The three films of Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933, and 42nd street form a trifecta of Busby Berkeley creations all done in one year to launch Musicals as a mainstream form of American Cinema onto the global stage. It's quite amazing how all three of this films, blockbusters in their own right, came out in the same year in an ingenious move by the Studios to devise this whole new genre in the blink of an eye because new sound recording technology could allow for it. This film only exists because of the advent of sound in cinema and shows how much more powerful sound is over images in movies.
This is an elaborate, escapist, hollywood musical, again dealing in this almost schizophrenic american pasttime of telling women they should be pure and married and chaste but slowly removing their clothes and making them as titillating as possible. There's a dance in this film of no, no get away, then, come here, come here, and back and forth. The filmmakers are toying with audience goers who want to indulge in their sexual fantasies but the political purse string holders of the day would cut them off if they went too far from their "Christian morals."
The audience is starting to get accustomed to these hollywood tricks and clamoring for it. The spectacle of the late tens and early 20’s is back, with the use of sound to create musicals. Films are really pushing far away from the brutal realism of the mid to late 1920's silent films and more into the escapist storylines and scenarios that allow basically for dancing, singing, fighting, make up, costumes etc... Everything that could go in a movie except reality.
These are truly artificial times.