The Human Waterfall of 1933

People often say they don’t make them like that anymore when it comes to movies – and here is a great example of that.  Go back 93 years (we might as well call it a century) and Footlight Parade was released.  Although the plot isn’t anything to write home about (struggling producer played by James Cagney at odds with the world) it featured a pretty amazing Busby Berkely synchronized swimming dance sequence.

Take a host of swimmer-dancers, throw them into the water and tell them to create a human waterfall. Well, hardly that simple.  Looking at this footage, it must have taken weeks if not months of preparation just to get three minutes on film.  This was made just before the Motion Picture Production Code came into force in 1934 (in a time generally known as “pre-code”).  Although the code had been written in 1930 it was largely ignored for a few years until the point at which films could not be released before they had been given a certificate showing they had met the code’s standards.

As such, the very scantily clad young ladies that you can see here, as well as the camera angles at which they are sometimes filmed, could still be seen today as slightly risqué.   It is scarcely believable that this is almost a hundred years old – as it is almost technically perfect. Plus it is overflowing with a joie de vivre that we simply don’t see much in the moving image these days – and certainly not for minutes at a time.  It may well have fallen foul of the code had it been released a year later, but I think that even though it is a little naughty, it has an innocence to it that is quite charming. Although stunning on the small screen, just imagine how this must have looked in a theater – it must have blown people completely away.  On a slight downside, I wonder how many of these girls had their dreams squashed by Hollywood.  I am sure that many of them must have thought that this was their big break.  Whatever, their fates, I am sure they were pleased with the end product, although I suspect the creation of this amazing number must have meant a lot of hanging around in heavy, wet costumes.

If you would like to learn more about how everyday folks lived in these times, take a look at our People of 1925 feature article.