Palmy Days

This pre-Code musical opens with a surreal sequence featuring a bakery staffed entirely by flimsily clad Goldwyn Girls. Next, a ducky young man orders a chocolate cake 'with a pansy on top', whereupon the Girls return, wearing even less, for a Busby Berkeley number entitled 'Bend Down, Sister'. After that, things get less libidinous as zany india-rubber man Eddie Cantor takes over the movie. Charles Middleton, later to find fame as Ming the Merciless, is a pantomime villain, but cold-eyed George Raft as his henchman is the real thing. Berkeley's contributions are unmistakable, overhead shots and all, his camera ogling the chorus girls' faces almost as intensely as it does their bodies.