May 27, 1933: “Gold Diggers of 1933” Premieres

May 27, 1933: Gold Diggers of 1933 premieres. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, it features music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin, including "We're In the Money" and "Remember My Forgotten Man," featuring opposite sides of the ongoing Great Depression.

It is considered the quintessential "Busby Berkeley Musical." Moving from Broadway to Hollywood in 1930, shortly after the move from silent movies to "talking pictures" or "talkies," throughout the 1930s, Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances.

Busby Berkeley

According to Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood by Mark A. Vieira, Gold Diggers of 1933 was one of the first American films made and distributed with alternative footage in order to circumvent State censorship problems. In this way, when a film was edited, the "toned down" reels were labeled according to district. One version could be sent to New York City, another to the South, and another to the United Kingdom. 

Berkeley used the lavish production numbers as a showcase of the female anatomy that were both "lyrical and lewd," but had cleaned-up versions. The songs "Pettin' in the Park" and "We're in the Money" are prime examples of this.

Ginger Rogers, showing some skin

while singing "We're in the Money."

The "gold diggers" in the film are 4 aspiring actresses: Polly Parker (played by Ruby Keeler), an ingenue; Carol King (Joan Blondell), a torch singer; Trixie Lorraine (Aline MacMahon), a comedian; and Fay Fortune (Ginger Rogers, who had not yet made her 1st film with Fred Astaire), a glamour puss.

The film was made in early 1933, at the depth of the Depression, and contains numerous direct references to it. It begins with a rehearsal for a stage show, which is interrupted by the producer's creditors, who close down the show because of unpaid bills.

At the unglamorous apartment shared by 3 of the 4 actresses (Polly, Carol, and Trixie), the producer, Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks), is in despair because he has everything he needs to put on a show, except money. He hears Brad Roberts (Dick Powell), the girls' neighbor and Polly's boyfriend, playing the piano. Brad is a brilliant songwriter and singer who not only has written the music for a show, but also offers Hopkins $15,000 in cash (about $338,000 in 2022 money) to back the production. Of course, they all think he is kidding, but he insists that he is serious: He offers to back the show, but refuses to perform in it, despite his talent and voice.

Brad comes through with the money, and the show goes into production, but the girls are suspicious that he must be a criminal, since he is cagey about his past and will not appear in the show, even though he is clearly more talented than the aging juvenile lead they have hired (Clarence Nordstrom). It turns out, however, that Brad is in fact a millionaire's son, whose family does not want him associating with the theatre. On opening night, in order to save the show when the juvenile cannot perform (due to his lumbago acting up), Brad is forced to play the lead role.

With the resulting publicity, Brad's brother J. Lawrence Bradford (Warren William) and family lawyer Faneuil H. Peabody Guy Kibbee) discover what he is doing, and go to New York to save him from being seduced by a "gold digger." Lawrence mistakenly identifies Carol as Polly, and his heavy-handed effort to dissuade the "cheap and vulgar" showgirl from marrying Brad by buying her off annoys her so much that Carol plays along, but the two fall in love.

Meanwhile, Trixie targets "Fanny" Peabody, the lawyer, as the perfect rich sap ripe for exploitation. When Lawrence finds out that Brad and the real Polly have wed, he threatens to have the marriage annulled, but relents when Carol refuses to marry him if he does. Trixie marries Faneuil. All the "gold diggers" (except Fay) end up with wealthy men.

In his book, Vieira reported that the film had two different endings: In one, the rocky romance between Bradford and Carol – whom he calls "cheap and vulgar" – is resolved backstage after the "Forgotten Man" number. In an alternative ending, this scene never takes place, and the film ends with the number.

William died in 1948 (from myeloma, only 53 years old), Kibbee in 1956, Sparks in 1957, Powell in 1963, Nordstrom in 1968, Berkeley in 1976, Blondell in 1979, LeRoy in 1987, MacMahon in 1991, Keeler in 1993, and Rogers in 1995.

