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This is not the best movie I've ever seen, but it's also not the worst (far from it).

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Bette Davis before she "Bette Davis". One reviewer mentioned that she was 'unrecognizable' and I don't understand that at all. The first time she's on screen is in profile and I recognized her immediately. Yes, she's blonde in this movie but her eyes and voice are unmistakable.

The whole plot of this movie was (for me) just a sideshow to the wonderful 1930's fashion (both hair and dresses). I loved the Busby Berkeley ostrich feather extravaganza. That number cannot be explained. It must be seen to be appreciated.

While I'm happy this movie wasn't longer than it was, I'm also not sorry that I spent 70+ minutes of my life watching. It was an enjoyable piece of fluff.

Warner Bros. had a major actress within their midst with the addition of Bette Davis. However, they didn't know what to do with her during her early years there so they tried to primp her "feminine" image by putting her in a movie about fashion thieves in a type of plot that seemed made to order during the Thirties.

Seeing how dolled up she looks here (with that platinum, shoulder length wig, caked on make-up and and those screaming dresses), it now becomes unthinkable to even imagine her having been picked up by MGM (where Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, and Adrian dresses ruled supreme) because she would have been completely miscast in every ultra-melodramatic movie given to her there. Not that Davis wouldn't do her own share of melodramas, but for the attention they gave to the creation of iconic screen goddesses dressed in impeccable gowns and inaccessible, airbrushed looks as they left the real, heavy acting to a side, it would have been a matter of time before Davis would have been devoured by that studio or even relegated to second-fiddle.

It's why she fared better in the grittier dramas that Warner Bros. pushed out, but this particular movie wasn't where her talents became the main focus -- she gets very little to do even in key scenes. She is teamed well with William Powell, however, and I wonder why wouldn't they be matched up again in another movie but that's a secondary issue. FASHIONS is, however, quite an entertaining movie with a lightweight plot and performances in the good sport vein, with Veree Teasdale a secondary standout as a Hoboken native who poses as a Russian countess and rival to William Powell. Also of note is the fashion show done in the style of the times, and the musical number with Busby Berkeley's blonde beauties who look exactly alike and are dressed in lush ostrich feathers.

The good thing about FASHIONS is that it comes right before her loan-out to RKO and her career-turning OF HUMAN BONDAGE. When seeing how little quality time she has on camera in this movie, one can only think this is the same woman who at twenty-five would explode out of her mold and rip up the screen as Mildred Rogers.

When his scheme to steal Parisian 'haute couture' designs and sell cheap knockoffs in the US falls apart, slick conman Sherwood Nash (William Powell), along with his chief fashion designer Lynn Mason (Bette Davis) and his sidekick Snap (Frank McHugh) head to Paris and another failed scam. Fate steps (in a bar, needless to say) and they end up staging an ambitious feather-themed musical, and then opening their own fashion house to cash in on the market for ostrich plumes that the show created. Even by the standard of pre-code musical comedies, this is a lightweight confection and there is only a single Busby Berkley dames-and-dance extravaganza (but it's incredible). Powell is as good as always (albeit playing a typical role for him) but Davis, although fine, is miscast playing a 'blond bombshell', apparently the first and last attempt to rebrand her as a glamour-puss. Hugh Herbert (who constantly pops up in films likes this) is amusing as the dipsomaniac ostrich feather magnate. The humour is predictable but there are some amusing jump-cuts, the best flicking from the fine gams of one of the chorus girls to the gnarly, but similarly proportioned legs of an ostrich - priceless! The film was made before strict enforcement of the puritanical Hays code and there are endless, loving, lingering, shots of women's legs, a multitude of alluringly slender models in dated but still sultry evening-gowns, a number of risqué jokes and suggestive sight-gags and, to top off the soon to be stifled Tinseltown decadence, many of the ingénues cavorting in Berkley's over-the-top feather-opera appear to be wearing close to nothing (warning: navels on prominent display). Platinum blonde is a core 'look' (apparently Davis hated her wig) but I found some of the pale, white-haired dancers in the massive showstopper to be more creepy than sexy. Not one of the best of the depression-era musical comedies but worth a look, if only for Berkley's trademark surreal choreography and for a chance to see Hollywood's idea of an improved Bette Davis. Rereleased as 'Fashions' in the 1950s.

Crooked Sherwood Nash (William Powell) is going broke. Snap (Frank McHugh) is his underling. He encounters struggling fashion designer Lynn Mason (Bette Davis) and comes up with an idea. He intends to steal from other designers and produce cheap knockoffs. When he gets caught, it's just an opportunity for a bigger scam. The trio heads over to Paris and discovers that copying is standard operating procedure.

William Powell is having plenty of slick con-man fun. Bette Davis isn't doing that much. She should have been the secretary and Sherwood could get the idea from reading one of her fashion magazines. That's a better way to form the trio. They would have a longer history and hopefully more chemistry. As it stands, the introduction is awkwardly unconvincing and their chemistry is constantly trying to catch up. There are some contemporary fashion and a light takedown of the fashion industry. This is fine, but it could have been better.

First half is an intermittently amusing, slow paced (it is, after all, directed by William "Never Met A Boring Biopic I Didn't Like" Dieterle) comedy with Powell and McHugh in good form and Davis woefully under utilized. Busby livens things up somewhat in the second half but by then, thanks to Dieterle's slow as a beer truck pacing, it's too late. C plus.

Con man Sherwood Nash (William Powell) travels to Paris with his sidekick (Frank McHugh) and a fashion designer (Bette Davis) to steal dress designs.

The flimsy plot is mainly an excuse for a Busby Berkeley musical number, "Spin a Little Web of Dreams". The plot is confusing and makes the film feel overlong. A glammed up Bette Davis seems out of place and uncomfortable throughout the film, but Powell's charm helps the film tremendously. This was his last film for Warner Brothers, after which he wisely went to MGM. It's easy to see why he left if Warner's was giving him films like this.

The supporting cast is great though: Frank McHugh as Powell's amorous sidekick, Hugh Herbert as a drunken ostrich feather salesman(!), Reginald Owen (with a horrendous French accent) as a fashion designer) and Dorothy Burgess as Powell's NYC girlfriend.

The Berkeley production number is definitely not one of his best; if you want to see a bunch of chorus girl cavorting in ostrich feather bikinis, than this is the film for you. This definitely pales in comparison to Berkeley's other work around this time period.

Overall, Fashions of 1934 relies on the charms of the performers. Otherwise, it's not very good.