Since the birth of talking pictures in 1927, and regardless of the studio or of the stars involved, Hollywood had always struggled to 'hit the ground running' when it came to musicals.
The early shambolic efforts by MGM became a Testament to the genre's awkwardness. In fact you only have to look a their all star Hollywood Revue of 1929, and in particular the cringe inducing two-tone Technicolor scene of 'Singing in the Rain' with a whole host of the A-list stars hamming it up in raincoats to see that the movie musical was nearly a stillborn concept.
In 1933, Warner Brother's became the first studio to successfully produce a musical that didn't leave people shifting uncomfortably in their theatre seats.
The movie was 42nd Street directed by Lloyd Bacon. It was more a film about a musical than it was a musical film, as all the singing & dancing take place within the context of the rehearsals and then later the actual show itself.
At the height of the depression, Broadway musicals were few and far between, because, put simply, not many people had the money to finance them. Enter Abner Dillon (Guy Kibee), a Kiddie Car tycoon who after taking a shine to a famous Broadways Star, Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels), agrees to finance a Broadway show called 'Pretty Lady', on the proviso, of course, that Brock is hired for the female lead. Brock, on the other hand, feels no romantic affiliation with Dillon in the slightest as she's really in love with her former vaudeville partner Pat Denning (George Brent), who's put his own career on hold to allows hers to flourish.
Warner Baxter, plays Julian Marsh, the former Broadway big shot hired to direct the show, who, like most of his contemporaries, is now near penniless after the Crash of '29 and signs on for the show just for the financial nest egg the success of the show will no doubt give him, and is not about to let Denning's relationship with his leading lady, ruin his plan by having Dillon's financial backing withdrawn.
A chorus call is made and it is here we meet the rest of the cast and crew. Inexperienced chorus girl Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), arrives for her first audition and meets up with Juvenile singer Billy Lawler (Dick Powell). Una Merkel & Ginger Rogers also appear playing two 'experienced' chorus girls who guide Sawyer through the initial auditions.
After a drunken altercation the night before opening, Brock breaks her ankle leaving her out of the show. And in an act of desperation. Marsh is coerced in making Peggy Sawyer his new Leading lady.
The show itself is the real treat of this movie. With the very risqué 'Shuffle off to Buffalo' number with Keeler & Clarence Nordstrom in which Rogers & Merkel also get a chance to shine.
Dick Powell is also given a great number in the form the wonderfully Busby Berkeley choreographed 'Young & Healthy' and the lucky dog gets to serenade a bevy of young starlets, and boy, could that guy SING! The title track is Keeler's shining hour and while she may not have been the best singer in the world, she could certainly shake a shoe when shoe shaking was required. Perhaps this routine is a bit 'clunky' compared to the grace of Astaire, but watch Keeler in the Shanghai 'Lil sequence in Footlight Parade with James Cagney made later that same year and you'll see the grace that Keeler could dance with.
42nd street may not have had the most engaging of plot lines, but it's the songs & dances that put the movie on a pedestal, and it is the same song & dances that were to become the yardstick that all musicals for the next few years were to be measured by.
'You're going out there a youngster, but you've got to come back a star', These words proved quite Prophetic for Keeler, because after 42nd Street, Dick Powell & Ruby Keeler along with Busby Berkeley and his famous Kaleidoscope overhead shots, became the staple of all Warner Brothers Musicals for the remainder of the 1930's.
Ginger Rogers' tenure at Warner's was short lived and after a switch to RKO Studios later that year she starred in low budget musical call Flying Down To Rio. It took only one scene and once dance to make her a superstar. The dance: The Carioca, her partner: Fred Astaire.
Enjoy!
The early shambolic efforts by MGM became a Testament to the genre's awkwardness. In fact you only have to look a their all star Hollywood Revue of 1929, and in particular the cringe inducing two-tone Technicolor scene of 'Singing in the Rain' with a whole host of the A-list stars hamming it up in raincoats to see that the movie musical was nearly a stillborn concept.
In 1933, Warner Brother's became the first studio to successfully produce a musical that didn't leave people shifting uncomfortably in their theatre seats.
The movie was 42nd Street directed by Lloyd Bacon. It was more a film about a musical than it was a musical film, as all the singing & dancing take place within the context of the rehearsals and then later the actual show itself.
At the height of the depression, Broadway musicals were few and far between, because, put simply, not many people had the money to finance them. Enter Abner Dillon (Guy Kibee), a Kiddie Car tycoon who after taking a shine to a famous Broadways Star, Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels), agrees to finance a Broadway show called 'Pretty Lady', on the proviso, of course, that Brock is hired for the female lead. Brock, on the other hand, feels no romantic affiliation with Dillon in the slightest as she's really in love with her former vaudeville partner Pat Denning (George Brent), who's put his own career on hold to allows hers to flourish.
Warner Baxter, plays Julian Marsh, the former Broadway big shot hired to direct the show, who, like most of his contemporaries, is now near penniless after the Crash of '29 and signs on for the show just for the financial nest egg the success of the show will no doubt give him, and is not about to let Denning's relationship with his leading lady, ruin his plan by having Dillon's financial backing withdrawn.
A chorus call is made and it is here we meet the rest of the cast and crew. Inexperienced chorus girl Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), arrives for her first audition and meets up with Juvenile singer Billy Lawler (Dick Powell). Una Merkel & Ginger Rogers also appear playing two 'experienced' chorus girls who guide Sawyer through the initial auditions.
After a drunken altercation the night before opening, Brock breaks her ankle leaving her out of the show. And in an act of desperation. Marsh is coerced in making Peggy Sawyer his new Leading lady.
The show itself is the real treat of this movie. With the very risqué 'Shuffle off to Buffalo' number with Keeler & Clarence Nordstrom in which Rogers & Merkel also get a chance to shine.
Dick Powell is also given a great number in the form the wonderfully Busby Berkeley choreographed 'Young & Healthy' and the lucky dog gets to serenade a bevy of young starlets, and boy, could that guy SING! The title track is Keeler's shining hour and while she may not have been the best singer in the world, she could certainly shake a shoe when shoe shaking was required. Perhaps this routine is a bit 'clunky' compared to the grace of Astaire, but watch Keeler in the Shanghai 'Lil sequence in Footlight Parade with James Cagney made later that same year and you'll see the grace that Keeler could dance with.
42nd street may not have had the most engaging of plot lines, but it's the songs & dances that put the movie on a pedestal, and it is the same song & dances that were to become the yardstick that all musicals for the next few years were to be measured by.
'You're going out there a youngster, but you've got to come back a star', These words proved quite Prophetic for Keeler, because after 42nd Street, Dick Powell & Ruby Keeler along with Busby Berkeley and his famous Kaleidoscope overhead shots, became the staple of all Warner Brothers Musicals for the remainder of the 1930's.
Ginger Rogers' tenure at Warner's was short lived and after a switch to RKO Studios later that year she starred in low budget musical call Flying Down To Rio. It took only one scene and once dance to make her a superstar. The dance: The Carioca, her partner: Fred Astaire.
Enjoy!