From 42nd Street

My favorite part of 42nd Street is when Ned Sparks, one of the producers, says of one of the other producers: "I don't like his face or any part of him. He looks like a Bulgarian boll weevil mourning its firstborn."

And then... mostly I thought this movie was pretty awful. It's terribly directed – the ending happens without any warning at all and without tying up two of the main storylines – and the two big musical numbers which close the show have nothing to do with anything, do not include both of the romantic leads, and generally make no sense. (Now, I don't always expect a musical number to make sense, but as the penultimate scene of a movie?)

I, of course, love Warner Baxter and George Brent. And Bebe Daniels, whose star faded pretty soon after 42nd Street, is just fabulous in this film - her drunk scene is absolutely amazing.

I am also a fan of Dick Powell, and the supporting cast is pretty uniformly good, but Ruby Keeler? She's awful. I am probably going to see Gold Diggers of 1933 in a week or two, and she's in that too, so I guess I will have another chance to see what she can do, but so far I just don't get it. She's flat and boring and just not that interesting. She dances beautifully, but next to a diva like Bebe Daniels, she looks like someone who could never have made it as a Hollywood star.

The important thing here is that the synopsis of this film says it is a Dick Powell-Ruby Keeler romance. It's not. It's a backstage musical with a single Busby Berkeley, ten storylines, and a romantic plot about George  Brent and Bebe Daniels (which is actually interesting).

Lest I sound like too much of a curmudgeon, 42nd Street did give us this fabulous song, and for that we should be grateful: