42nd Street (1933)

42nd Street (1933) is an inspirational movie musical about the making of a stage musical. It was made in 1933, directed by Lloyd Bacon and with choreography by Busby Berkeley. It has an all star cast with Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler, Warner Baxter and a young Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers. It was extremely successful at the box office and indeed marked the start of the growth of Warner Brothers into a major studio.

The movie was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Picture and Best Sound Recording, and in 1998 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film ranks at number 13 on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals.

The theme song, appropriately titled '42nd Street' is number 97 on AFI's 100 Top Movie Songs of All Time and the inspirational eshortation from Warner Baxter to Keeler "Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" is number 87 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes list.

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This archetypal backstage musical is still charming and popular (verified by its adaptation into a Broadway hit fifty years later), but it also occupies a special place in film history, for several appealing reasons.

42nd Street's plot became one of the best-loved narrative clichés of showbiz lore. Fresh-faced dancer Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), newly arrived in New York during the Depression, lands a job in the chorus of a stage musical called 'Pretty Lady'. The show's temperamental star Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels) injures her ankle the night before the show opens, so 'real little trouper' Peggy steps into the lead, is drilled to exhaustion, and, with the fate of the company riding on her, bravely goes out there and wows 'em. Seventy years on the script is a cherishable and disarming mix of naivety, smart toughness, and sassy repartee.

Fleshing out the drama is a cast of characters who became archetypes: the stressed and ailing director (Warner Baxter, whose bullying and pep talks to his company are classic); the harassed dance director (George E. Stone); the saucy wisecracking chorus girls (Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers); the puppyish juvenile (Dick Powell); and the well-heeled, lecherous backer (Guy Kibbee) with designs on the leading lady, who strings him along while conducting a clandestine romance with a down-on-his-luck vaudevilian (George Brent). The winning cast is a remarkably talented ensemble and a smart mixture of established stars and untried youngsters.

The wonderful Baxter had won the Best Actor Oscar for the dashing bandit hero The Cisco Kid in 'In Old Arizona'. Bebe Daniels was a top star of silent pictures who could also sing. Brent was another established romantic lead. Billed beneath them, half a dozen actors were already ppular faces, including Rogers, soon to be teamed with Fred Astaire. Dick Powell, baby-faced and peppy, was among those whose careers were launched by 42nd Street. The big discovery in her film debut was Ruby Keeler, Broadway darling and wife of Al Jolson. She wasn't much of a singer but was adorable, sweetly vivacious, and a tap-dancing treat.

Generally Warner Brothers films were renowned for realism. But to boost their musical fortunes, Mervyn Leroy (who developed this project before illness made him defer directing to Lloyd Bacon) brought in songwriters Al Dubin and Harry Warren, who became chief tunesmiths for Warner Bros. LeRoy also insisted on inventive dance director Busby Berkeley, who had enlivened several musical comedies for Sam Goldwyn. He made much out of the snappy songs, including 'Shuffle off to Buffalo' 'Young and Healthy,' 'You're Beginning to be a Habit with Me.'

For the show-stopping title song finale, Berkeley created an immortal production number in which Ruby Keeler dances atop a taxi, swaying Manhattan skyscrapers, and scantily clad beauties are arranged in geometric patterns shot from high overhead in a sensational rhythmic kaleidoscope. After seeing what he was up to, Warner Brothers contracted Berkeley and gave him carte blanche. Before the end of the year Warner released two more musicals choreographed by Berkeley, 'Gold Diggers of 1933' and 'Footlight Parade'.