First National Pictures
Starring: Dick Powell, Gloria Stuart, Winifred Shaw
Directed by: Busby Berkeley
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: A bevy of wealthy guests descend upon the Wentworth Plaza Hotel in New Hampshire for a summer vacation, tended to by a huge staff who help put on a benefit show for the milk fund with wildly extravagant musical numbers.
Kitty Cameo: The final showstopping number is Lullaby of Broadway (which won the Academy Award for Best Song of 1936). The number is performed by Winifred (Wini) Shaw who appears with Dick Powell in the sequence. Winifred is seen as the Broadway Baby coming in at dawn to sleep all day after being out all night with her rich beau (Powell). As she approaches the door to her apartment she stoops down where a tiny gray and white kitten is waiting.
She hugs the kitten and then pours it some milk from the bottle which has been delivered. Winifred then steps into the apartment and leaves the kitten to its milk.
The sequence continues and shows Winifred going out on the town again at night. Only at the end of the number she is nudged off a ledge by a crowd pushing open a window and falls to her death. The final shot before going to Winifred’s face to finish the song is of the kitten waiting outside the door for Winifred to come home. What a cheery way to end a musical comedy!
Final Mewsings: Kitties depend on you to party responsibly!
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