42nd Street poster & wallpaper

Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent

Broadway director Julian Marsh needs just one more hit so he can retire and recover his health. It looks like he may just pull it off until his tempermental star Dorothy breaks her ankle on the eve of...( read more  read more... ) the show's premiere and has to be replaced by understudy Peggy.

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70% liked it

6,432 ratings

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95% liked it

20 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 29 min.

Directed by: Lloyd Bacon

Release Date: March 9, 1933

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DVD Release Date: March 21, 2006

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Flixster Reviews (243)

  • xXxHarleyxQuinnxXx
    February 27, 2009
    xXxHarleyxQuinnxXx
    great black and white movie!
  • ceWEBrity
    February 5, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    Please forgive me for being the only gay man in the world with not an ounce of interest in musicals. A musical is supposed to offer unfettered, guilt-free fun but I just don't find watching them all that "fun" at all. Maybe like...the Evil Dead musical or something. But this is a...( read more)bout as far away from singing zombie carnage as you could possibly get in a movie, and that's why I feel comparatively underwhelmed.

    I guess this is technically impressive and all but Ruby Keeler sucks at everything so it kind of renders the whole enterprise a wash.
  • smith44
    November 16, 2008
    smith44
    "Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!"
  • LilAngelHana
    March 27, 2007
    LilAngelHana
    Very typical Warner Brother's musical from back in the day :P Pretty good though, I did enjoy it. I love old musicals, and this is a perfect example of one. Started loosing interest towards the end...And the song weren't all that great, but on the whole, I enjoyed it ^_^
  • littlecharmer1959
    October 29, 2008
    littlecharmer1959
    The first great musical and the one that invented all the cliches.
    Only thing it would of benefited from is more Busby Berkely dance sequences.

    "Now go out there and be so swell that you'll make me hate you!""
    ...( read more)n=view¤t=42ndstreet.gif" target="_blank">Photobucket
  • xoxoGossipGirl7
    September 18, 2009
    xoxoGossipGirl7
    Good film. Really good.
  • cinemikeinfrance
    July 29, 2009
    cinemikeinfrance
    A film where happiness and sadness come together in a glorious emotional melange.
  • Budgeburgess
    March 26, 2009
    Budgeburgess
    Shot in black and white, this is one of the early Hollywood musicals. It employs a simple plot - an unknown gets cast in the leading role when the star is incapacitated. It's a plot which will emerge again and again in Hollywood movies and musicals, but it won for "42nd Street" t...( read more)he Oscar for best film in 1934.

    Much of the film purports to portray the exhausting and pain-racked preparation and rehearsals that dancers undergo. It's actually quite cute (watch Naeve Campbell's "Company" to get a better insight into what it means to be a dancer). It does make clear that Broadway shows make considerable demands of the performers and backstage staff, and that tyrannical directors and executives are not averse to availing themselves of a modern day droit de seigneur relationship with naïve young hopefuls.

    Surprisingly, there are comparatively few songs and musical breaks in the film, notably "I'm Young and Healthy" and the epic "42nd Street" - this latter follows the Hollywood convention of supposedly being a 'live' stage performance, the reality, of course, being that only a film set would be large enough for the action. Still, it's a classic piece of Hollywood choreography and frivolity, and laid down the yardstick against which future musical extravaganzas would be measured.

    Take away the two major musical numbers and you realise that the plot is minimal, characterisation superficial, even the music is relatively sparse. Yet it would be revived onstage in the 1980's and become one of the first Hollywood musicals to successfully translate to the stage. The film features Buzby Berkeley routines, impossible to translate to the stage, but giving anyone who is young and healthy ... or even old and infirm ... plenty of opportunities to admire the female form - legs, legs, and more legs. Did I mention the legs?

    I couldn't actually say that the cast deliver anything electrifying. Ginger Rogers is there, but before her partnership with Fred Astaire rocketed her to stardom, so we don't get any sparkling, set-piece dances. And there's Bebe Daniels, who endeared herself to British audiences by remaining in London throughout the Blitz, making radio comedies and keeping people laughing - but she gets precious few gags in this show. Given the lack of characterisation, there's very little for the cast to get their teeth into - they are, in fact, just figures on a musical landscape, almost as anonymous as Buzby Berkeley's dancers.

    Nevertheless, the film does appear something of a museum piece - it certainly hasn't aged as well as some of its contemporaries. It lacks sophistication - even the set-piece finale seems a touch coy and self-conscious. But, worth watching, particularly if you're interested in the development of the musical.

    Film and sound quality were adequate, the extras provided with the DVD something of a mixed bag. You get songwriter Harry Warren dueting with Olive Oil and others, an amusing 1934 look at the behind-the-scenes life of a Hollywood studio, and a decidedly missable 1934 Newsreel about Hollywood. There's precious little about this film, apart from nostalgia, to drag it beyond an average marking. It has aged, and, while the minimalist plot and characterisation might have passed in the 1930's, it can appear bland to today's tastes.
  • fashionista46
    February 23, 2009
    fashionista46
    I wanna be a chorusline girl!!
  • filmjunkie25
    January 13, 2009
    filmjunkie25
    Oh, it was joyously happy. I wish I was in it!!!!!

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Comments

  • naelizam
    May 2, 2007
    naelizam
    If you haven't seen this movie, you really should! Breakthrough in the movies, with the whole "Young and Healthy" scene! Man, I love Dick Powell!
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42nd Street Trivia

  • Which of these films saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy?  Answer »
  • In which movie did Meg Ryan say that she saw a butterfly get on the subway in New York at 42nd street and off at 59th, where it was, she assumed, going to Bloomingdale's to buy a hat?   Answer »
  • The quote "You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" is from the film:  Answer »
  • He survived the San Francisco earthquake, lived to be 102, went on to have charater roles in such classics as "42nd Street," "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" and appear in more than 300 movies and television shows.   Answer »
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