Moonlight and Pretzels (1933) User Reviews (12)

fun imitation of 42nd Street

[mukava991 · 7/10 · 9 November 2006]

MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS was a somewhat tacky attempt by Universal Pictures to cash in on the Busby Berkeley craze that was making mountains of money for Warners in 1933. The backstage plot flagrantly imitates the Warners formula: songwriters and performers desperately want to put on their show but are having trouble raising the money; they hook up with an eccentric investor, go through dramatic ups and downs and eventually pull off the production with flying colors. Along the way we get lots of slangy wisecracks delivered by colorful characters. In this case, the musical numbers are dispersed through the narrative, whereas in the Warners musicals they tended to be stacked at the end. This film boasts an eminently hummable collection of pop songs, chief among which are, from EY Harburg and Jay Gorney, "Ah, But Is It Love" (performed by chorus girls dressed like bleached out clones of Ruby Keeler in "42nd Street" mode), the daffy but catchy "Moonlight and Pretzels" (think, "I Love Louisa" from Schwartz and Dietz in THE BANDWAGON); and "Dusty Shoes," a more optimistic variation on the team's earlier "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" crossed with "My Forgotten Man" from the Warners hit GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933). From Herman Hupfeld we get "Are You Makin' Any Money?" and "I've Gotta Get Up and Go to Work," two jaunty numbers which both suggest the Harry Warren sound. And a beautiful ballad by Harburg and Sammy Fain, "There's a Little Bit of You in Every Love Song." One interesting lost opportunity occurs about half way through the film when hero Roger Pryor (think, a slightly more rough-hewn Dick Powell) tells heroine Mary Brian (think, Ruby Keeler's almost-twin sister) that the prop moon hanging over their heads would be real if she truly loved him. The song that should have followed, "It's Only a Paper Moon," isn't even in this film. This EY Harburg-Harold Arlen song, in fact, ended up in the film version of the Broadway musical TAKE A CHANCE, released later the same year.

The cast is uniformly excellent, with Lillian Miles, a slender platinum blonde with a great set of pipes, as the "star of the show" particularly fetching. The supporting cast includes Leo Carrillo (very funny as a Greek gambler who finances the show and constantly mispronounces words); Bobby Watson as a catty gum-chewing production assistant; William Frawley in typical gruff form.

Karl Freund (cinematographer for Murnau's 1924 THE LAST LAUGH and the 1931 version of FRANKENSTEIN) directed this work and in the "Dusty Shoes" finale, which finds Lillian Miles warbling her heart out behind a phalanx of upstretched hands, one is reminded of a famous scene from Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS. Quite a striking image. One wonders if Freund was deliberately drawing on his German expressionist background or if it was just a coincidence.

Bobby Connolly, who went on to choreograph THE WIZARD OF OZ and other major films, seems off kilter here. The moves of the dancers in the "Ah, But Is It Love" number are noticeably halting and awkward.

Welcome to George Dwight's Scandals.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 14 November 2015]

Sincere parody of the big dance musical which made a comeback in 1933, this actually is one of the best of them. Sometimes parodies are made to make fun, but this takes the best elements of all the movie musicals made during the production of this, making me wonder how the production team at Universal studios knew what was going on at the major studios. The musical numbers all resemble at least in theme what was being put together in Warner Brother's big sound studios. The title song is reminiscent of what Joan Crawford and Fred Astaire danced to in MGM's Dancing Lady, and a finale called Dusty Shoes is obviously influenced by My Forgotten Man from Gold Diggers of 1933.

As similar as the light plot is and its musical numbers, this isn't at all a rip-off or disrespectful. It is as original in many ways as the others. When I first saw this at the Museum of Modern Art, the audience seemed thrilled by it, laughing at the gags and clapping after the musical numbers. Standing out in the comedy is Leo Carrillo as a Greek gambler (another Mexican cast as a Greek...) while Lillian Miles gives a well rounded performance as a not quite so selfish, but still temperamental leading lady.

