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42nd Street is the premiere backstage musical, the granddaddy of them all, setting the template for the narrative and crafting the character molds. If some of it feels flabby or overly familiar, that’s simply because it’s impossible to view 42nd Street in any other way than through the prism of our current age.
What helps matters is quite simply that 42nd Street is a Pre-Code burner, complete with a character dubbed “Anytime Annie.” Maybe it’s not as overheated and sexy as many of its contemporaries, but the Jazz Age hangover hasn’t quite lifted off of these characters. They’re frequently aware of the Depression, making numerous references to it, and maneuvering into backstage politics to ensure a job, or a sugar daddy, to help stay above it. These chorus girls aren’t the healthy, smiling, All-American types of MGM’s 1950s output, but the tougher, rougher ones that Ginger Rogers, who has a great supporting role here, and Joan Crawford exceled at in the era.
The plot is something of a rusty cliché now, but directors Lloyd Bacon and Busby Berkeley keep it humming at an accelerated pace. A veteran stage star (Bebe Daniels) has a sugar daddy putting up the money for a new show, but still pines away for her former vaudeville partner (George Brent). A young up-and-comer (Ruby Keeler, all wet in dramatics but a sensation when dancing) befriends two veteran chorus girls (Rogers and Una Merkel, stealing the movie with one-liners every chance they get), a horny chipmunk singer (Dick Powell), and finds herself slowly emerging as the rising star while Daniels descends into self-destruction, alcoholism, and abusive diva tantrums.
Where the movie is smart to put its focus isn’t on Keeler, who can’t act her way out of a wet tissue, but on the entire ensemble. Daniels does great work throughout, Merkel and Rogers are the types you want to spend more time with, Brent is quietly heartbreaking, and Werner Baxter dives into his crazed, eccentric director with everything he’s got. With so much musical talent on display, there’s surprising little here in the way of big numbers, save for the final half hour which throws out all of the big productions numbers in rapid-fire succession. This is truly more of a comedic drama about the grind of putting on a show, not a brighter, happier “let’s put a show” revue of the Mickey-and-Judy variety.
No better moment perfectly captures the grueling, physically taxing process of rehearsal quite like the kaleidoscopic view of the chorus girls practicing their choreography over and over. They become inseparable from each other, and reduced to moving parts, repeating the same actions again and again until they become smooth and familiar. Yet this is also the same thing which makes me slightly uncomfortable about Berkeley’s big choreographed numbers in the end. The shapely legs moving in geometric unison begins to feel like something of a meat parade, with the faces and bodies being only as important as they were in any specific frame. I suppose something had to boost the morale, along with a few other things.
Something of a tease, 42nd Street is the warm, escapist fluff which could easily be described as buoyant. There’s no story beat or character development we can’t see coming from the first reel, but there’s a sprightly, sexy energy here that’s very appealing. No dusty relic here, just a solidly constructed Pre-Code semi-musical with a mostly game cast, fun story, and solid direction. If nothing else, give it a watch as the movie which really broke the ground on cinematic musical language. If it’s not as revolutionary today as it was in 1933, well, a lot of time has passed in those eighty-plus years, and a lot of films have followed, expanded, or reinvigorated its formula since.
