Circumventing Censorship With Alternate Footage
According to Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood by Mark A. Vieira, Gold Diggers of 1933 was one of the first American films made and distributed with alternate footage in order to circumvent state censorship problems. Busby Berkeley used lavish production numbers as a showcase of the female anatomy that were both "lyrical and lewd". "Pettin' in the Park" and "We're in the Money" are prime examples of this. The state censorship boards had become so troublesome that a number of studios began filming slightly different versions of censorable scenes. In this way, when a film was edited, the "toned down" reels were labeled according to district. One version could be sent to New York City, another to the South, and another to the United Kingdom.
Vieira reports that the film had two different endings: in one, the rocky romance between Warren William and Joan Blondell – whom he calls "cheap and vulgar" – is resolved backstage after the "Forgotten Man" number. In an alternate ending, this scene never takes place and the film ends with the number.
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