The leads are Roger Pryor as an ambitious song writer and Mary Brian as the small town girl he encountered years before who ends up in the chorus and ends up the star. Lavish on a rare scale for Universal at the time, this is a delightful sleeper. Look for William Frawley in a supporting part.

Universal makes like Berkeley

[marcslope · 7/10 · 26 March 2012]

"42nd Street" had just come out, and Universal attempted its own version of a backstage musical a la Busby Berkeley with this oddly titled curiosity. It was made in New York for $100,000, which even then was ridiculously cheap, and the corner-cutting is visible in the sets, costumes, and substandard hoofing of the chorus girls, who nevertheless are advertised as "150 of Broadway's loveliest beauties," or somesuch. The screenplay's uninspired, the direction prosaic, the stars not terribly interesting (Roger Pryor, in the Dick Powell role, looks uncomfortable, and Mary Brian has a nice personality but less-than-huge musical talent; Lilian Miles, in the Bebe Daniels part, comes off best). Yet it's fascinating, and entertaining. Thank, first of all, the Jay Gorney-Yip Harburg score, with assistance from Sammy Fain and other fine tunesmiths. "Dusty Shoes," the team's attempt to rewrite their earlier "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" in a slightly more optimistic light, is a wonderful number, powerfully sung by Alexander Gray, and other songs run to such oddities as "Let's Make Love Like the Crocodiles." One could do with less of Leo Carrillo's dialect comedy (he gets top billing, though he's not really the lead), and the show-biz clichés get a little oppressive. Still, it's very worth catching.

Refreshing change

[lphred · 16 November 2001]

I've viewed Moonlight and Pretzels many times, It's a refreshing change from those Busby Berkley musicals from this era. We have a virile male lead, a sensational vocalist in Lilian Miles (far superior to Ruby Keeler) and a totally unique up tempo dance number without all those flowers opening and closing! The orchestra playing behind the dancers is loaded with outstanding musicians. Incidently two of the songs were very successful "Ah! But Is It Love? and Are You Making Any Money" A highly desirable record of these songs was released by Paul Whiteman. A real fun movie from the early thirties.

Slick Shenanigans on a Shoestring

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 5 April 2019]

Shot in just eighteen days at the old Astoria studio in New York, the title remains familiar today from Karl Freund's brief run of 30's directorial credits bookended by 'The Mummy' in 1932 and 'Mad Love' in 1935, and from Roger Pryor's entry in Halliwell and Katz. But the film itself remains absent from Maltin.

Fresh from Broadway, the perpetually smiling Pryor resembles a young, fresh-faced Milton Berle and slinky-eyed blonde Lillian Miles (who to perform "Are You Makin' Any Money?" wears one of those incredible early 30's spray-on wet-look black dresses they now seem incapable of authentically recreating even in films set during that era) resembles the worldlier Alice Faye in her early peroxide persona. (In smaller roles William Frawley looks not a day younger than when he and Freund were reunited twenty years later on the set of 'I Love Lucy'; while Bobby Watson is more recognisable here as the bespectacled diction coach in the "Moses Supposes" number in 'Singin' in the Rain' than from his intervening years spent playing Hitler.)

Dance director Bobby Connolly does wonders on an obviously tiny sound stage, while Freund still manages a few visual flourishes on his tight schedule and shoestring budget. The musical finale "Dusty Shoes" is a straight rip-off of "My Forgotten Man", but embellished with interesting (and no doubt cheap) actuality footage before arriving at a far more upbeat conclusion than its acclaimed predecessor.

The film did good business.

If You Think the Title is Strange Wait Till You Hear the Songs!

[Film-Fan · 6/10 · 27 May 2000]

After watching "Moonlight and Pretzels" you'll probably understand why Universal was known for its horror films and not its musicals in the 1930's.

This has to be one of the most unusual musicals ever made, mainly due to several bizarre songs that have to be heard to be believed! There's an entire production number about getting up and going to work. Or how about the 1929 stock market crash set to music? And let's not forget the title tune "Moonlight and Pretzels" complete with flowing beer and wiener dogs.

