Gold Dust Gertie is a 1931 American pre-Code musical comedy produced and released by Warner Brothers. It was originally completed as a full musical. Due to the backlash against musicals, however, all the songs were cut from the film in all release prints in the United States. The film was originally known as Red Hot Sinners, but was released as Gold Dust Gertie after the musical numbers had been cut. The film was based on the play The Wife of the Party by Len D. Hollister. The film stars Winnie Lightner, Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson and Claude Gillingwater.[1]

Gold Dust Gertie
Directed byLloyd Bacon
Written byScreenplay:
W.K. Wells
Ray Enright
Arthur Caesar
Play:
Len D. Hollister
StarringWinnie Lightner
Ole Olsen
Chic Johnson
Claude Gillingwater
CinematographyJames Van Trees
Edited byHarold McLernon
Music byLeo F. Forbstein
Herbert Taylor
Cecil Copping
David Mendoza
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • June 27, 1931 (1931-06-27)
Running time
65 minutes
LanguageEnglish

Plot

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Gertie Dale is a gold digger who marries men only to divorce them and collect alimony. She marries George Harlan in 1927, divorces him, and then marries his friend Elmer Guthrie and also divorces him. By 1930, both men have remarried but they continue paying alimony to Dale without the knowledge of their current wives. When they are both late with their payment, Dale shows up at their work. The men work at a firm that designs women's sportwear. Their boss, John Arnold, is very old fashioned and insists on designing women's bathing suits that are so modest that they end up resembling the models from twenty years ago. Because of this, the business is doing poorly and the men are low on cash at the moment. Dale, seeing that she currently has no chance of collecting from her ex-husbands at the moment, decides to vamp their boss. Dale eventually convinces Arnold to liberalize his views. Dale designs a new modern bathing suit which ends up winning an award. Arnold falls in love with Dale and proposes marriage and she accepts, but problems soon arise. As they are celebrating their engagement another ex-husband shows up and, taking pity on Arnold, he attempts to warn him. Furthermore, the minister who Arnold has chosen to officiate at their wedding knows all about Dale's ex-husbands and her gold digging schemes.

Cast

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Preservation

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Only the cut print released in the United States seems to have survived at the Library of Congress.[2] The complete film was released intact in countries outside the United States where a backlash against musicals never occurred. It is unknown whether a copy of this full version still exists.

References

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  1. ^ The AFI Catalog of Feature Films 1893-1993: Gold Dust Gertie, afi.com; accessed August 10, 2015.
  2. ^ Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress page 69 c.1978 The American Film Institute
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