If your knowledge of "42nd Street" comes from seeing the stage musical, you'll be surprised to find how much less of a musical the film actually is, and how much darker it is than its stage counterpart. The spectre of the Great Depression pervades every frame of the film. These Broadway hoofers never once look like they're enjoying themselves; instead, they look like any other group of factory or assembly workers, desperately holding on to the job they have no matter how miserable it may be.
Busby Berkeley's groundbreaking choreography bursts on to the screen late in the film in a couple of dazzling production numbers. Though actually there is something disturbing about his obsession (and the entire film's obsession) with objectifying women until they are nearly indistinguishable from one another. To the producers of the musical within the film, the women are nothing more than pairs of legs. In the audition scene we are privy to, they select the chorus by asking them to hike up their skirts so that their legs will be more easily visible!! If there are any auditions to actually find out if the women can sing or dance, we don't see them. And again, in Berkeley's dance numbers, the women become little more than individual body parts, swirling around in kaleidoscopic images that blur one into the next.
These early Depression-era musicals are known for launching the career of Ruby Keeler, but I was quite taken aback by how awful she is. She can't act, and her dancing is atrocious. She clomps around and flails her arms like a chimpanzee impersonating a human. Of the actors, Ginger Rogers makes an impression in a small role as the acerbic Anytime Annie (and get a load of the scene where she insists that Ruby Keeler take on the lead role in the musical, because she can dance rings around poor Ginger....yeah, right). Bebe Daniels and George Brent do well with their parts, and Warner Baxter serves up the ham and gets to deliver the film's most famous line.
I know this review sounds more critical than positive, but I actually enjoyed this film very much. It's corny, silly and melodramatic to be sure, but it's also earnest and well crafted. It's a fascinating slice of film history and one that any serious film buff should see.
Grade: A-
Busby Berkeley's groundbreaking choreography bursts on to the screen late in the film in a couple of dazzling production numbers. Though actually there is something disturbing about his obsession (and the entire film's obsession) with objectifying women until they are nearly indistinguishable from one another. To the producers of the musical within the film, the women are nothing more than pairs of legs. In the audition scene we are privy to, they select the chorus by asking them to hike up their skirts so that their legs will be more easily visible!! If there are any auditions to actually find out if the women can sing or dance, we don't see them. And again, in Berkeley's dance numbers, the women become little more than individual body parts, swirling around in kaleidoscopic images that blur one into the next.
These early Depression-era musicals are known for launching the career of Ruby Keeler, but I was quite taken aback by how awful she is. She can't act, and her dancing is atrocious. She clomps around and flails her arms like a chimpanzee impersonating a human. Of the actors, Ginger Rogers makes an impression in a small role as the acerbic Anytime Annie (and get a load of the scene where she insists that Ruby Keeler take on the lead role in the musical, because she can dance rings around poor Ginger....yeah, right). Bebe Daniels and George Brent do well with their parts, and Warner Baxter serves up the ham and gets to deliver the film's most famous line.
I know this review sounds more critical than positive, but I actually enjoyed this film very much. It's corny, silly and melodramatic to be sure, but it's also earnest and well crafted. It's a fascinating slice of film history and one that any serious film buff should see.
Grade: A-