42nd Street (1933)

Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Starring Ruby Keeler, Bebe Daniels, Warner Baxter, George Brent, Una Merkel, Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks, George E. Stone, Allen Jenkins, Robert McWade.

Archetypal backstage musical refined the formula and was the first Depression-era populist hit for choreographer Busby Berkeley, but that doesn’t mean it holds up. Romance, jealousy, double-crosses, melodrama, and more run rampant while ailing director Baxter tries to put on a show with the usual assortment of divas, cynics, rookies, and hangers-on. Hokey dialogue and performances abound, with about as many clichés as there are speaking parts. The creaky sub-plot of newcomer Keeler taking over for injured star Daniels might have worked better if Keeler had untapped star power and impressive pipes (alas, she has neither). Musical numbers aren’t bad (notably during a few instances of dynamic camerawork in the finale), but they’re unlikely to gets toes-a-tapping. The pre-Code production allows for a few amusing suggestions and innuendos in the script, but it also contains that famous (but simply awful) line, “Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!” (Woof.)

50/100