|
42nd StreetRating:
Release Date: 19 September, 2000 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (10 total) |
42nd Street Reviews
DICK POWELL AND RUBY KEELER!!
42nd Street is one of the greatest movies of all time. It has been 7 months since I first watched it, and while some people would say that I am WAY too young to be interested in classics (people have told me that I should be watching stuff like the Princess Diaries) I have ALWAYS found stuff like Footlight Parade more interesting, and instead of swooning over Brad Pitt or whovever is considered a hot male star these days, I find myself swooning over old-timey actors like Robert Taylor or Rudolph Valentino. So i really LOVE old movies, even silents from the earliest days, like Intolerance. I had never seen any Busby Berkeley pictures before I bought the collection (which is AWESOME) So 42nd Street was new to me. I was ASTOUNDED by the musical numbers. That guy was a genius! And the cast! I recognized Bebe Daniels, from her silents, and I think she was AMAZING in this. Didn't know she could dance or sing! I also recognized Warner Baxter form his slents, and he was AMAZING too! He looked much older than I'd seen him before, though. I loved the Dubin/Warren music, which is PURE 30s. Good memorablehits like You're Getting to be a Halbit With Me and Young and Healthy. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler are just SO CUTE TOGETHER!! I EVEN LIKE THEM BETTER THAN ASTAIRE AND RODGERS!! I have seen almost all their movies, except for Colleen and Shipmates Forever. If you are a Powell/Keeler fan, you'll love 42nd Street. Oooh, and the comedy is very cliche, but put over well. This keep caseDVD is nice, and the picture is clear, but there aren't many extras. The 42nd Street dcumentary is on the Gold Diggers of 1933 DVD. So I reccomend you buy the whole Busby Berkeley Collecion instead of the one DVD. I am not going to mention the plot, so just check out the summary. Plus, in 1933, this is the musical that made everyone like musicals again, beacuse they weren't poular at that time until 42nd Street came along. Oh, and Ruby Keeler is heavy footed, and she did better in her later films. She is still a teriffic dancer, although she can't copare to Eleanor Powell. (If you don't know who Eleanor Powell is you've been living under a rock.) Well, this is a very good movie, and the essential musical. Here are some other movies that you should like if you like old muicals: Footlight Parade, Dames, Colleen, The Broadway Melody, Born to Dance, Honolulu, Broadway Melody of 1940, Rio Rita, Dixiana, Top Hat, Flying Down to Rio, Roman Scandals, Whoopee!, Go Into Your Dance, Take a Chance(very good), Down Argentine Way, Wonder Bar, Go Into Your Dance, Ziegfeld Follies, Boldie of the Follies, and my PERSONAL FAVRITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME......the BROADWAY MELODY OF 1936!!! Starring Robert Taylor, Jack Benny, Eleanor Powell, June Knight, Una Merkel, Nick Long Jr., Sid Silvers, Buddy Ebsen, Vilma Ebsen, and others. IT THE BEEEESSSSTTT!!! YOU HAVE GOTTA SEE THE I'VE GOT A FEELN' YOU'RE FOOLIN MUISCAL NUMBER! HLOORAY FOR JUNE KNIGHT AND ROBERT TAYLOR!! AHHH-MAZING!!!
Nostalgia at its best, with great songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin
42nd Street is one of my favorite movies. It's the granddaddy of "put on a musical" musicals, and if it seems full of cliches now it's because cliches have to start somewhere. They weren't cliches when 42nd Street opened. When young Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler) has to take the place of the star, gets a pep talk from Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) and then dances from the wings into the big production number of Shuffle Off to Buffalo...well, is there any doubt that Peggy is going to come back a star? (Even if Marsh's talk is enough to scare the tap shoes off Fred Astaire, much less little Peggy Sawyer. "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!")
The story is endearing because we've seen it so many times. The movie is still so fresh, so good and so entertaining, however, because of the songs, the actors and Busby Berkeley's turn-tables, disappearing benches, moving cameras and high-kicking chorus girls. I can watch many times over the musical numbers (songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin) performed by a young, energetic and perfectly confident Dick Powell (I'm Young and Healthy), Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers, Ruby Keeler and Clarence Nordstrom (Shuffle Off to Buffalo), the big 42nd Street extravaganza with Ruby Keeler and half the population of New York City, and a great song that still holds its own, You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me (sung by Bebe Daniels).
Ruby Keeler was such a long shot for actual stardom. She couldn't act. She sang well but without much emotion. Her tap dancing was all elbows and thumping feet. Yet she was so innocent and earnest you just can't help rooting for her. When Warner Baxter gives his impassioned pep talk to Keeler as Peggy Sawyer, he is all intensity, driving home just how important it is for Sawyer to succeed. Keeler is facing him with a pleasant, utterly emotionless expression on her face. Try watching the scene but focus on Keeler, not Baxter. Her lack of expression is so incongruous it's absolutely endearing. Perhaps that's why she was such a success. She might be a klutz like us, but she's going to give it her all in front of an audience, something most of us wouldn't have the courage to try.
One of the delights of the musical numbers is watching Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers in an upper birth, Merkel eating a banana and Rogers an apple, giving the other side of the story of Shuffle off to Buffalo. First we watch Keeler and Nordstrom (unbilled and with an odd vibrato):
I'll go home and pack my panties
You go home and get your scanties
And away we'll go.
Off we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.
To Niagara in a sleeper
There's no honeymoon that's cheaper
And the train goes slow.
Off we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle Off to Buffalo.
But then Merkel and Rogers give their point of view between bites of banana and apple:
Matrimony is baloney,
She'll be wanting alimony,
In a year of so.
Still they go and shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.
When she knows as much as we know
She'll be on her way to Reno
While he still has dough.
She'll give him the Shuffle
When they're back from Buffalo.
The movie is filled with similar wise-cracking attitude. And if you're into drugs or love or just exceptionally well-written songs, you cant beat You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me:
Every kiss, every hug,
Seems to act just like a drug.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
Let me stay in your arms,
I'm addicted to your charms.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
I used to think your love was something
That I could take or leave alone.
But now I couldn't do without my supply.
I need you for my own.
Oh I can't break away, I must have you every day,
As regularly as coffee or tea.
You've got me in your clutches and I can't get free,
You're getting to be a habit with me.
With 42nd Street at least, nostalgia is everything it's said to be.
The DVD transfer is excellent. There are several extras including a short vintage feature on composer Harry Warren.
More Customer Reviews (29 total)
You like 42nd Street?
|
© 2004, 2005, 2006 DVD Booty | Don't Plunder Our Cache of Booty, Matey!
Hosting made possible by donations from Payday Loan Star, About Debt Management, and fast cash
