42nd Street (1933)

Billy Lawler: [to Peggy Sawyer] Hey, I've been for you ever since you walked in on me in my BVD's.

---

Dorothy Brock: Now go out there and be so swell that you'll make me hate you!

---

Slim Murphy: Hey got a match?
Pat Denning: Yep... why I guess so... yeah.
Slim Murphy: Don't happen to know a guy named Pat Denning do ya?
Pat Denning: Why yes.
Slim Murphy: We got a message for him. This guy Pat Denning's a pretty wise mug but he ain't wise enough and if he don't lay off that Dorothy Brock dame, it's gonna be just too bad... for Denning, get me?
Pat Denning: Alright I'll tell him.
Slim Murphy: Yeah well...
[punches Pat in the mouth and Pat falls down]
Slim Murphy: that's so ya don't forget.
Mug with Murphy: Yeah
[He and Slim kick Pat then run off]
Peggy Sawyer: Ohhhhh Pat... Pat... Pat... who were they?
Pat Denning: Friends... with good advice.

---

read more quotes from 42nd Street...

When it premiered in New York City at the Strand Theatre in March 1933, Variety reported that some of the musical numbers were projected on the enlarged grandeur wide screen.
At the end of the "42nd Street" number, Billy and Peggy pull down a curtain or shade with the word "Asbestos" written on it. This can be a confusing reference to 21st-century viewers, who may only be familiar with asbestos as a mineral composite which is now known to cause the lung cancer mesothelioma, but during the first part of the 20th century, asbestos was an often-used flame-retardant component in building materials. It also would have been a reference familiar to theater people, since live-performance theaters were at the time required to have a curtain made of asbestos that would separate the stage from the audience in the event of an on-stage fire. In that context, the presence of the curtain in the film is the movie's way of implying that whatever Billy and Peggy are going to do behind the curtain, it will surely be "hot."
This film, released on March 9, 1933, single-handedly rescued the movie musical, which had been considered a money losing proposition since mid-1930. Early "all talking, all dancing" musicals typically suffered from severe camera restrictions coupled with poor musical staging, soured the public on the genre in general (Universal's huge losses from the lively King of Jazz had put an unofficial moratorium on the musical) and no other studio wanted to risk producing one. Warners, at the time of the film's release, had Gold Diggers of 1933 nearing completion and pre-production plans were well underway for Footlight Parade, all utilizing the talents of Busby Berkeley. The success of this film would convince Radio Pictures to produce Flying Down to Rio (released that December). Other major studios would continue to shy away from musicals throughout 1933, although Paramount would proceed with plans to produce the lavish Murder at the Vanities toward the end of the year.
read more facts about 42nd Street...