--- title: "42nd Street" year: 1933 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/42nd-street" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 84 critics_reviews: 7 published: "2026-09-19T22:07:32.171020+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T22:07:46.679705+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # 42nd Street (1933) Directed by Lloyd Bacon · 1h 29m · MPA NR · Comedy, Drama, Romance **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 84 from 7 reviews *In a sentence:* The dancing turns up twenty minutes before the end and behaves as though it built the place > Ninety years on, the film that set the pattern for every backstage musical is still fast, funny and unexpectedly hard about money. Warner Baxter carries the first hour, and the dance numbers, held back until the very end, are worth the wait. ## Synopsis New York, 1932, three years into the Depression. Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter), a Broadway director who lost his money in the crash and has been told by his doctor that another show will finish him, agrees to stage one more. The money comes from Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbee), a rich man besotted with the star, Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels), who takes his gifts and keeps seeing her old vaudeville partner Pat Denning (George Brent). At the open audition, chorus veterans Lorraine Fleming (Una Merkel) and Ann (Ginger Rogers) take a newcomer, Peggy (Ruby Keeler), under their wing, and the juvenile lead Billy Lawler (Dick Powell) takes to her at once. Marsh has five weeks of rehearsal to get the show open, and the backer will not keep his hands off the leading lady. ## Review Broadway in 1932 was a business in trouble, and *42nd Street* treats it as one. Rian James and James Seymour, working from Bradford Ropes’s novel, write a musical in which nobody puts on a show for love. Julian Marsh needs the money because the crash took his. Abner Dillon pays because he wants the star. The chorus girls turn up because the alternative is the breadline. Lloyd Bacon directs the backstage hour as a comedy with its teeth showing, and it is still one of the best of its kind. Warner Baxter is the reason the first hour works. Marsh is a director with a bad heart, no savings and a temper, and Baxter plays him as a man who is frightened and takes it out on everyone within earshot. He bullies the chorus through five weeks of rehearsal, sacks a girl for being late, and stands in the stalls with his hat on while the dancers drop. His face, grey under the work lights, tells you how much is riding on the show. The women are better company. Bebe Daniels plays Dorothy Brock as a star who knows exactly what Dillon’s bracelets cost her and is still sneaking off to see Pat Denning (George Brent, doing a good deal with a raincoat and a shrug). Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers, as Lorraine and Ann, are the chorus veterans who do the talking, and Rogers, in a monocle and a borrowed accent, gets the sharpest lines. Ruby Keeler is the newcomer Peggy. She reads her lines as if they had been handed to her a minute before, and her tap is loud and flat-footed. The part asks only for freshness, which she has, and Dick Powell’s Billy Lawler, grinning at her over a piano, supplies the warmth for both of them. Sol Polito shoots the rehearsal hall with a hard top light that throws the dancers’ shadows onto a bare floor, so the place looks like a factory, which is the point. Orry-Kelly keeps the chorus in practice shorts and vests and saves the satin for the end. Thomas Pratt and Frank Ware cut the rehearsals into short, overlapping bursts of shouting, counting and taps, and there is no slack stretch anywhere. Harry Warren and Al Dubin’s songs stay in the head for days, though for an hour you hear only scraps of them. Nearly all of the dancing is held back until the show opens, twenty minutes from the end, and for an hour a musical has almost nothing to sing. When the numbers come, staged by Busby Berkeley, they arrive all at once. *Shuffle Off to Buffalo* takes place on a sleeper train that splits down the middle to show the berths. *Young and Healthy* sends the camera crawling along the floor between the legs of a turning chorus. The title number builds a New York street on the stage, with a stabbing in a window, a drunk on the kerb and dancers climbing a staircase holding painted boards that turn, at the top, into a skyline. We sat up. This was what the hour of rehearsal had been for, and it was larger and stranger than the plot had promised. The plot is thin and knows it. It turns on a piece of bad luck we will not describe, though anyone who knows the phrase backstage musical will guess it. Guy Kibbee’s Dillon is a one-gag character, the rich man who cannot keep his hands to himself, and the film is franker about what a chorus girl owes an investor than Hollywood would be allowed for years afterwards. We laughed at most of it, and then felt slightly grubby about which bits. Watch it knowing that the first hour is talk and the last twenty minutes are the dancing. The talk is good, and the dancing is the reason people still know the title. *Fi1m score 82, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Every one of the seven reviews is favourable, and the praise gathers in the same place: Busby Berkeley’s dance