When I was younger, I didn’t care for the Warner Bros. ‘Cheap and vulgar! Cheap and vulgar! Cheap and vulgar!’ Guy Kibbee, Joan Blondell: ‘Every time you say “cheap and vulgar,” I’m gonna kiss you!’ In a small part, Ginger Rogers is funny, coarse, and she sings “We’re In the Money” in Pig Latin. MacMahon’s stock character went away, but her style hasn’t dated at all. A terribly unappreciated actress, she’s excellent in “ Nightmare Alley.” Aline MacMahon is an actress who is always worth paying attention to her type of smart, single gal who knows the angles, but keeps missing the boat, stopped showing up in pictures sometime in the 1950s. In “Remember My Forgotten Man,” she so easily could have been sentimental, but she stays tough and underplays it. It’s possible that this is her very best of the 158 pictures she made. Blondell had a long career I’ve seen her in a lot of bum pictures, but I’ve never seen her give a bad performance. It therefore falls to wisenheimer Aline MacMahon to take Fuffy to the cleaners, which she does hilariously and completely. “ Gold Diggers of 1933” is a picture that I like a lot - especially Guy Kibbee as the dyspeptic, jumpy banker, a Boston blue-blood stiff-neck, who is putty in the hands of any pretty girl who sits in his lap and calls him “Fuffy.” Joan Blondell is the sort of pretty girl who would call him “Fuffy” and cheerfully rob him blind, but in this one, she sets her cap for the hatchet faced Warren William.

Footlight parade poster