Starring Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, and Winne Lightner
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
Music and Lyrics by various
Once 42nd Street was a hit early in 1933, all of the studios resumed making backstage musicals. This time, however, a tougher, grittier sheen replaced the innocent sherbet-colored antics of the early talkie backstagers. The Depression suddenly made putting on a show not only something to do for the tired businessman, but a vital part of the economy that provided jobs and hope for dozens of performers, stagehands, and musicians and gave people something to take their minds off the crisis. MGM responded by throwing everything they had into this glittering vehicle for Joan Crawford. How does this slightly tough confection look today? Let's start in downtown New York at a burlesque joint and find out...
The Story: Janie Barlow (Crawford) and her roommate Rosetta "Rosie" LaRue (Lightner) just finished a strip number when the theater is raided and they're arrested for indecency. Wealthy playboy Tod Newton (Tone) bails them out, having seen the show and been attracted to Janie's moxie. Janie spends weeks trying to see big-time director Patch Gallagher (Gable), who keeps brushing her off. Tod finally offers to finance the show if he'll put Janie in the chorus. Patch is so impressed with her when he does see her dance, he gives her a featured role, then moves her into the star spot.
Ted, however, isn't happy that his "dancing lady" seems to be growing further away from him, and he'll even shut down the show to keep her closer. Patch, however, isn't willing to let go without a fight...and even Janie admits she'd rather dance than live in a love nest with a man who can't understand that performing is her life.
The Song and Dance: You can't fault the cast for this one. Crawford is surrounded by some of the best MGM had to offer. Tone begins what would become a career of playing similar playboys with his playful yet selfish man about town. The Three Stooges have a few slapping-around bits that preview many of the routines from their later Columbia shorts. Crawford is fine when she's not called on to actually dance, especially in the end, when she explains to Tone why "dese things" and "those things" can't work together. Lightner also has a few funny lines, and there's Robert Benchley as Gable's buddy and a Walter Winchell-style gossip hound and Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy doing tiny parts in the finale. Some of the Art Deco sets, especially in the finale, are amazing, and the costumes are absolutely gorgeous.
Favorite Number: We open with "Hold Your Man" at the strip joint. Lightner performs the number as the women parade around her, but Crawford has more problems when her zipper gets stuck while she's trying to strip. Singer Art Jarrett gets the one standard to come from this film, "Everything I Have Is Yours," to Crawford as she dances with Tone at the party.
The major numbers come at the end. We kick off with none other than Fred Astaire joining a white-clad Crawford for "Heigh-Ho, the Gang's All Here" as a formal-dressed chorus dances and drinks around them. Somehow, a magic disc whisks them off to Germany, where the peasant-clad chorus now drinks beer and sings the virtues of that drink in "Let's Go Bavarian." Rogers and Hart's "The Rhythm of the Day" begins with a chorus clad in 17th century dress lead to a modern New York by Nelson Eddy in a tuxedo. This eventually encompasses an amazing Art Deco mirror merry-go-around, with chorus girls riding on horses going around the glittering sunbursts.
Trivia: The debut film of Fred Astaire and Lynn Bari, who is in the chorus.
What I Don't Like: First of all, no amount of constant praise can turn Crawford into a dancer. With her flailing arms and wobbling legs, she more closely resembles someone trying to kill flies than perform a dance routine. It's especially awkward next to the genuinely talented Astaire. She just cannot keep up with him in the complicated "Heigh-Ho." Doesn't help that her singing was dubbed, too. Gable's miscast as the Warner Baxter-type tough director and is definitely not happy to be here.
The movie wants desperately to be Busby Berkeley, but the glossy MGM style just can't figure it out. Those big finale numbers may be shiny and fast-moving, but they also make absolutely no sense whatsoever, lurching from one big set piece to the next with no form or function. They're just not about anything, not even the sexual undercurrents that often ran through Berkeley's numbers.
The Big Finale: The cast alone makes this worth seeing at least once for fans of Crawford or 30's musicals.
Home Media: Easily found on DVD and streaming, the former now via the Warner Archives.
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