Warner Bros./First National, 1934. Director: William Dieterle. Musical number directed by: Busby Berkeley. Screenplay: F. Hugh Herbert and Carl Erickson, based on a story by Harry Collins and Warren Duff. Camera: William Rees. Film editor: Jack Killifer. Cast: William Powell, Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Verree Teasdale, Reginald Owen, Henry O’Neill, Dorothy Burgess.
In an earlier edition of this column I’ve written about forgotten movie musicals; specifically, a group of low-profile films produced by Warner Bros. in the mid- to late 1930s. It was Warners, of course, that had revived and reinvented the film musical in the mid-part of the decade with a series of spectacular pictures, beginning with 42nd Street, that featured the lavish production numbers of Busby Berkeley. These films were enormously popular in their own time and are still permanently enshrined among the all-time classic screen musicals. But their vogue began to fade almost immediately, and Warners, always alert to box-office trends, was quick to spot this one. The studio did not instantly abandon its musical extravaganzas—but, at the same time, it did begin to look for ways to channel its newly minted musical resources into smaller-scale productions.
The result was an assortment of low-profile productions that all involved music in some way. Today these films are overshadowed by the Gold Diggers classics and other Warner super-productions, but the viewer who seeks them out will be rewarded with a number of surprising, offbeat, and quite entertaining little films. One that I like is Fashions of 1934, a minor oddity with William Powell as, of all things, an entrepreneur of high fashion. With its tale of American fashion arbiters in Paris and an American commoner passing herself off as a European countess, this film bears a passing resemblance to the Jerome Kern stage musical Roberta, which had been a hit on Broadway in 1933. And, in fact, shortly after Fashions of 1934 was released, RKO Radio would mount an official film adaptation of Roberta, opening early in 1935 and featuring that exciting new musical duo: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
But this is Warner Bros., not RKO, and this story takes place in an entirely different universe. Warners was the blue-collar movie studio of the early 1930s, known for its street-level crime films and gangster classics. The Warner screen world abounded in swindlers, chiselers, and sharp operators. So William Powell in this picture isn’t really a connoisseur of fashion; he’s a fast-talking con man posing as a connoisseur of fashion. Powell, one of the most engaging actors in American film, was in his element in the early 1930s, playing characters on both sides of the law with equal poise and grace. His character in Fashions is perhaps the most audacious of all his screen personae, a silver-tongued rogue who can pivot to a new racket at a moment’s notice and is forever one step ahead of the law. His trail of larceny leads, somehow, to the fashion industry, where he improvises yet another new scheme. With the blessing of the American fashion leaders, Powell and his cohorts, Bette Davis and Frank McHugh, will relocate to Paris, where he will brazen his way into the top fashion houses and imperiously request showings of their latest designs. The trio will emerge with surreptitiously snapped photos of those designs, which Powell will pass along to the American impresarios, enabling them to rush the latest models to the market before the Parisians have a chance.
It’s a clever plan, but the French authorities quickly spot Powell’s chicanery and shut down his enterprise. This is only a momentary setback for Powell, who instantly hatches a new plan. The Warner writers are in rare form on this film; much of its entertainment value is in watching a cast of shifty characters constantly outwitting each other. (There’s also a tangle of romantic relationships that are never quite sorted out until the last reel. William Powell and Bette Davis make an unorthodox romantic couple, to be sure, but Davis was still in the early phase of her Warner Bros. contract, 
and the studio was still not sure what to do with her. Not until a few months later would she be loaned to RKO for her breakthrough role in Of Human Bondage.)
How to deal with the failure of Powell’s latest scheme? Why, of course, he must mount a musical revue! This is where Fashions of 1934 asserts its claim as a musical: the story culminates in a single Busby Berkeley production number, as gaudy and spectacular as one might expect from Berkeley. The song is “Spin a Little Web of Dreams,” a pleasant number by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal (the studio’s A songwriting team, Al Dubin and Harry Warren, presumably being busy elsewhere). The singer is the aforementioned fake countess, played by Verree Teasdale, who is fortunately an excellent singer. But the focus, as so often, is on the sheer excess of Berkeley’s imagination. Powell, in the story, has stumbled onto access to an unlimited supply of ostrich feathers, so the number is awash in an endless sea of ostrich feathers. The spectacle makes a hit with the onscreen audience, finally sealing the success of Powell’s enterprise—or, at least, allowing him to make a comfortable getaway with Bette Davis at film’s end.
If all this sounds quirky and a little surreal, that’s because it is. But it adds up to a tight nine reels of expertly crafted escapist entertainment, and a thoroughly enjoyable detour from the better-known musicals of the period. To the classic film enthusiast in search of a change of pace, Fashions of 1934 is hereby recommended.
