MovieChat Forums > Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) Discussion > Blurry closeup

Blurry closeup

posted 11 years ago by JackBluegrass
5 replies | jump to latest

During the moving closeup for Ginger Rogers' pig Latin version of "We're in the Money" and the pull back, there are sections with a blurry image. Seems strange that such a focus error would get into the final print.

Stupid!?! I never called you stupid! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!

[–] steviehallandale 11 years ago

I got the feeling that camera move was cutting edge, ending with the extreme closeup. Perhaps the blur was a switch to a macro lens, or simply lack of experience

[–] JackBluegrass 11 years ago

I think that someone else suggested that the director/camera operator intended that portion to be blurry to have some kind of an emotional effect on the moviegoer.

[–] mcdemuth 8 years ago

I think that someone else suggested that the director/camera operator intended that portion to be blurry to have some kind of an emotional effect on the moviegoer.

Oh I am sure it had an emotional effect when half of the viewing audience was wondering if they were having Heart Attacks or If they were being possessed! Seriously though. How popular was Pig Latin at the time? Did viewing audiences know what was happening? Or did they think Ginger suddenly went off her Rocker!

Nothing like watching a movie in the dark, with some giant face spouting musical gibberish at you, to make you think... "Call The Exorcist!"

Fortunately, before I saw the scene, I heard all about it, and actually looked forward to see it. Ginger was terrific.

But I do have to ask, of the production team... "What Were They Thinking?"

[–] JackBluegrass 8 years ago

I'm an old-timer and was a boy in the 1940s. We used to talk Pig Latin a lot, just to goof around and show how smart we were being able to talk in a strange language!

As said above, it must have been a production error and somehow got into the final print. Amazing that such a fantastic movie in so many ways would have a filming error - like a wrong lens or bad focus pulling - that was so obvious.

mcdemuth, you said you knew of the scene and was waiting for it to happen. How did you know of it?

E pluribus unum

[–] mcdemuth 8 years ago

mcdemuth, you said you knew of the scene and was waiting for it to happen. How did you know of it?

Well, I wasn't alive when the movie was in the theaters. Sorry, if you thought I was alive before the movie was released in 1933 and I got wind of it from some interesting source.

I recently saw Ginger Rogers in the movie "A Shriek In The Night" on DVD, from one of those value 50 Classic Horror Film Collections I bought at WalMart, and loved her in it. I did some research and learned she made over 70 movies. Something, like 50 of them are on DVD. I wanted to purchase some more DVDs of her films and watch them... I couldn't buy them all at once, so I did some more research to pick some of her best works, and bought those DVDs first... (I have bought more since, and I am continuing to buy more as I get more money...)

I found out that Ginger was the first person to sing "Were In The Money", as song I was familiar with from later cover presentations, and there was a notation included with that information about her singing a part of it in Pig Latin.

When I went to watch the movie on DVD, I was prepared to hear it, and recognized what she was singing.

Perhaps it was a bit of a spoiler, but at the same time, I am not very familiar with hearing Pig Latin on a regular basis, so, I would probably would not have recognized what she was saying, and would have wondered was wrong with the DVD... or went insane... ;)