Berkeley's dazzling masterpiece stars Cagney, whose electric tap dancing stunned moviegoers who knew him only as a nervy tough guy. He's caught between the conniving Claire Dodd and sweet and tart Joan Blondell as he struggles with his unruly dance company. The wisp of a plot charts the brief vogue for staged prologues before new-fangled talking pictures, and concludes with three massive production numbers of sharply escalating nuttiness. "Honeymoon Hotel," an ode to marital sex, "Shanghai Lil" a tribute to that girl in every port,  then, "the most staggering water ballet in the history of liquid…neither taste nor logic was a factor by any means in this interminable series of simpering half-naked women…gamboling through an astounding variety of aquacade formations" (Richard Barrios).