Gold Diggers of 1933 like a Shakespearian play?

**apologies for the tardiness, I’m quite sick that the moment and slept all of today, so I didn’t get to post until just now**

Gold Diggers of 1933 like a Shakespearian play?

As any decently versed reader of Shakespeare can tell you, his plays follow a fairly standardized plot pattern in that they either end with a mass wedding or a mass killing. Macbeth and Hamlet end with the main cast killing themselves off, whereas A Midsummernight’s Dream and Twelfth Night end with a mass wedding, where two or more couples get married. Throughout his (or her) comedies, Shakespeare’s couples were always at odds with one another. One couple is meant to be, the others convolute their relationship, they drift apart then reconcile, and a few others decide to jump on the band wagon and tie the knot

When boiled down, Gold Diggers of 1933 consists of three major couples: Polly and the younger Bradford, Carol and the older Bradford, and the humorous Trixie and Peabody pairing; and it follows the Shakespearian model flawlessly. Polly and the young Bradford are fated to be, and their love is unwavering throughout the film. Trixie and Peabody are a marriage of necessity – she “needs” money, he “needs” a younger woman – but they get married regardless. Then finally, there is Carol, who had been masquerading as Polly (ala Viola in Twelfth Night), who seems to have fallen for the older Bradford – who loves her back, “whatever your name is!”

These absurd pairings, aside from the focal love duo, are identical to Shakespeare’s plays that were wildly popular at the time and still draw fairly good crowds. As Gold Diggers of 1933, shows us, a good thing never goes out of style.