The Grand Illusion

Your dream of perfect beauty comes true! In this charming and delightfully racy backstage musical, Polly, Carol and Trixie (Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell & Aline McMahon) suddenly find themselves sitting outside on a New York City curb when their show closes. It is the darkest year of the Great Depression, and their prospects of finding another job look slim… until they meet songwriter Brad Roberts (Dick Powell), who has music for a set of fabulous new stage numbers—and the money to back a show. But Roberts' wealthy family disapproves of the entertainment business, so it's up to the girls to use their talents to keep Roberts' older brother distracted until the show opens in this pre-Hayes Code musical comedy. Ginger Rogers leads the opening dance line in "We're in the Money," the first of many classic Busby Berkeley production numbers. Based on the play by Avery Hopwood.

“Classic, surrealistic numbers… All the Berkeley sequences demonstrate this unique auteur’s astonishing powers to transform straightforward performative set-ups into abstract micro-worlds of consistently evolving experimental art, shooting and virtually editing in one camera with almost Hitchcockian foresight and precision.” Peter H. Kemp, Senses of Cinema

Part of A Week at The Movie House, a tribute to the late film archivist and historian Dennis Nyback.