Gold Diggers of Broadway

Gold Diggers of Broadway is a 1929 American Pre-Code musical comedy film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Winnie Lightner and Nick Lucas. Distributed by Warner Bros., the film is the second two-color Technicolor all-talking feature-length movie (after On With the Show, also released that year by Warner Bros). Gold Diggers of Broadway was also the third movie released by Warner Bros. to be shot in color; the first was a black-and-white, part-color musical, The Desert Song (1929). Gold Diggers of Broadway became a box office sensation, making Winnie Lightner a worldwide star and boosting guitarist crooner Nick Lucas to further fame as he sang two songs that became 20th-century standards: "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" and "Painting the Clouds with Sunshine." Based on the 1919 play The Gold Diggers – which was also turned into a silent film of the same name in 1923 — now lost, Gold Diggers of Broadway utilized Technicolor, showgirls, and sound as its main selling points. It earned a domestic gross of $3.5 million, extending to over $5 million worldwide (approximately $71,376,000 today). The original production cost was approximately $500,000. It was chosen as one of the ten best films of 1929 by Film Daily. As with many early Technicolor films, no complete print survives, although the last twenty minutes do, but are missing a bridging sequence and the last minute of the film. Contemporary reviews, the soundtrack and the surviving footage suggest that the film was a fast-moving comedy which was enhanced by Technicolor and a set of lively and popular songs. It encapsulates the spirit of the flapper era, giving us a glimpse of a world about to be changed by the Great Depression. Because the film is considered a partially lost film since 1970s, the loose remake, Gold Diggers of 1933, is the most frequently seen version of the story.