The plot line is simple: songwriter hits it big on Broadway, decides to turn producer, then fights the money men to keep control of his show. Add a little love story and the plot is complete. If you've seen Warner's "42nd Street" you've seen it already.

The film was actually shot at New York's Astoria Studios by Universal cameraman Karl Freund, better remembered for "The Mummy" and "Mad Love." Leo Carillo gets top billing, but he doesn't even show up until the movie is half over. The only recognizable face to today's viewers would be William Frawley (Fred Mertz on "I Love Lucy") and he appears in a supporting role. Mary Brian and Roger Pryor star in the leading roles, but both have been nearly forgotten.

This one is difficult to see, not having been shown on television since the late 1950's. But if you ever run across a screening of "Moonlight and Pretzels" enjoy it for what it is: a strange musical morsel from Universal's early years.

Footlights and lederhosen

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 27 March 2021]

On the surface, this is a Laemmle era Universal attempt to capture the magic of the Busby Berkeley musicals over at Warner Brothers made the same year. But look deeper, and it is actually much more done with much less.

In a small town, songwriter George Dwight (Roger Pryor) meets and teams up with music store owner Sally Upton (Mary Brian) with George composing and performing his songs in her store, upping foot traffic, boosting sales, and ultimately saving the business. Then George gets a letter from a music publishing business in New York, and off he goes, pledging to write. But he never does.

It's not that George gets a big head, he's just busy and he is a success, eventually leading to him putting on his own Broadway show, "Moonlight and Pretzels". Sally decides to come to New York and find George herself, but he initially doesn't even remember her, even when she shows up as a chorine in one of his numbers. Complications ensue.

This thing is an original. You can't say that Pryor and Brian are just standing in for Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler over at Warner Brothers, because the situation is much more complex than just a couple of kids in a show falling in love. And the story throws every Depression era backstager plot device in the book into the script, and yet it all works - crooked businessmen out to cheat George, the big time gambler where easy comes and easy goes, the girl from the sticks who gets a big head, the fast talking wise cracking stagehands, and Bobby Watson as the rather effete dance director.

The numbers are originals and the music memorable. Bobby Connolly is obviously copying Berkeley's style, and the musical finale is much like the Forgotten Man number in 42nd street, but then Berkeley's numbers could be described as numbers shot at angles in such a way that could never be done on a stage. This finale actually has newsreel footage in it! Well I guess that is no crazier than Winnie Shaw's face being transformed into the island of Manhattan in Golddiggers of 1935.

I'd recommend it.. It is certainly one of a kind among the second wave of early sound musicals.

Strange Depression musical

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 6/10 · 17 October 2008]

'Moonlight and Pretzels' is the barely relevant title of this Depression-era musical. Made by low-budget Universal Pictures (though not filmed on the Universal lot), it somehow feels as if it were made by one of the more prestigious studios. The dance numbers resemble what Busby Berkeley was doing at Warners. Brassy songstress Lillian Miles seems to be imitating Alice Faye at 20th Century-Fox. Roger Pryor, bereft of his usual moustache, emotes like the B-team Clark Gable but does a splendid job of pretending to play the piano. Less felicitous is the incredibly bad shot-matching by one Robert Snody (who?) all through this movie.

This is one of those "Let's put on a show" musicals, much of its score written by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney, who had recently scored a hit on Broadway with "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?". The climactic song here, a weirdie Depression number cried "Dusty Shoes", seems to be trying to copy that previous song's success. Oddly, one dialogue scene seems to be a song cue for "It's Only a Paper Moon", a song that Harburg had written a few months earlier (for a Broadway show), but that hit standard never occurs here.

Top billing is given to Leo Carrillo as an excitable Greek who puts the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble, but he's definitely playing a supporting role. Much better performances are given here by William Frawley as the sardonic stage manager ('Here come some early worms to give us the bird') and Bobby Watson as a 'nance' dance director. Louis Sorin and Alexander Campbell are good as the Hobart Brothers, villainous impresarios.

