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#443 - 42nd Street
Lloyd Bacon, 1933
Follows the behind-the-scenes drama that happens as a production company attempts to mount a Broadway musical.
Regular readers of this thread will know that I don't have the greatest appreciation for musicals, especially those of the old-school variety. It's hard to tell if I have any particular preferences for the type of musical that prioritises song over dance or vice versa, but I guess there is room to criticise the musicals that somehow end u prioritising plot over both. 42nd Street ends up being the lattermost type of musical, with much of its brief running time being dedicated to following the cast of characters involved with the production of a Broadway musical at the height of the Great Depression. As a result, there is barely anything in the way of musical numbers until the film's third act, where the musical itself actually gets underway.
In the meantime, you'll have to content yourself with the occasional glimpse of auditions and rehearsals in between some very 1930s melodrama with a few clever lines there and there plus some relatively competent acting, which is only just good enough to stop me seriously disliking the film. I think this marks the first instance of me watching a film where the numbers have been choreographed by Busby Berkeley, and the ones in the last third of the film were easily worth the hype with their elaborate routines being captured by some reasonably complex camerawork, though the songs themselves are passable at best. The location changes that happen during the extended number towards the end are certainly a nice touch, in any case. Ultimately, though, there's not enough here to make me think I need to see this again, even though I am giving it a relatively good rating. I guess I'm starting to think that I prefer a good dance-based number to a good song-based number, and it's easy to tell which one 42nd Street features most prominently.
Lloyd Bacon, 1933
Follows the behind-the-scenes drama that happens as a production company attempts to mount a Broadway musical.
Regular readers of this thread will know that I don't have the greatest appreciation for musicals, especially those of the old-school variety. It's hard to tell if I have any particular preferences for the type of musical that prioritises song over dance or vice versa, but I guess there is room to criticise the musicals that somehow end u prioritising plot over both. 42nd Street ends up being the lattermost type of musical, with much of its brief running time being dedicated to following the cast of characters involved with the production of a Broadway musical at the height of the Great Depression. As a result, there is barely anything in the way of musical numbers until the film's third act, where the musical itself actually gets underway.
In the meantime, you'll have to content yourself with the occasional glimpse of auditions and rehearsals in between some very 1930s melodrama with a few clever lines there and there plus some relatively competent acting, which is only just good enough to stop me seriously disliking the film. I think this marks the first instance of me watching a film where the numbers have been choreographed by Busby Berkeley, and the ones in the last third of the film were easily worth the hype with their elaborate routines being captured by some reasonably complex camerawork, though the songs themselves are passable at best. The location changes that happen during the extended number towards the end are certainly a nice touch, in any case. Ultimately, though, there's not enough here to make me think I need to see this again, even though I am giving it a relatively good rating. I guess I'm starting to think that I prefer a good dance-based number to a good song-based number, and it's easy to tell which one 42nd Street features most prominently.