MovieChat Forums > Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) Discussion > People paying foreign-money 'dollars' to...

People paying foreign-money 'dollars' to see the charity show

posted 16 years ago by tomhr
2 replies | jump to latest

According to "Fun Stuff>Goofs," the foreign money shown is Mexican pesos, and this is a "mistake" in filming. I'll take somebody's word about the money being Mexican. But I don't think that this is a mistake, like a boom mike in the shot is a mistake, because the camera goes close up on that money. What director flimflams the audience, and then reveals his flimflam with a closeup?

Does anybody know what the counterfeiting laws were in 1935? It might be that Warner Bros. was forbidden bylaw to show American bills on screen. (But *were* allowed to show an American quarter.)

[–] gribfritz2 11 years ago

It still doesn't add up. If you're not allowed to show the bills on screen, why present it this way; with a closeup of the bills. Over and over again. It's like begging people to say "what kind of money is that?"

Also interesting, although theater-goers in 1935 wouldn't have noticed, when a ticket is changing hands, 25 pesos...err..dollars is put down. In one case, two tickets are given and the wad of unclear bills could easily have totaled 50. But one woman throws down a 20 and a 10 and walks away with 3 tickets netting her a fantastic 60% discount.

[–] JackBluegrass 9 years ago

The technical details of Mexican currency, the number of bills, the number of tickets picked up, and all the rest must have been of little importance to Busby Berkeley, his cameraman, and film editor.

What all were shooting(!) for was a frantic filming pace leading up to the frantic Lullaby of Broadway which is probably the most in-your-face - and just big - dance sequence ever filmed.

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