42nd Street Overview:

42nd Street (1933) was a Comedy - Musical Film directed by Lloyd Bacon and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck.

42nd Street was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998.

Academy Awards 1932/33 --- Ceremony Number 6 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best PictureWarner Bros.Nominated
.

BlogHub Articles:

Those dancing feet… ’42nd Street’ (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)

By Virginie Pronovost on Jun 16, 2024 From The Wonderful World of Cinema

” Jones and Barry are doing a show! “ ” You’re telling me? “ When I first saw 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), its appeal didn’t quite strike me, and, aside from the final musical number, it left me indifferent. I remember renting the film at Montreal’s Nat... Read full article


Silver Screen Standards: Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (1933)

By Jennifer Garlen on Apr 11, 2023 From Classic Movie Hub Blog

Silver Screen Standards: Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (1933) Every time I watch 42nd Street (1933) I fall in love with Ruby Keeler all over again. Just like Peggy Sawyer, the character she plays in the movie, Keeler was a bright newcomer getting her big break; although she had been dancing on stage... Read full article


Silver Screen Standards: Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (1933)

By Jennifer Garlen on Apr 11, 2023 From Classic Movie Hub Blog

Silver Screen Standards: Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (1933) Every time I watch 42nd Street (1933) I fall in love with Ruby Keeler all over again. Just like Peggy Sawyer, the character she plays in the movie, Keeler was a bright newcomer getting her big break; although she had been dancing on stage... Read full article


THE UMPTEENTH BLOGATION: 42nd Street, 1933

on Jan 18, 2022 From Caftan Woman

Theresa, the CineMaven herself is hosting The Umpteenth Blogathon on January 18th. A tribute to those movies which have an addictive hold on our moving pictures loving souls. Every fan has many such films and HERE we get to gush about one of them. My selection is the energetic, music-filled, cynical... Read full article


42nd Street (1933)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Mar 24, 2019 From 4 Star Films

“Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster but you’ve got to come back a star!” – Warner Baxter to Ruby Keeler 42nd Street essentially feels like hallowed ground even today because it single-handedly gave an entire generation of films plentiful ammunition for tropes while ju... Read full article


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Quotes from

Julian Marsh: Sawyer, you listen to me, and you listen hard. Two hundred people, two hundred jobs, two hundred thousand dollars, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It's the lives of all these people who've worked with you. You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give and give. They've got to like you. Got to. Do you understand? You can't fall down. You can't because your future's in it, my future and everything all of us have is staked on you. All right, now I'm through, but you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out, and Sawyer, you're going out a youngster but you've got to come back a star!


Ann Lowell: [to chorus girl] It must have been hard on your mother, not having any children.


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


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Facts about

In one of the opening scenes, Bebe Daniels is reading the February 20, 1932 issue of The New Yorker magazine, with its trademark top-hatted Manhattanite on the cover. This is not the premiere issue (2/21/1925), as previously thought. The New Yorker runs the premiere cover once every year on the date closest to the date of the first issue in 1925. A close comparison of the covers from the 1932 and 1933 anniversary covers (available at the New Yorker web site) shows this to be the one from 1932.
As a publicity stunt, a train called 'The 42nd Street Special' traveled from Hollywood to New York City arriving in time for the opening at the Strand theater on 8 March 1933. On the train were Warner contract players who were called to the stage after the movie was shown (according to the review in The New York Times). Included were Joe E. Brown, Tom Mix and his horse, Bette Davis, Laura La Plante, Glenda Farrell, Lyle Talbot, Leo Carrillo, Claire Dodd, Preston Foster and Eleanor Holm.
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.
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Best Picture Oscar 1932/33











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National Film Registry

42nd Street

Released 1933
Inducted 1998
(Sound)




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Also directed by Lloyd Bacon




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Also produced by Darryl F. Zanuck




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Also released in 1933




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More "Pre-Code Cinema" films



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