In “42nd Street”, Jimmy Cagney plays a musical comedy producer who’s thrown out of work when talkies arrive, and all the theaters switch over to showing movies instead of live shows. Cagney invents a thing called a “prologue” which is a short live stage show (30 minutes or so) which plays before the movie, allowing theater owners to charge more for tickets. Well, business booms, and Cagney’s on his way to sweet success, if it weren’t for his imagination drying up, chiseling partners, predatory women, money-hungry ex-wives, and a spy stealing all his best ideas.
Enough plot for three movies. Joan Blondell, hurray! Ruby Keeler and Cagney tap-dancing together, hurray! “Out you go, ‘Countess’; as long as there are sidewalks, you’ll always have a job!”
But anyway, my question: Were “prologues” a real thing? Did some theaters really try holding live short stage shows before the movie? I can hardly believe that the economics pencils out.
Interestingly enough, I just bought a Jerry Lewis biography that mentions this type of pairing. After vaudeville died out, many old theaters stayed in business by selling tickets to combined movie showings/live acts. For example, Benny Goodman played on the same bill as a Hope/Crosby “Road” movie. The most common pairings were hot performers with lesser movies, so that a theater that would normally be deserted would instead be filled with people willing to view a weak movie (or maybe skip it all together) just to see the performer.
Yes, the prologues did exist for a few years after the beginning of talkies. In my reasearch, I discovererd that the New York Premiere of The Thin Man in 1934 included a live performance by Duke Ellington and his band.
It was only in the big movie houses, and for special occasions, but it did happen.
I can understand your mistake since it was mostly the same cast, but the movie you’re refering to is Footlight Parade.