Popular reviews

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  Review by sophie b ★★★★

  A thing I like about these movies is that the stage productions they are putting on don't seem to make any fucking sense at all.

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  Review by Patrick Willems ★★★½ 3

  Every 5 minutes: "oh, this is where that trope comes from"

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  Review by David Sims ★★★★ 2

  this movie really goes hard on Philadelphia

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  Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★½

  Nearly 90 years later this is just as much an escape as it was then.

  Made during the depression, these Busby Berkeley gave people everything they desired in a film, an uplifting plot, show tunes, and lots of legs. Lots and lots of legs.

  While not my favorite of the bunch, it's still quite enjoyable. I wish they sprinkled more show tunes throughout like Golddiggers of 1933 and Footlight Parade, that being said the plot was more compelling than I remembered. While I don't appreciate Ruby Keeler's singing and dancing, she's charming as the lead. That being said, I much prefer Joan Blondell and the rest of the cast of Golddiggers of 1933 to her.

  Pure joy, they're grand and surprisingly fast paced for the era they were produced. Really enjoyed revisiting this!

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½

  Choreographer Busby Berkeley was a genuine cinematic innovator, he created the most stunning geometric constructs with his musical sequences with both steps and movement, and many of them have become the most recognisable images in cinematic history. And while the story of 42nd Street, arguably the best known of all the Berkeley musicals, is incredibly clichéd, it's observations on the circumstances besieging a bankrupt producer's endeavour to mount one last Broadway success to enable his retirement is the archetype of backstage musicals.

  It glides through its runtime and offers a portrait of the entertainment business that's distinguishable to other musicals of its era, and additionally paints an uncompromising (and pre-Hays Code) tale of notoriety on the crusades and painful truths…

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  Review by Ian West ★★★½

  Charming—filled with sassiness, 30’s zingers, face slaps, wonderful costumes, and exceptionally lavish/jaw dropping dance numbers.

  Pretty sure Busby Berkeley was some kind of chaos magician.

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  Review by {Todd} ★★★★

  "Be so swell you'll make me hate you!" -Dorothy Brock,

  Dancing hardly seems worth it.

  A no-nonsense film about the price of fame and the pursuit of perfection. It's a movie that is occasionally brutal to watch because racism and sexism were just like full-fledged hobbies in the early 30s but if you can consider that in context the movie is interesting and engaging. The pacing is excellent, which makes the whole film watchable and the finale is a real marvel to witness.

  Recommended.

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  Review by Cadinho93 ★★★★½

  🎶Come and meet those dancing feet, On the avenue I'm taking you to, Forty-Second Street…🎶

  42nd Street is an absolutely, fabulously entertaining film, which set the standard for future American musicals. The film stars an ensemble cast of: Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter), Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels), Pat Denning (George Brent), Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), Billy Lawler (Dick Powell), Ann Lowell aka "Anytime Annie" (Ginger Rogers), Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbee) and Lorraine Fleming (Una Merkel). The film revolved around the rehearsals of a Broadway show at the height of the Great Depression, with its cast and crew. The film is choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Al Dubin, just like "Footlight Parade". The show stopping…

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  Review by Ethan ☔️ 1

  Busby Berkeley really said 

  
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  Review by julian ★★★★ 1

  are musicals the horniest genre of film? let's discuss

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  Review by FilmApe ★★★★ 12

  "Matrimony is bologna."

  This is my first foray into the work of Busby Berkeley, though 42nd Street is a film that Berkeley didn't direct, he only did the choreography and the staging of the dance scenes, while some other guy directed. For the most part 42nd Street is an above average movie about the behind the scenes of a musical called Pretty Lady. The acting is good, and the dialogue is quick witted, but there isn't much in the story department that makes this film anything that special. But, then the last twenty or so minutes kick off and the film is just fantastic from there on.

  The last bit of the film consists of the musical that everyone has…

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  Review by Wesley Stenzel ★★★★

  A boldly honest portrait of the entertainment industry, unafraid to show the manipulative, predatory nature of powerful men and the strength of talented women who support one another. It’s simultaneously quite dark and relatively breezy, with minor tragedies and jokes in equal measure. These early WB-Bacon-Berkeley musicals have atypical structures — they spend the first 70 minutes building toward the finale’s musical numbers, with almost no singing or dancing before the climax, which makes the already-dazzling last set piece seem even more electrifying. It feels like a quintessential behind-the-curtain movie and a quintessential musical.