SLIGHT SPOILER. There's a weird piece of plot business dealing with a 25-cent piece that has two tails, rather than two heads. When a gambler flips this coin to settle a bet, I was genuinely surprised by what happened next. Some bits and bobs of this movie work very well indeed, but other parts are overblown. My rating: just 6 out of 10.

Surprisingly Good Thirties Musical

[chrisludlam · 10/10 · 8 August 2020]

This is an enjoyable,unpretentious Pre-Code Musical,made on a limited budget,yet as fun and entertaining as some of the Warner Bros. movies it sought to imitate! Filmed in less than 3 weeks at the Astoria studios and Casino theatre,New York,it nevertheless had an earnest,determined Cast and Crew of some talent;plus good songs and dancing sequences. The latter,staged and choreographed by Bobby Connolly,were not over-choreographed,like those at Warner,and this comparative simplicity actually makes the routines much more endearing and believable! Real Showgirls performing like Real Stage Showgirls!! Roger Pryor,as the pressurized Songwriter turned Theatrical Producer,proves to be a versatile lead,with a pleasant singing voice too. He is little known now,but appeared in quite a number of 30's/40's films. His co-star and romantic interest here is Mary Brian,former Silent movie leading lady:She is okay in her "Ruby Keeler" type role. Lillian Miles,though,is the standout Female performer,with her peppy,energetic,no-nonsense approach as sexy Elsie Warren,proposed star of Roger Pryor's debut production.She really puts over her songs well,including "Ah,But is it Love?" and "Are You Making any Money?,both of which became popular successes. Leo Carrillo is fun in his pivotal role as Nick Pappacropolis,the Greek Gambler and new Citizen of the United States( United Steps in his amusing vocabulary!),who comes to the rescue of the new show,enamoured as he is with Elsie! Even Herbert Rawlinson,as the shady big-time gambler Sport Powell,acquainted with Nick,and interested in the show because he is keen on Mary Brian and wants to try and "further" her career: proves that he isn't quite such a bad egg after all. It all comes down to the flip of a coin! Others in the cast include Bobby Watson,as the harassed dance director,and William Frawley,who contribute ,in their different ways,to the general ambience of the movie. Several Radio and Stage performers of the time also feature,some more fleetingly than others.These include Alexander Gray(Good rendition of the optimistic "Dusty Shoes" number),Bernice Claire,John Hundley and Jack Denny and Orchestra,among others. The New York Chorus Girls perform well,especially in the catchy "I've Gotta Get Up and go to Work"number,including a saucy,pre-code Silhoutte sequence as they disrobe and change into their daywear! Although the Musical Film Author Richard Barrios wrote that "Moonlight and Pretzels" was 'Terribly Wonderful',I would describe it as 'Audaciously Wonderful". I have watched it many times,and can fully understand why it was such a popular movie on it's release.

Hotdogs and bad teeth.

[ptb-8 · 6/10 · 28 January 2010]

