42nd Street
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Rian James and James Seymour from a novel by Bradford Ropes
1933/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb Page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
Dorothy Brock: Now go out there and be so swell that you’ll make me hate you!
The third of the 1933 Busby Berkeley musicals suffers a bit from a lack of Joan Blondell and a little too much story and too little spectacle. I love it all the same.
Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) is a celebrated director of Broadway musicals. After barely recovering from a nervous breakdown (he seems headed for another one throughout), he agrees to direct a new musical that, if successful, will allow him to retire. The show is to star Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels). Would-be sugar daddy Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbe) has agreed to finance the show. Thus, Dorothy must keep her love affair with ex-vaudeville partner Pat Denning (George Brent) a secret.
Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler) is the last girl to be picked for the chorus line. She meets cute with tenor Billy Lawler and he is sweet on her. But she is also platonically dating Pat. Finally, Dorothy can’t stand it and reveals their affair. That takes away the financing until gold-digging chorus girl Ann Lowell (Ginger Rogers) makes Abner putty in her hands. Then Dorothy breaks her ankle. With Una Merkel as a wise-cracking chorus girl and Ned Sparks as the dance director.
The part of this movie that always kills me is when Ginger Rogers tells Warner Baxter that she isn’t right to take over for the injured Bebe Daniels but that Ruby Keeler is because Ruby is such a great dancer! Such irony …
We come to these things for the comedy and musical numbers but here we get an honest-to-God dramatic plot. It does not improve the movie. The three numbers at the end are Busby Berkeley bliss but look slightly more like they could actually be staged in a theater than in the other films. These niggles matter not at all to me. I would watch this again anytime. Recommended.
42nd Street was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Best Sound, Recording.
