Synopsis
A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.
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Cast
- Warner BaxterJulian Marsh
- Bebe DanielsDorothy Brock
- George BrentPat Denning
- Ruby KeelerPeggy Sawyer
- Guy KibbeeAbner Dillon
- Una MerkelLorraine Fleming
- Ginger RogersAnn Lowell
- Ned SparksThomas Barry
- Dick PowellBilly Lawler
- Allen JenkinsMac Elroy
Recommendations
- 100
TV Guide Magazine
The film that revived public interest in musicals after many early talkie bombs sabotaged the genre, 42nd Street was the first real glimpse of the surreal artistry of choreographer Busby Berkeley. - 100
Empire
A movie that could only have been produced by the 1930s studio system. Absolutely spectacular. - 100
Chicago Tribune
42nd Street is the quintessential '30s backstage song and dance movie-and one of the most influential and much-copied movie musicals ever. [09 Mar 2007, p.C6] - 90
The New York Times
The liveliest and one of the most tuneful screen musical comedies that has come out of Hollywood. - 90
Variety
Everything about the production rings true. It's as authentic to the initiate as the novitiate. - 88
LarsenOnFilm
This may be the definitive Busby Berkeley-choreographed musical simply because the entire movie revels in the sort of things that Berkeley’s elaborate dance numbers revel in: innuendo, flirtations and flesh. - 80
Time Out
Reviving the musical's fortunes in one fell swoop, Bacon and Busby Berkeley's backstage saga set the benchmark for the putting-on-a-show subgenre not by means of plot (a thin and hackneyed affair about a young understudy finding stardom when she covers for the temperamental diva) but through sassy songs and dialogue and dazzling mise-en-scène. - 80
The New Yorker
The backstage story is pleasantly tawdry and corny.