This ghastly Universal musical released in August 1933 is their answer to Warner's Busby Berkeley blockbusters. Consider this release pattern; from WB: Jan '33 42nd St; May 33 Gold Diggers '33; in August comes this: Universal's copy: MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS then Sept 33 WB's FOOTLIGHT PARADE. In M&P dance director Bobby Connolly has slavishly and clumsily copied two of the best Busby Berkeley numbers from Gold diggers of 33: their "Pettin In The Park" becomes "Get Up And Go To Work" here, and their "Remember My Forgotten Man" becomes here "Dusty Shoes". In the midst of all this is basically unattractive actors with bad teeth staring and smiling at each other in between muttering 'Gee that's swell'. Dim small town gal Sally loves rubber faced songplugger George who makes good on Broadway. Boring cross eyed Sally goes to NY and gets into his show in an attempt to make him come home and drone with her in dusty-ville. However, sassy Elsie played by terrific Lillian Miles who looks a lot like Alice Faye or Ginger Rogers sings up a storm and assists getting the lame show refinanced by Leo Carillo, the Spanish actor who here plays a Greek and a-talks-a-lika-dat. Stomping dance numbers with unrehearsed chorines in out of step routines and yelling lyrics are the topper to this mash of songs romance and 1933 drama. I was so perplexed by the title and what relevance it had to do with anything or anyone or any part of any show ever, except the bit where for no reason they dressed up in Tyrolean alpine outfits and yelled Moonlight And Pretzels ! at each other while swilling beer and munching on hot dogs. It is all so awful as to be mesmerizing. In fact so compelling I forgot what it was about and simply stared in disbelief. At one stage Elsie and George sit under a paper moon and identify it so but do not sing "it's only a paper moon" like they are about to but don't. All you can focus upon is how terrible their teeth are. They don not seem to be clean or fit in their mouths. Somehow Sally has a bent head. She is supposed to be the Ruby Keeler gal but here looks like Ruby after a stroke instead. Her eyes do not close at the same time. George is supposed to look like Dick Powell but actually could be mistaken for George Formby... or worse, Kenny Baker in fat-face makeup. . MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS is a depression era knockoff of Warner snazziness and here looks like a budget suburban musical society version of 42nd St. The song where the husband and wife get up to go to work has a mad interlude where chorus girls on a satin bed-clock attempt some BB kaleidoscope.... in another number filmed in front of a curtain (!) 25 out of step chorines simply wave their arms about as they march back and forth and get mangled in some half figure-eight. It is so nutty as to be with 100 grimaces by the 99 minute mark. I of course loved it. Oh, and there's even dashounds. On leashes.

Not worth the effort of searching for

[1930s_Time_Machine · 2/10 · 30 November 2022]

This is a cheap, shabby rip-off of 'Gold diggers of 1933' which lacks the fun, the charm and the smiles of the original. It's very disappointing.

The predictable and lugubrious story limps along without any surprises or excitement, occasionally punctuated only by some terribly amateurish song and dance numbers. Those real Busby Berkeley numbers in the WB movies or even in the earlier Eddie Cantor films don't look that difficult to copy but this shows that they clearly were. Berkley would probably be considered a voyeur these days but like great artists throughout history, his spectacles were primarily his way of celebrating the sexiness of beautiful young women. The routines in this film completely lack any of that innocent eroticism, we just get cardboard cut-out showgirls doing their steps.

Besides the tiresome story, the lacklustre musical numbers, the instantly forgettable (dull) songs, the obviously small budget and the z-list actors (although Lillian Miles is actually pretty good) the main problem is the direction. Karl Freund did a fantastic job on The Mummy the year before but his slow, moody style just doesn't work at all with this. It's a very long 85 minutes.

Pretty typical of the early 1930s.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 25 November 2016]

When the film begins, George (Roger Pryor) is working on a song and when he finally gets it right, he dedicates it to nice-girl Sally (Mary Brian). Soon he's off to the big city to try to make it big and promises to come back for Sally...one day. Well, George makes it very big very fast and seems to have forgotten about Sally. When she comes to the city later, he's so involved in his new solo production he doesn't even recognize her. Soon, however, they have a reunion...but it's cut short when his old partners try to ruin his show. So it's up to George's lady friend, Elsie, to get him in touch with a new backer, Nick (Leo Carillo). Will George be the big solo success AND what of sweet Sally?

This film is one of a bazillion similar sort of films of the era that involve folks putting on a show...a very, very popular plot in the early years of talking pictures. Beucase there are so many there is a certain sameness about all of this. As far as the song and dance numbers go, they are about what you'd expect from a non- Busby Berkeley film--nice but not quite as excessive and goofy as the Berkeley ones.

Overall, this is a reasonably watchable second-tier musical of the era. Nothing new about this one...absolutely new. Hence, my mediocre score of 5.

By the way, at about 26 minutes into the film you BRIEFLY get to see a younger Robert Young, though he's uncredited...even by IMDb.