FREE: Gold Diggers of 1933 in Bryant Park

The Bryant Park Film Festival is great for chilling outside, enjoying great weather and checking people out. It’s not so great, however, if you’re actually really interested in hearing the films dialogue. Fortunately this week’s selection  should be long on visual impact so even if the noise of the city drowns out the actors voices, it’ll be a pretty pleasant way to spend the evening.

Long before Kanye West rapped about ’em there were The Gold Diggers of 1933! Bryant Parks summer film festival continues and this week they’ve got the cheeky, cute Depression-era film about three spunky young chorus girls and their producer desperatlely searching for the cash they need to back their show. Toss in a bohemian, arts-loving Boston blue-blood, a couple of romantic twists, a case of mistaken identity and all the glamour and gumption of Depression-Era NYC and you’ve got a recipe for….well, something.  Expect lots of Deco stuff and gold lame pants.

Seeing the movie is why you’re there but I am one of those people who cannot enjoy anything if they are physically uncomfortable. Popular opinion and picturesqueness would have you believe that the best place to watch the film is on a blanket on the grass. Not so. The lawn gets horribly crowded and you wind up having to lean all the way back and can’t really see and people are too close and annoying  and then other people step over you the whole time.    The prime place for seeing, being (relatively) comfortable and being close enough to the exit is on the steps leading up to the Bryant Park Grill.  You’re still gonna have to get there relatively early,  sprawl yourself all the way out and take up as much space as you think you need but there’s less traffic and you’ll have easier access to the (surprisingly clean) Porto-Potties on 41st street.

So stake out a spot on the steps, have your friends meet you with a chilled bottle of wine and enjoy this spirited ode to the first Great Depression as we prepare for the second.