by youngsters with no sense of its historical context. To lament its silliness or find fault with what seem now to be crude mechanical cinematographic devices just begs the question.This movie could not be recreated in the twenty-first century even in the smallest part. In the first place, musicals are now passé. The drag parody of the title number "Dames" in 1988's film Torch Song Trilogy is proof of that. Moreover, its stock characters (Hugh Herbert, Guy Kibbee, Zasu Pitts) were simply reprising common comedic roles of the day, completely unsuited to the harsher and more cynical models now in vogue. And Ruby Keeler's numbers lack totally the athleticism of our contemporary dancers.What we can appreciate about the movie is how it fits nicely into the Busby Berkeley oeuvre. After his huge successes of 1933, this example is a fitting continuation to his development as a moviemaker. The catastrophic effects of the Great Depression like mass unemployment, hunger, wholesale uprooting of communities, and abject poverty affecting the lives of millions of ordinary Americans could be forgotten for a few pennies spent in the local movie house. It played to the needs of its time.Interestingly, the packaging of female pulchritude in the film also fits with that time. What today seems borderline pornographic or insulting to women was accepted without much fuss in 1934. Indeed, any student of Freud could have a field day deconstructing some of the Berkeley images.As to the music, it is simply classic. Dick Powell's phrasing is a model of tenor sensibility in an age of Big Band baritones. One has to accept that continuity or theatrical presentation is not a factor. Each number stands or falls entirely on its own as seen through the lens of the camera. As an early prototype of the Hollywood musical, Dames was and is a smash hit.
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Simply Swell!, 20 October 2004 Author: drednm2004 from United States
Great songs and production numbers make this snappy musical a must for fansof 30s films. Great cast has Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, GuyKibbee, Hugh Herbert, Zasu Pitts, Leilah Bennett, Johnny Arthur, and BertonChurchill in top form. Dick Powell sings "Dames" better than Harvey Fierstein! and Joan Blondell gets a couple numbers here: "The Girl at the Ironing Board" and a reprise of "Try to See It My Way, Baby." Ruby has only one dance number but sports Joan Crawford eyebrows! Pitts, Kibbee and Herbert are terrific in solid support of the stars. The Busby Berkley finale is one of his best as the "dames" go thru their paces in geometric patterns of leg art. The film's big song is "I Only Have Eyes for You" and is well done by Dick Powell----who is unjustlyunderrated today.......
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: They're what you see a show for, 14 August 2005 Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
One of the nice things about those Warner Brothers Depression musicals is that you can forget some of the sillier aspects of the plot and just enjoy the wonderful nonsense created.Dames certainly classifies as wonderful nonsense. A wacky millionaire who's a sideline puritan is going to leave a bequest to a cousin and her family providing that they are of good moral character by his ideas. The wacky millionaire is Hugh Herbert and the cousin is Zasu Pitts, her husband Guy Kibbee and her daughter Ruby Keeler. There's another distant cousin Dick Powell who's already out of the will because he's an actor.Back then theatrical folk were held in some disdain by polite society, though that's hard to believe now. Also some eyebrows might have been raised with Dick's involvement with Ruby. But then again the president of the United States was married to his fifth cousin. I'm sure the brothers Warner knew that full well when Dames was released.Dames of course is remembered for those wonderful Busby Berkeley numbers and one of the biggest movie songs ever in I Only Have Eyes For You. Introduced by Dick Powell it was never commercially recorded by him though dozens of our best singers have done so. It's a favorite of mine for sure.Last but not least Dames features the always captivating Joan Blondell who's not above a little blackmail to achieve her ends. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. She's featured in the Girl at the Ironing Board number, a great piece of Berkeley magic.We can't forget the title song because as Dick Powell sings, it's what you see the show for. And in that finale they're sure enough of them to satisfy any red blooded male.
10 out of 16 people found the following review useful: Same Good, Same Bad, 27 September 2007 Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States
It always amazes me that I love these Busby Berkeley extravagant dance numbers, and that I like Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Joan Blondell yet these movies which supply all of the above are usually just awful, aside from the music. The fantastic sets of Berkeley are the only reason I wind up watching any of these (Footlight Parade, 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, 1935, etc.).The stories are weak and simply stupid and usually annoying to watch and most of them are so unmemorable nobody can tell you what was in either film, only what Berkeley did with some of the hundreds of dancers. Even the famous "42nd Street" features some loud, obnoxious characters. How Guy Kibbee was considered funny, I can't figure out, but he was in a number of these films including this one, as was the almost-as-lame High Herbert.This movie gets a bonus point, however, for including the always interesting Blondell. Also, the big number "I Only Have Eyes For You," was a nice tribute to Keeler.Overall, the same as all the Berkeley films: great sets, great dancing, great-looking girls, dumb characters and dumb story.