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May 27, 1933 was a Thursday. Also opening that day was Walt Disney's animated film version of The Three Little Pigs. I've never seen it. In 1994, a CBS documentary on the 50th Anniversary of World War II mentioned that Adolf Hitler, less than 4 months into his post as Chancellor of Germany when the film was released, really liked the film. It was many more years before I found out why: There's a scene where the Big Bad Wolf disguises himself as a Jewish peddler, complete with an oversized fake nose and an oversized fake beard.

This was also the day that the Century of Progress World's Fair opened in Chicago. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 15-11 at Yankee Stadium. Yes, that's a baseball score, not a football score. Pitcher Ted Lyons went 3-for-4 for the White Sox, but got knocked out of the box in the 8th inning, when the Yankees came back from 11-3 down to score 12 runs. Lou Gehrig and Bill Dickey hit home runs. Babe Ruth did not, but did go 1-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. The ballpark was renamed Crosley Field the next season.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Wes Ferrell allowed 9 hits, but kept the shutout.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Mickey Cochrane hit 2 home runs, and Lefty Grove pitched 3 innings of scoreless relief to get the save for Tony Freitas. Jimmie Foxx did not play in this game. A year later, due to owner-manager Connie Mack's Depression-forced fire sale, Cochrane would be managing and playing for the Tigers, and Grove would be pitching for the Red Sox. Two years after that, Foxx would be with the Red Sox.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Frankie Frisch, Joe Medwick, Ripper Collins and Jimmie Wilson each had 3 hits for the Cards, while Ethan Allen went 2-for-5 with 3 RBIs.

* The Boston Braves and the Chicago Cubs were rained out at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Cubs swept, 5-1 and 3-2.

* The Washington Senators and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Griffith Stadium in Washington. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 15. The Senators swept, 1-0 and 2-0. Lefty Stewart pitched a 9-hit shutout in the opener, and Bobby Burke a 5-hit shutout in the nightcap.

* And the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates were rained out at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 22. The Giants won the 1st game, 1-0. Carl Hubbell pitched a 6-hit shutout. The Pirates won the 2nd game, 7-2. Over the 2 games, Giants 1st baseman-manager Bill Terry went 3-for-7 with a walk, Mel Ott went 2-for-7 with a walk and an RBI, Pie Traynor went 0-for-7 with an RBI, Paul Waner went 2-for-7 with an RBI, and Lloyd Waner went 2-for-8 with a walk.

February 10, 1942: The 1st Gold Record

February 10, 1942: For the 1st time, a song is awarded a gold record. It's the recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" (no hyphen in the title) by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. The award is by RCA Victor Records, for achieving the sale of 1 million copies.

The music was composed by Harry Warren. The lyrics were written by Mack Gordon, and they're a little troubling today, due to the retroactively obvious racism. It begins with a traveler at New York's Pennsylvania Station talking to a shoe-shine man, and men in that profession were nearly always black:

Traveler: Pardon me, boy: Is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?

Shine man: Yes, yes, Track 29!

Traveler: Boy, you can give me a shine.

Shine man: Can you afford to board the Chattanooga Choo Choo?

Traveler: I've got my fare, and just a trifle to spare.

At the time, there were 3 trains that ran from Penn Station to Chattanooga. The Southern Railway's Birmingham Special, as its name suggests, went on to Birmingham, Alabama. The Tennessean went on to Memphis. The Pelican went past Birmingham to New Orleans, and remains in operation on Amtrak today, under the name of the Crescent.

Supposedly, Gordon and Warren rode the Birmingham Special together, and were inspired to write the song. But they took some artistic license. "Track 29" may rhyme with "shine," but Penn Station only had 21 tracks at the time. The Birmingham Special didn't "leave the Pennsylvania Station 'bout a quarter to four," 3:45 PM, unless it was seriously delayed: It left at 12:30.

And all 3 of those trains went through western Virginia into East Tennessee, through the State Line-straddling city of Bristol. U.S. Route 11 was built roughly parallel to this line, and Interstate 81 was added. So, if you had ham and eggs for breakfast on the train, it could be in the Great Smoky Mountains, but it would be in Tennessee, not in North or South Carolina.

