Romancefest 2018: 42nd Street

1933's 42nd STREET is a more serious take on some of the same material explored in TWENTIETH CENTURY. The two movies are both about driven Broadway producers/directors attempting to pull off the Big Show at all costs. TWENTIETH CENTURY plays it for laughs, but 42nd STREET is more of a melodrama, along with being a musical.

The film was directed by Lloyd Bacon (with Busby Berkley directing the musical numbers) and stars Warner Baxter as a stressed out Broadway director who has been financially ruined by the stock market crash. He's developing a new show with a big star (Bebe Daniels) but there's so much romantic and business intrigue among the cast and crew of the show that it's constantly on the verge of falling apart.

There's a wide array of characters and actors on hand (including Ginger Rogers again) but the most notable is probably Ruby Keeler as a rookie chorus girl who gets her big break. She also has a romance with Dick Powell as the show's "juvenile" star, and their chemistry is sweet.

Despite all the melodrama, the movie basically exists as an excuse to show the leggy dancers hanging around backstage and to showcase Berkley's dance numbers. The numbers in similar films like FOOTLIGHT PARADE and GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 are more impressive. These ones are similarly over-produced blockbuster extravaganzas but somehow they're not quite as exciting.