Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)

As a reward for services rendered as a choreographer, Busby Berkeley was promoted to the director's chair for Gold Diggers of 1935. The pedestrian storyline concerns a fancy New England hotel, where the underpaid staff is totally dependent on tips. Desk clerk Dick Curtis (Dick Powell), a medical student with a gift for singing, falls in love with Amy Prentiss (Gloria Stuart), daughter of tight-fisted guest Mathilda Prentiss (Alice Brady), whose prodigal, much-married son Humboldt (Frank McHugh) threatens to bankrupt the family. Flamboyant Russian impresario Nikolai Nicoleff (Adolphe Menjou) curries favor with Mrs. Prentiss to finance his next Broadway show; meanwhile, eccentric snuff-box collector T. Mosely Thorpe (Hugh Herbert), whom snobbish Mrs. Prentiss hopes will wed her daughter, weaves in and out of the story, closely followed by gold-digging Betty Hawes (Glenda Farrell). None of this matters in the slightest: Gold Diggers of 1935 is memorable not because of its sappy plotline, but because of its Oscar-winning musical highlight "Lullaby of Broadway," which may well be the chef d'ouevre of Berkeley's career. To reveal too much of the story-within-a-story of "Lullaby of Broadway" (wherein madcap socialite Wini Shaw literally dances herself to death) would spoil it for the uninitiated: Be assured, however, that once seen, this spectacular setpiece can never be forgotten.