42nd street

So here we are at near the beginning of movie musical history with the musical that saved the genre. 4 years after the first musical!! I find it quite amazing how an entire genre needed to be saved four years after its creation. Anyway the reason for the musical needed to be saved was that Al Jolson was so popular that studios started churning out 100’s of musicals and over saturated the market so people were sick of them. Until this movie came along and rekindled the people’s love of musicals. So how did this musical do that? How did it distinguish itself from all the other musicals? Does it still hold up? I don’t know but here’s my opinion.

Let’s start with the plot, Jones and Barry two theatre producers are putting on a show and they get famed musical director Julian Marsh to direct it despite the fact that he’s close to a nervous breakdown. They got the money from Abner Dillon who’s only request is that his girlfriend Dorothy Brock is the star which they do. Then it’s time for auditions where we meet Anytime Annie and Loraine Fleming who are musical veterans and in contrast we have Peggy Sawyer who’s trying to make it big in the city. The latter is made fun of by everybody but Annie and Lorraine take pity on her and get her into the show. She also manages to attract the juvenile lead Billy Lawler. So rehearsals start and it’s a little crap and to make matters worse Dorothy is cheating on Abner with Pat Denning which means if he finds out then everyone is fired. Dorothy breaks up with him anyway but for different reasons. But it’s too late, Marsh sends someone to take care of it but he’s on a sort of date with Peggy and he gets beaten up so Peggy tries to fix him up but ends up getting kicked out of her apartment so Pat lets him stay at her place. He then goes and gets a job in Philadelphia which coincidentally is where the musical opens. So everyone goes to Philadelphia and Dorothy is depressed because she thinks Peggy has stolen Pat. This leads her to break up with Abner and screw the whole show but he changes his mind and then she breaks her ankle after a fight with Peggy so they now have a show with no star. Abner tries to put forward her new girlfriend Annie but she insists that Peggy should be the star. Having little choice Marsh agrees to this and manages to coach Peggy in to being a star. She also admits her love for Billy and she’s a big hit and the film ends with Marsh quietly relishing his success with a cigarette. The script has a few minor potholes like why does Annie insist Dorothy should be the star when she could be the star?  Also about half the jokes fail miserably like Annie’s oh so witty comeback “It must have been hard for your mother never having any children” but half the jokes do work like while Peggy’s landlady is chewing her out for supposedly sleeping with Pat, you see a guy leaving a girl’s apartment behind her. So the comedy is a bit hit and miss but the musical does take good advantage of a show within a show angle where you see the musical come to life over the film but the whole process seems a bit rushed and a longer running time would have given us a lot more insight into the characters and the world of show business. So on the whole, the script kinda works but it could have been better from what I’ve read the stage musical based on this movie irons out a lot of the problems I have with the script so I’ll try and watch it and tell you what I think.

Now it’s time for the songs and before I get down into them individually, it’s quite annoying how 3 of the 5 songs we only get to hear in the last 10 minutes of the movie. Sure we get to see them rehearse bits of them throughout the movie but for a musical it just seems devoid of music. Let’s start with the title song 42^nd street; it’s quite a merry catchy little tune although Ruby Keeler murders the first couple verses but her dancing kinda makes up for it. It’s a very strange sequence, there’s a scene of domestic violence where someone dies and then it goes back to cheery dancing. I suppose it’s meant to be a metaphor that no matter what life throws at you, you’ve got to carry on and have fun and I suppose at the height of the depression that message would have had extra relevance. But I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter, it’s still a great song. Then we have you’re getting to be a habit with me which seems to have been covered by everyone and there’s a good reason for that it’s a great song but it’s also really adaptable. It can be a happy song, a sad song whatever it needs to be which reflects the paradoxical nature of love. But this version in particular is sung really well by Bebe Daniels who has quite an operatic quality to it and the dance sequence is a nice simple but comedic moment and all the dancers do a good job. Then we have it must be June which is deliberately bad, the choreography is terrible everyone’s singing of key and Annie are Lorraine are talking all the way through it. This song works because it basically shows how far they’ve come when you see the better songs and amazingly intricate dance sequences that come later.Then we have shuffle of to Buffalo which is quite a catchy tune but it requires some explanation when the guy says he needs to fetch his panties. It doesn’t mean that he has a fetish because apparently back then panties refereed to male underpants to but I don’t know Peggy gives him a pretty weird look when he says panties. Secondly when Loraine says they’ll soon be in Reno. She’s referring to the fact that Nevada had pretty lax divorce laws when compared to New York where if you wanted to get divorced, you’d need a picture of adultery or eyewitness testimony. In Nevada however you only had to live there 6 weeks and you could get divorced for any reason. But there are a couple of unexplained things about this song like why does Annie sat belly then change to tummy. It’s either a joke or she flubbed her line. Both is possible but I really don’t get the joke, I think it’s more likely she flubbed the line and because film was so expensive, it was probably thought best to keep the mistake in. Also I have no idea why they want to go to Buffalo. It’s still a good song and it’s probably the catchiest and the dance number is quite comedic and good. Ruby Keeler again can’t sing but Clarence Nordstrom has quite a sweet voice and it balances out on the side of good but it is helped by quite an amusing performance by Rodgers and Urkel. The last song is young and healthy which again is quite catchy but I think it’s quite clear where they went to Busby Berkley, ok you can do whatever you want with this song. The result is that it’s quite a trip to watch and some of it looks cg. I’m not sure whether I’m a fan of this sequence or if it’s a bit much but it’s certainly unforgettable.