numbers, which most critics treat as the reason the film is still watched. Several credit it with setting the pattern for the backstage musical, and the 1933 notices note how far its staging had moved on from earlier Hollywood musicals. Warner Baxter’s harried director and Ruby Keeler’s understudy are singled out repeatedly, Keeler for a screen debut the critics find winning. The reservations are mild and cluster on the plot. Time Out and The New Yorker both call the story thin or conventional, a chorus novice saving the show being no surprise, and say the dialogue, songs and visuals carry it. Empire is the least effusive, granting the film its energy without claiming much more for it. The spread is narrow and nobody dissents; the only disagreement is over how much the familiar story matters when the numbers are this good. ### Reviews we read (7) - **Radio Times**, Tony Sloman (5/5): This is one of the most important and enjoyable musicals ever made, a beloved early talkie and recognised masterpiece from Warner Bros. It excels through its racy dialogue, lavish production and especially Busby Berkeley's spectacular dance sequences. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-ezu0wi/42nd-street/) - **The New York Times**, Mordaunt Hall (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it one of the liveliest and most tuneful screen musical comedies to come out of Hollywood, a merry affair with catchy songs and imaginative staging of the show-within-the-film. Ruby Keeler makes an ingratiating screen debut, and the film reveals forward strides in the medium. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1933/03/10/archives/patting-on-a-show.html) - **Variety** (90/100, inferred): The review praises the authentic production that rings true in every detail, with strong performances from Warner Baxter as the neurotic showman, Ruby Keeler as the unknown who triumphs, and effective direction by Lloyd Bacon aided by Busby Berkeley's dance numbers. Everything about the musical comedy is seen as believable and well-handled. [Read](https://variety.com/1932/film/reviews/42nd-street-1200410781/) - **Time Out**, GA (80/100, inferred): The film revives the musical genre by setting the standard for backstage stories, relying on witty dialogue, songs and striking visuals rather than its thin plot. A strong cast delivers standout numbers while Busby Berkeley's inventive choreography stands out. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/42nd-street) - **Empire** (70/100, inferred): The definitive backstage musical still has plenty of pizzazz. Warner Baxter's putting everything he can into his show when the leading lady takes a tumble, but plucky little understudy Keeler is made of the kind of stuff that can take over the role and make it her own. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/42nd-street-review/) - **The New Yorker**, John C. Mosher (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a bright and cheerful musical about backstage life with gay tunes and rowdy energy that expands into a pretty Broadway fantasy in its finale. The conventional plot about a chorus novice saving the show is noted, along with strong performances especially from Warner Baxter as the director. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1933/03/18/broadway-fantasy) - **Eye for Film**, Chris (90/100, inferred): The critic praises 42nd Street as establishing the screen musical genre through Busby Berkeley's spectacular choreography and innovative camera techniques. They highlight its upbeat take on the Depression era and its role in saving Warner Bros. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/42nd-street-film-review-by-chris) ## Details - **Director:** Lloyd Bacon - **Director:** Lloyd Bacon - **Screenplay:** Rian James, James Seymour - **Novel:** Bradford Ropes - **Cinematography:** Sol Polito - **Editor:** Thomas Pratt, Frank Ware - **Music:** Al Dubin, Harry Warren - **Costume design:** Orry-Kelly - **Producer:** Darryl F. Zanuck - **Cast:** Warner Baxter as Julian Marsh; Bebe Daniels as Dorothy Brock; George Brent as Pat Denning; Ruby Keeler as Peggy; Guy Kibbee as Abner Dillon; Una Merkel as Lorraine Fleming; Ginger Rogers as Ann; Ned Sparks as Barry - **Runtime:** 1h 29m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 11 March 1933 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama, Romance - **Budget:** $439,000 - **Box office:** $2 million ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, leaving 2026-09-30 - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Gold Diggers of 1933* (1933): The same studio, the same year, and the Depression sung straight to your face. - *All About Eve* (1950), Fi1m 90: The understudy story told again, with the knives out and the songs removed. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/all-about-eve.md) - *The Red Shoes* (1948), Fi1m 92: A rehearsal-room tyrant, a girl who wants it, and colour where Polito had shadow. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-red-shoes.md) - *Topsy-Turvy* (1999), Fi1m 88: Mike Leigh on putting a show together: the money, the sulks, the sore feet. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/topsy-turvy.md) - *Les Demoiselles de Rochefort* (1967): Jacques Demy’s small-town musical, where everyone is broke and dancing regardless. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/42nd-street