150 Word Review: 'Dames' (1934)
🎵 I only have eyes for you 🎵
Ezra Ounce (a dopey Hugh Herbert) is an heirless multimillionaire who lives an isolated life in a well-guarded penthouse. He has a plan: first, make sure his next of kin are morally upstanding people. Second, save the soul of New York City, a corrupt hellhole full of loose broads and cads.
Directed by Ray Enright, Dames is a perfect post-Prohibition, Depression-era knee-slapper about old scolds and sexy younguns who want to jitterbug for fun. Our lovers are played by dandy Dick Powell and cutie-pie Ruby Keeler, as Uncle Ounce's niece, an aspiring Jezebel.
Dames is an amusing farce that climaxes with famed co-director Busby Berkeley’s musical numbers, wildly elaborate showstoppers featuring dozens of beautiful women moving in sync with enormous props. The dance scenes start charming, with lots of legs and smiles. Then they become kaleidoscopic. Otherworldly. Dames swirling, flying, a dimension of dames unencumbered by the laws of physics.