42nd Street is a 1933 American Warner Bros. musical film directed by Lloyd Bacon with choreography by Busby Berkeley. The songs were written by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics), and the script was written by Rian James and James Seymour, with Whitney Bolton (uncredited), from the novel by Bradford Ropes.

The film is a backstage musical, and was very successful at the box office. 42nd Street was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1934, 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". In 2006 this film ranked 13th on the American Film Institute's list of best musicals.

Plot[link]

Naive newcomer Peggy makes her first faux pas, antagonizing tough director Julian

It is 1932, during the early days of the Depression, and Broadway producers Jones (Robert McWade) and Barry (Ned Sparks) put on Pretty Lady, a musical starring beautiful Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels). Brock is involved with industrialist Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbee), who is the show's "angel" (financial backer). But while she is busy keeping Dillon both hooked and at arm's length, she still secretly meets her old vaudeville partner and lover, the out-of-work Pat Denning (George Brent).

To ensure success Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter), who is the best, is hired to direct. But Marsh is ill, destitute, friendless, and bitter as a result of the 1929 Stock Market Crash. "Did you ever try to cash a reputation in a bank?" he asks the producers who are surprised to hear his desperation. Gambling with health and life, Marsh must make his last show a major hit and financial success if he is to have enough money to retire on. "This time I'm going to sock it away so hard you'll have to blast to get it out" he says after signing up to direct, referring to his financial situation.

Cast selection and rehearsals begin amidst fierce competition, with not a few "casting couch" innuendos flying around. Naïve newcomer Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), who arrives in New York from her home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is duped and ignored until two chorines, Lorraine Fleming (Una Merkel) and Ann "Anytime Annie" Lowell (Ginger Rogers), take her under their wing. Lorraine has an "in" with dance director Andy Lee (George E. Stone), while the show's juvenile lead Billy Lawler (Dick Powell) takes a liking to Peggy and puts in a good word for her with Marsh.

Rehearsals continue for five weeks to Marsh's complete dissatisfaction, until the night before the opening in Philadelphia when Brock fractures her ankle. Next morning Abner Dillon wants Marsh to cast his new interest, Annie Lowell, as the star. Annie decides she is not talented enough but tells Marsh that the untried, green, Peggy Sawyer is.

With 200 jobs and his own financial and personal future riding on the outcome, Marsh rehearses Sawyer mercilessly (vowing "I'll either have a live leading lady or a dead chorus girl") until an hour before curtain time on the night of the premiere Brock, soon to be married to Pat, arrives and wishes Peggy luck, and the show is on. Nearly twenty minutes are devoted to three Busby Berkeley production numbers: Shuffle Off to Buffalo, Keep Young and Healthy, and the title song 42nd Street. The show is a success, and in the final scene Marsh turns wearily away from the brightly lit theatre entrance and slumps down on a fire escape as theatre-goers depart praising the musical.^[1]

In the original Bradford Ropes novel, Julian Marsh and Billy Lawler are lovers. Since this sort of relationship was deemed unacceptable to audiences of the era, an invented romance was created for Billy and Peggy.

Cast[link]

• Warner Baxter as Julian Marsh, director
• Bebe Daniels as Dorothy Brock, star
• George Brent as Pat Denning, Dorothy's old vaudeville partner
• Ruby Keeler as Peggy Sawyer, the newcomer
• Guy Kibbee as Abner Dillon, the show's backer
• Una Merkel as Lorraine Fleming, chorine
• Ginger Rogers as Ann ("Anytime Annie") Lowell, chorine
• Ned Sparks as co-producer Barry
• Dick Powell as Billy Lawler, the juvenile lead
• Allen Jenkins as Mac Elroy, the stage manager
• Edward J. Nugent as Terry, a chorus boy
• Robert McWade as co-producer Jones
• George E. Stone as Andy Lee, the dance director
• Toby Wing as Blonde in 'Young and Healthy' Number

Cast notes

• The film's uncredited cast included Guy Kibbee's brother Milton, Ruby Keeler's two sisters, Louise Beavers, Lyle Talbot, George Irving, Charles Lane and as two songwriters, Al Dubin and Harry Warren, who wrote the film's songs.