 

Now let’s talk about the stars of this film which according to the cover of my box are Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler despite being billed 5^th and 8^th respectively. I have no idea why it’s laid out this way but I’m going to start with them because they are the stars of the show within a show and outside the show I don’t think anyone really stars. So let’s start with Ruby Keeler, first of all, she can’t sing, it’s pretty close to Hannah Montana bad. She just cannot get the right tone to save her life and it does bring down the rest of the movie a little bit. She is an excellent dancer and her quick feet make up for her voice coupled with the fact that they never let her sing a while song. Acting wise, she plays it a bit too wide eyed and it’s hard to believe anyone is this naive but she does manage to make you feel for her and you do end up liking her. Dick Powell is consistently good, his singing voice is excellent, he seems to avoid dancing and his acting is ok but it is a little flat, he just seems to have a limit to how much emotion he puts on his lines, in fairness these lines aren’t exactly Shakespeare but when you’re declaring you’re love for someone, I expect a little more than mild amusement. The romance is also problematic but their romance doesn’t feel organic, they barely have any scenes together and the ones they do have, their chemistry is ok but you don’t really feel a drive to see them together at end. This problem probably would have been fixed by a longer running time and allow them to actually establish a connection but alas.

Now we have the rest of the cast first we have Warner Baxter as the best musical director Julian Marsh and his desperation for one last hit is really quite moving and he plays all his scenes so well. At the end where he hears all those people criticise him, and he just lights his cigarette and smiles sadly and tries to figure out what the heck he should do now. It’s a powerful image to end the film on and in a lot of ways his journey is more engaging than Peggy’s. Then we have Bebe Daniels as Dorothy Brock who plays the part well, her voice is excellent and her drunken scenes are hilarious and when she gives her advice to Peggy at the end, it really gives a sense of passing the baton and there’s a real drama to it. Then we have George Brent as Pat Denning who kinda creeped me out which is a shame because he had the best lives but his emotional range was slightly sad to slightly happy and he just seemed robotic but I have to admit there are a couple of times where he comes across as charming but still creepy. Guy Kibnee as Abner Killon really does everything you expect him to, he’s a dirty, stupid but fortunately for him rich old man. Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers as Loraine and Anytime Annie do have a good chemistry and they have a few good lines, it’s just a shame you don’t get to see more of this friendship. Finally we have George E Stone as the dancing director Andy Lee who does a good job; he’s funny when he needs to be funny and serious when he needs to be serious. I don’t know what his deal is with Lorraine. She’s either his girlfriend or she’s blackmailing him, I honestly have no idea again it’s something I would have liked to have seen explored more.

 

Finally we have the special features we have 3 short films, one focuses on Harry Warren, the composer of this film. It has him playing some of his songs with his presumed guests singing them and they’re all ok. Next we have the Hollywood news reel which is a news reel about the various star of Hollywood but the fact that everything that happens is clearly staged means there’s no actual news but hey if you want to see a football team get praised and Dick Powell looking for gold then this is the special feature for you. The best special feature is a trip through Hollywood while it’s as staged as the news reel, it’s really good and it tells you a lot of interesting facts about how they made movies back then and how a scene went from script to screen. There’s also a very amusing bit when they’re in the casting office and this little girl says “I haven’t got any work for three days” well it’s the depression kid. Lastly we have a trailer not for this film but for the James Dean collection which I guess could inspire you to buy it if you liked James Dean, it seemed to have loads of special features on it so I guess it’s worth it. So on the whole if you like this movie and want a bit of an insight into 30’s cinema then I’d buy the DVD.

To conclude, I do like this film, it’s flawed but it manages to tell a good story in its 89 minutes and the songs are good. The idea of a show looking at the backstage of a show is a genius concept; it allows people to see the work and effort that go into creating what they love. The feeling of profound optimism despite being surrounded by despair is a very pertinent theme especially back then. It’s clear that the depression exists outside of this show but while this show is going it doesn’t matter, it offers hope and escape for the fictional and the real audience. I can understand why people loved this film but the jokes certainly haven't aged well and the acting could be better. But this is an enjoyable movie and it’s worth watching for its historical value if nothing else.