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Best of Berkeley and Conscious Moral Ambiguity, 22 April 2006 Author: (tooter.ted@gmail.com) from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
It's true that you'll wait through much of this film for the production numbers, its greatest attraction to contemporary viewers. However, that's not a problem. In contrast to the chaotic plot of Gold Diggers of 1935, this plot has both point and some worthy comic performances from Zasu Pitts, Guy Kibbee, and especially Hugh Herbert. In fact the film's thematic point, missed in most reviews, distinguishes it from other films of this genre. We expect in these films for Dick Powell to be the dashing (if fruity) hero who wins the girl in the end. The end here is not so simple; Powell wins the girl, but we never hear what he whispers in Ruby Keeler's ear when she asks if he loves her, and his caddish behavior throughout the film suggests that all's not well that ends well. Caddish is too tame to describe his awful, fast-talking disregard of everyone but himself. The film gives no reason to suspect he loves Keeler any more than he loves Joan Blondell. Shortly after singing, "I Only Have Eyes for You" to Barbara (Keeler) for whom he wrote it, he sings it to Mabel (Blondell) while excluding Barbara just within earshot. Powell makes quite clear that "dames" are interchangeable, and the show must go on, even if it requires victimizing his "sweetheart's" parents and even if it means firing the girl he supposedly loves. In fact, all the characters in this film behave miserably. Kibbee is a father ready to sell out, not only his values (he seems to have none) but his daughter for an inheritance, and the daughter has as little regard for the feelings of her parents. Zasu Pitts as mother is emotionless, frigid, and similarly self-centered. Rich Uncle Ezra is hilariously dimwitted, an aggressively ignorant upholder of right morals. Nobody is reformed in the end, and the only reason the show goes on is that the "moral majority," who would block the show and the marriage get too drunk to care. However, it is the failings of the supposed heroes and heroines that are most telling. These people all deserve each other, and the future can't be as promising as the Hollywood ending might imply.Of course, it is Berkeley's production numbers that will lead you to this film, and they all come near the end in rapid succession. They are worth the wait. Berkeley's surreal images comment on the shallowness of the characters. Could it also be that Berkeley recognized Keeler's lack of talent when he gave her almost no chance to sing or dance? The final dance sequence may be the single most extravagant and outrageous Berkeley ever directed. The kaleidoscopic effects, through the legs dolly shots, use of mirrors and transitions will dazzle lovers of this medium. One should be amazed at how some of these shots were accomplished with the bulky equipment of the day. You haven't seen the best of Berkeley until you've seen Dames.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: very fine, 11 March 2006 Author: j_del_olmo from Spain
I like I have only eyes for you and I remember quite well Dick Powell singing this song. To day when I listen Frank Sinatra singing this melody I see in my mind Dick Powell singing it. All the films of Busby Berkeley I saw were very good, in those times there was no dubbing a we enjoy very much with the original American versions of the films, Notwhithstanding my short age, I was working in the broadcast station of Barcelona, People of Warner Bros brought us ogiginal records of music of the Warner, Movies among them was a trailer with yhe song I have only eyes for you, then I was able to play the record as many times as I wanted, enjoying very much with the song.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Busby Berkeley musical with those classic overhead shots., 3 January 2005 Author: TxMike from Houston, Tx, USA, Earth
This 1934 movie is pure spoof of those who objected to elaborate musical shows with pretty young women in costumes that were very provocative for the 1930s. Busby Berkeley became famous for directing these elaborate shows, with very large casts of pretty girls, most in short platinum blonde hair.The movie stars Joan Blondell as Mabel Anderson and Dick Powell as Jimmy Higgens. The cast includes two others who today are legends in the business, Ruby Keeler and Zasu Pitts.Those who don't care for musicals will not like 'Dames'. It may be a bit disconcerting when a bank teller bursts out in song while attending to a customer, for example. However, every movie fan should see 'Dames' for its place in movie history. The movie ends with a rather long production number, and the most striking visuals are taken from high above the stage, with the camera pointed straight down, and the dancers below form various designs that often open and move like giant flowers swaying in the wind. A real visual feast.
8 out of 15 people found the following review useful: I thought it was good..., 25 June 2005 Author: LolaJean from United States
Although other people who have left comments complain how moronic this film was, I actually find it quite entertaining and pleasing. As I am not a critically acclaimed critic, I am the average movie-watcher, and I as sit here and read these comments, I think about how these people can say those dreadful things. They do have their own opinions, I might add, but mine differs significantly from theirs.Personally, I thought that this movie was funny. Others have thought the comedy was trite, but although it's not hysterical, there are some laughable parts. I have to admit, some of the humor was stale, but I wouldn't go so far as saying all of it was, as I wouldn't say all of it was rib-tickling.Ruby Keeler's dancing is spectacular -- contrary to what some have said. How could she have been on Broadway if she wasn't that amazing? I'm a dancer, and to be on that stage is much remarkable. Granted, she wasn't an Academy Award-winner actress, but she wasn't gut-wrenching horrible. Her dancing makes up for it.The music is so-so...it wasn't the greatest, except for "I Only Have Eyes for You." The numbers were amazing, though, and I especially loved the number with all the Ruby Keeler's. That was fantastic! "The Girl at the Ironing Board" was interesting, though Joan Blondell was a sinfully bad singer.The only problem I did have with this movie is the show scenes. It's supposed to be on the stage, and you're watching it like you're in the audience, but -- clearly, Hollywood was thinking elaborately, and not sensible. There are parts in the musical that are unbelieving because those parts could never happen on stage, in front of human eyes without a curtain closing beforehand and after. People who've seen this movie -- you know clearly which parts I'm talking about. It's supposed to be on stage, but it could never happen! It's impossible unless they all knew magic! Overall, the movie isn't a bomb. It isn't award-winning, but all the less very entertaining and charming. I had fun during it, and unless you absolutely hate musicals, Guy Kibbee, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, or all of the above -- you'll enjoy it, I guarantee it.
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