Production[link]

Star Dorothy strings the "angel" along, but her heart belongs to her old partner Pat

42nd Street was Ruby Keeler's first film, and the first time that choreographer Busby Berkeley and songwriters Harry Warren and Al Dubin had worked for Warner Bros. Director Lloyd Bacon was not the first choice to direct - he replaced Mervyn LeRoy when LeRoy became ill. LeRoy was dating Ginger Rogers at the time, and had suggested to her that she take the role of "Anytime Annie".^[2][3]

Actors who were considered for lead roles when the movie was being cast include Warren William and Richard Barthelmess for the role of "Julian Marsh", eventually played by Warner Baxter; Kay Francis and Ruth Chatterton instead of Bebe Daniels for the role of "Dorothy Brock"; Loretta Young as "Peggy Sawyer" instead of Ruby Keeler; Joan Blondell instead of Ginger Rogers for "Anytime Annie"; Glenda Farrell for the role of Lorraine, played by Una Merkel, and Frank McHugh instead of the dimuitive George E. Stone as Andy, the dance director.^[3]

42nd Street began production on 5 October 1932 and shot for 28 days at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, California. The total cost of making the film has been estimated to be $340,000-$439,000.^[4][5]

The film premiered in New York on 9 March 1933 at the Strand Theatre, and went into general release two days later, becoming one of the most profitable films of the year, bringing in an estimated gross of $2,300,000. It received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Sound Recording for Nathan Levinson, and was named one of the 10 Best Films of 1933 by Film Daily.^[2][6][7] Its success permitted a higher budget and more elaborate production numbers in Warner's follow-up film to this one, Footlight Parade.

Musical numbers[link]

All songs have music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin.^[8]

• "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me" - sung by Bebe Daniels (video clip)
• "It Must Be June" - sung by Bebe Daniels, Dick Powell and the chorus
• "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" Song Clip - sung and danced by Ruby Keeler and Clarence Nordstrom, with Ginger Rogers, Una Merkel and the chorus
• "Young and Healthy" - sung by Dick Powell and the chorus
• "Forty-Second Street" - sung and danced by Ruby Keeler, and sung by Dick Powell (video clip)

Also, a "Love Theme," written by Harry Warren, is played under scenes between Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell, and Bebe Daniels and George Brent. It has no title or lyrics, and is unpublished.

Quotes[link]

Director Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) to green chorine Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler) just before she makes her first entrance to replace the star of the show:

"Sawyer, you listen to me, and you listen hard. Two hundred people, two hundred jobs, two hundred thousand dollars, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It's the lives of all these people who've worked with you. You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give and give. They've got to like you. Got to. Do you understand? You can't fall down. You can't because your future's in it, my future and everything all of us have is staked on you. All right, now I'm through, but you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out, and Sawyer, you're going out a youngster but you've got to come back a star!"

(The final line in this speech, "Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" was voted as the #87 movie quote of all time by the American Film Institute.)^[9]

Legacy[link]

By the time Busby Berkeley died in 1976, this film was revered as the archetypal backstage musical, the one that "gave life to the clichés that have kept parodists happy," as critic Pauline Kael wrote.^[10]

Awards and honors[link]

Berkeley's shots were often arresting, like a tracking shot between dancers' legs

Academy Awards^[11]

• Best Picture (nominated)
• Best Sound - Nathan Levinson (nominated)

American Film Institute recognition

• 2004 - AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs:
  • "42nd Street," # 97
• 2005 - AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes:
  • "Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!," # 87
• 2006 - AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals - # 13

AFI has also honored one of the film's supporting players, naming Ginger Rogers 14th of the 25 greatest American screen legends among females.

See also[link]

From the 1933 trailer:

• 42nd Street (Broadway musical)
• 42nd Street (the street in New York City)

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• 42nd Street at the Internet Movie Database
• 42nd Street at the TCM Movie Database
• 42nd Street at AllRovi
• 42nd Street at Rotten Tomatoes

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