Tiller Girls &c.

So, now that you've read (or, rather, to entice you to read) Kracauer's "The Mass Ornament," here's a relevant clipshow:

Ginger Rogers in "We're in the Money" from The Golddiggers of 1933. This number opens the movie, and was choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Some endorsements: (1) Listen to the lyrics.* This is what Depression-era feel-good PSAs looked like. (2) Make sure you keep watching through to the end. It takes a turn towards the even-more-bizarre. (3) Please note how heavy-handed this clip is in relation to the readings this week (one of the 1844 Manuscripts we did not read is called "The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society," if it wasn't obvious enough).



The actual Tiller Girls:


And better illustrating some of Kracauer's points about where and how and who can see the spectacle for what it is, what it's meant to be, is one of my favorite Berkeley numbers ever, "By a Waterfall," from Footlight Parade (1934):


And just because Eddie Cantor is the most improbable male star Hollywood has produced:


(Good lord, he's such a fairy.)

And just because it's so gloriously weird (and I mean like possibly the weirdest 8 minutes of cinema ever), "The Ode to the Polka Dot" from his 1943 The Gang's All Here:




* "Old Man Depression you are through, you done us wrong. / We never see a headline about breadlines today. / And when we see the landlord we can look that guy right in the eye / We're in the money, come on, my honey, / Let's lend it, spend it, send it rolling along!" Note that the occasion for this song is putatively the introduction of the new nickel in 1933.