James Cagney in FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1932) Available on Blu-ray from Warner Archives

Great news for fans of old musicals! James Cagney in FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1932) is now available on Blu-ray from Warner Archives

Footlight Parade is sheer cinematic joy. In this Depression-era romp, a timid stenographer (Ruby Keeler) removes her glasses and – wow! – she’s a star. A gee-whiz tenor (Dick Powell) asserts his independence. Plucky chorines tap, greedy hangers-on get their comeuppances, and an indefatigable producer/dancer (James Cagney) and his Girl Friday (Joan Blondell) work showbiz miracles to stage live prologues for talkie houses to keep their company afloat during hard times. Honeymoon Hotel, By a Waterfall and Shanghai Lil are the shows, directed by Busby Berkeley and filled with imagination-bending sets, startling camera angles, kaleidoscopic pageantry and a 20,000-gallon-per-minute waterfall. Curtain up!

James Cagney demonstrates his Big Apple hoofer bonafides while adding his one-of-a-kind fiery grit to this Busby Berkeley musical packed with the usual sensational suspects. Chester Kent (Cagney) sees the song and dance business hitting the skids with the advent of talkies so he joins the enemy and becomes an impresario of curtain-raiser pre-movie show prologues. But Kent’s crew hides a spy for the competition, his business partners (Guy Kibbee and Arthur Hohl) are pocketing the profits, his ex-wife (Renee Whitney) turns out to be not-so-ex, a gold digger (Claire Dodd) has her hooks in him and his musical director (Frank McHugh) thinks “it can’t be done!” So it’s a good thing the greatest secretary in the world (Joan Blondell) is carrying a supersized torch for him. And that’s not even mentioning Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Hugh Herbert and Ruth Donnelly… Footlight Parade gets a glorious refresh in this incandescent show-stopping HD master for 1080p Blu-ray Disc. Special Features: Featurette “Footlight Parade: Music for the Decades”; 2 Vintage Warner Bros. Shorts “Rambling ‘Round Radio Row #8” and “Vaudeville Reel #1”; 4 Vintage Warner Bros. Cartoons: Honeymoon Hotel, Young and Healthy, One Step Ahead of My Shadow and Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence; Theatrical Trailer