42nd street MOVIE!!!!

[Here_I_Go_Again]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 11:27am

is the old movie a musical or a a non musical version
thanks!!!!!!

[Katurian2]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 11:28am

Musical- with most of the same songs as the show

Updated On: 3/26/06 at 11:28 AM

[Here_I_Go_Again]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 11:30am

THANKS!!!!!! is it pretty good

[philcrosby]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 11:33am

The film of "42nd Street" is legendary. Musicals (badly done) had over-saturated the film market after the dawn of sound films and were considered dead. Then "42nd Street" opened and changed the way musicals were done and perceived, mostly because of the Busby Berkely dance routines, but also because of the (for the time) seemingly gritty realism of the backstage story.

The 1982 stage musical (and its subsequent revival a few years ago), while homages to the original, are very pale imitations, IMHO.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 11:36am

Yes, it is a great movie, albeit an old one. I was not a personal fan of the revival of it, but I loved the original. If you like old-time Hollywood musicals, this is your calling.

[Jon]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 12:00pm

About half the songs inthe stage version were in the original film of 42nd Street. The other songs in the stage version were taken from other movie musicals such as "Gold Diggers of 1933" and "Dames" - written by the same composer - Harry Warren.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 12:12pm

The film is a musical - of sorts. All the musical numbers are lumped together at the end of the film. Busby Berkley tried to make this a "show-within-a-show" and that way he could steam through the storyline first. It's clever, however the story itself turned out to be a fun and funny romp. The film came out just before the Production Code (of morals onscreen) so there are a number of very dirty inuendos spouted mostly by the chorus girls, led by Ginger Rodgers who walked out of this show into Fred Astaire's arms. "That's Anytime Annie, she only said 'no' once in her life and that time she didn't understand the question" is one of my favorites.

This show created most of the cliches about backstage musicals we've been enduring forever.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 12:15pm

Wasn't it "She only said No once, and that was when she didn't hear the question." hehe- Well, that was how it was in the show. I love it so much.

[Renthead#1]

Posted: 3/26/06 at 5:21pm

The only time they sing in the whole movie is either when their rehersing or performing the play. They never just out of the blue start singing.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 3/27/06 at 2:36am

Did anyone else find the staging of the show withing a show in the movie unrealistic. If memory serves, there was one number that featured a city street scene that had too much going on (a black boy dancing for money, a guy seen through a barber window getting a shave, a domestie dispure between a man and a woman in their apartment, etc.) as the camera pans all over the place and I remember thinking, "There's not way in hell..." I did like the 'Shuffle Off to Buffalo" train number, though.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/27/06 at 11:25am

Of course, StageManager 2. I think that exploding the stage was Berkley's main idea. Within the confines of his shows, it seemed to work because it was his orginal idea. But it became cliched when anyone else used it. I laugh my ass off when Esther Williams steps into a wading pool-sized tank onstage in her films and surfaces in a 40' x 60' olympic-sized pool complete witha blue sky overhead. So fromage.

[philcrosby]

Posted: 3/27/06 at 2:05pm

If you think 42nd Street gets unrealistic, rent FOOTLIGHT PARADE. In addition to getting to see James Cagney sing and dance (wonderfully), you will see a series of the most completely impossible musical numbers ever purported to take place on a stage.

And that's what makes them wonderful.

(See also "Lullaby of Broadway" in GOLDIGGERS OF 1933 and the banana number in THE GANG'S ALL HERE.)

[Flahooley]

Posted: 3/27/06 at 7:29pm

Count me in a s BIG fan of the original movie. I think it was pre-code so you get all that naughty innuendo.


I honesty think it is one of the best original Hollywood musical. I put it up there with WIZARD OF OZ and SINGIN' IN THE RAIN.

[Ravenal]

Posted: 3/27/06 at 11:05pm

All these films were just released last week as a boxed set of DVD for a reasonable 39.00

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/28/06 at 1:14am

James Cagney. Amazing tap dancer. NEVER took a lesson. Now that's amazing.