My daughter, granddaughter, and I saw 42nd Street at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. We were pleased—amazed even—at the quality of the show. The acting, the dancing, and the singing were superb. The orchestra, the staging, the costumes, everything about the show was done well. And the audience responded with an abundance of laughter and applause.
Afterward, we returned home, thoroughly entertained. Energized, even.
And the way we felt was not unique. Back in 1933 when the movie, 42nd Street, came out, audiences fell in love with it. It was something they’d never seen before: a musical about the making of a musical. Today this genre is referred to as a backstage musical. Over the years, several hit shows have followed in the pioneering footsteps of 42nd Street. A Chorus Line, for example.
Some people don’t like musicals, particularly not movie versions of them. Okay. You can thank 42nd Street for Argo and Ocean’s 8. You can thank 42nd Street for American Sniper and Dunkirk. You can thank 42nd Street for Batman Begins and Aquaman. You can thank 42nd Street for Happy Feet and The Lego Batman Movie. You can thank 42nd Street for Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit.
These movies and hundreds more were produced and/or distributed by Warner Bros. In 1933, Warner Bros. (Warner Brothers) was on the verge of bankruptcy. If it had gone under, it would not have been around to bring us so many years of great entertainment.
What saved Warner Bros.? 42nd Street. It was a massive hit. It made more than a million and a half dollars. And those were 1933 dollars, so would equal more than 54 million today. People thronged to theaters (and then thronged again) to see this Depression-era movie about a Depression-era musical filled with Depression-era characters.
If case you’ve never seen the movie (or for that matter, the stage production), here’s the plot in a nutshell.
Peggy Sawyer arrives in New York from Allentown, Pennsylvania. She is young and inexperienced and looking for her first job in musical theater. She tries to get hired for a new show, Pretty Lady, but has no luck. Some experienced chorus girls take her under their wing, and she does get hired.
Everyone connected with Pretty Lady needs it to succeed, from the young women in the chorus line to the director, Julian Marsh.
Peggy gets fired, so decides to go back to Pennsylvania and give up on her show biz dream. However, the star of the show is injured and there is no one to take her place. It looks like Pretty Lady is going to fail before it opens. Several people point out to Marsh that Peggy Sawyer has the singing and dancing ability to fill the starring role on short notice.
You can figure out the rest from there.
42nd Street is full of comedy and romance and singing and tap dancing, and there are generations of people who love it.
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