General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Gold Diggers of 1933

Gold Diggers of 1933 is an American pre-Code musical comedy film released by Warner Bros. Pictures on May 27, 1933, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, with its production numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley and songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics).¹^•² It was the second backstage musical Warner Bros. released in 1933, following the success of 42nd Street, and it proved even more successful than its predecessor, helping to rejuvenate the film musical during the Great Depression.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Release	May 27, 1933, Warner Bros. Pictures; runtime 1 hour 36 minutes²
Direction	Mervyn LeRoy; Busby Berkeley created and directed the musical numbers¹
Songs	Music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin; edited by George Amy¹
Source	Avery Hopwood's Broadway play The Gold Diggers, which ran 282 performances in 1919 and 1920⁵
Principal cast	Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks, Ginger Rogers¹
Signature numbers	"We're in the Money", "Pettin' in the Park", "The Shadow Waltz", "Remember My Forgotten Man"²
Recognition	Academy Award nomination for Best Sound; later listed in the National Film Registry⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Plot and cast

The story centers on three out-of-work showgirls sharing a cheap New York City apartment during the Depression: Polly Parker (Ruby Keeler), Carol King (Joan Blondell), and Trixie Lorraine (Aline MacMahon). Broadway producer Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks) is mounting a new show, and their neighbor Brad Roberts (Dick Powell), a songwriter, impresses Hopkins with his material and secretly bankrolls the production with $15,000.¹¹ When Brad's wealthy family learns of his show-business life and threatens to disown him, Carol and Trixie become entangled in a plot of mistaken identity as "gold diggers" pursuing two wealthy men (Warren William and Guy Kibbee).⁸ Ginger Rogers appears in a supporting role as the mercenary chorus girl Fay Fortune.¹¹

The film overturns the older "seduction plot" of stage melodrama, in which an ingenue was ruined by an older rake; here the young women set out to seduce wealthy men in comic fashion.¹² Structurally, the picture joins two modes: a Depression-drenched backstage story in its first act, and a 1920s-style sex comedy derived from Hopwood's play in its second.³

Production background

Warner Bros. knew it had a hit before 42nd Street had even opened, and the studio had Gold Diggers of 1933 in production while the rest of Hollywood was still scrambling to catch up with the screen-musical trend that film had sparked.⁶ Robert Lord won his first producing credit on the picture.⁶ The studio brought back the earlier film's dance director Busby Berkeley, songwriters Harry Warren and Al Dubin, screenwriter James Seymour, cinematographer Sol Polito, and five cast members: Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Ned Sparks, Ginger Rogers, and Guy Kibbee.⁸ Berkeley, who had scored a hit with the lavish numbers for 42nd Street, was given more money and more control for this feature.⁶ The film was shot in 45 days.⁹

Literary source. The film draws on Avery Hopwood's hit Broadway play The Gold Diggers, which ran for 282 performances in 1919 and 1920. Warner Bros. had filmed the property twice before, as the silent The Gold Diggers (1923), produced by David Belasco and starring Hope Hampton and Wyndham Standing, and as the talkie Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), directed by Roy Del Ruth.⁵ The 1933 film is not a sequel to 42nd Street; its principal characters do not carry over.¹⁰

The Berkeley numbers

The film contains four major production numbers, all designed by Busby Berkeley, whose overhead camera work and geometric formations set the standard for screen musicals.² Unlike 42nd Street and Footlight Parade, the film does not stack all the big numbers at the end.³

"We're in the Money" opens the film, with Ginger Rogers singing a chorus in pig Latin, a fad of the time. Berkeley and LeRoy caught her singing the song that way as a joke after a hard day of rehearsals and added it to the number; by Rogers's own account, production chief Darryl Zanuck heard it, loved it, and told her to have LeRoy incorporate it.⁶^•⁸ The song sold 425,000 copies of sheet music.¹³
"Pettin' in the Park" is a cheeky number with suggestive lyrics, featuring dancers with giant snowballs forming shapes in overhead shots.²
"The Shadow Waltz" places dancers in billowing dresses on staircases pretending to play violins that turn out to be neon tubes glowing in the dark, seen from above forming the shape of a giant violin.²
"Remember My Forgotten Man" closes the film. Inspired by the recent Bonus March, in which World War I veterans demanding their government pensions were rebuffed, the number depicts soldiers returning home wounded and reduced to soup kitchens and breadlines.¹⁴ Critics have described it as the most downbeat ending of any musical before West Side Story (1961).¹⁴

Reception and legacy

Gold Diggers of 1933 was even more successful at the box office than 42nd Street, although it did not have the same groundbreaking impact.³ Despite the musical talent on display, its only Academy Award recognition was a nomination for Best Sound.⁶ According to film historian Mark Vieira, it was one of the first American films made and distributed with alternate footage to circumvent censorship problems.⁸

The film's commercial success spawned sequels: Gold Diggers of 1935, Gold Diggers of 1937, and Gold Diggers in Paris.¹⁵ Its songs entered the standard popular repertoire, and "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" later appeared in the Warner Bros. cartoon Ali Baba Bunny (1957) as accompaniment to Daffy Duck's discovery of treasure.¹⁶ The film has since been listed in the National Film Registry.⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026