Miller and His Orchestra recorded the song in Manhattan on May 7, 1941. Saxophonist Gordon "Tex" Beneke (so nicknamed because he came from Fort Worth, Texas) sang lead, and Paula Kelly and The Four Modernaires sang backup. It was released on RCA's Bluebird Records subsidiary on July 25, was included in the film Sun Valley Serenade that premiered on August 21, and hit Number 1 on November 29.

Tex Beneke, the biggest-selling singer you've

(probably) never heard of, until now.

For years, I was under the incorrect impression that the lead singer on the original version was Ray McKinley, a.k.a. "Eight Beat Mack," Miller's drummer. While he sing lead on some Miller recordings, including a later version of this song, he did not sing it on the original recording.

Glenn Miller disappeared during a flight over the English Channel in 1944, his plane probably crashing due to icing on the wings. Alex Gordon died in 1959, Harry Warren in 1981, Ray McKinley in 1995, and Tex Benecke in 2000.

Built in 1909, Chattanooga's Terminal Station closed in 1970, with the Birmingham Special canceled, due to the bankruptcy of the Southern Railway. The station was converted into a train-themed hotel in 1973. Although "Chattanooga Choo Choo" remains America's most popular train-themed song -- ahead of "The Ballad of Casey Jones," "The Orange Blossom Special," "M.T.A." and "The City of New Orleans" -- since its incorporation in 1971, Amtrak has never provided service to Chattanooga.

There's an old joke about "singing cowboy" Roy Rogers having a brand new pair of boots. After camping out all night, he hears a noise outside his tent. A mountain lion is chewing up his boots. Roy shoots it, and brings it home. When he gets home, his wife and co-star, Dale Evans, sees the dead lion and the chewed-up boots, and says, "Pardon me Roy, is that the cat that chewed your new shoes?"

And in 2007, Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, a Republican known for his pro-gun and anti-gay crusades, was arrested in a rest room at the airport in Minneapolis, having tapped shoes with the man in the stall next to him, a signal from one gay man to (potentially) another that he's interested. The man in the next stall was a cop, and Craig was arrested, and the joke was, "Pardon me, boy: Is that the chap that tapped your new shoe?"

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The first "precious metal" record was a silver record, awarded by Regal Zonophone to British singer George Formby, in 1937, for selling 100,000 copies of his song "The Window Cleaner." RCA Victor copied this by waiting until "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" sold over a million.

In 1958, the Recording Industry Association of America decided to make it official, introducing the gold record award for any record, whether a single or an album, that sold at least one million copies domestically. Foreign sales were not included. Under this system, the 1st single to receive a gold record was "Catch a Falling Star" by Perry Como, and the 1st album to get one was the soundtrack to the film version of the musical Oklahoma!

In 1976, the RIAA introduced the platinum record, for 1 million albums and 2 million singles, downgrading the gold record to 500,000 albums, while keeping 1 million as the standard for singles. This time, an album crossed the threshold first, Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) by The Eagles, followed by the 1st single, "Disco Lady" by Johnnie Taylor.

In 1999, by which point the gold record threshold for singles had also been dropped to half a million, the RIAA introduced the diamond record, for 10 million units. The 1st single so certified was the new version of "Candle in the Wind" that Elton John sang for Princess Diana.

For albums, they went retroactive: The 1st one certified diamond was The Wall by Pink Floyd, even though, as of February 10, 2022, several albums have sold more, including Pink Floyd's own Dark Side of the Moon, with Michael Jackson's Thriller topping them all with over 51 million sales certified, and probably a lot more than that which can't be certified.

The RIAA has never stopped record companies from taking matters into their own hands. In 2017, Universal Music Group gave Luis Fonsi a plutonium disc for the sales of "Despacito." It's sold 36 million digital copies -- not physical units like records or compact discs.

Bing Crosby's original 1942 version of "White Christmas" remains the biggest-selling single record ever, with over 50 million in sales, while Elton's 1997 version of "Candle in the Wind" is a distant 2nd, at 33 million. With 41 million sales, the best-selling song digitally is Ed Sheeran's 2017 "Shape of You."

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February 10, 1942 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 8-1 at the Boston Garden.