The Road to Stardom Starts at 42nd Street as Well

Oh. My. God.

42nd Street is the first Busby Berkeley musical I've seen and it is as addictive as anything. I can't resist watching and rewatching that scene in which little Ruby Keeler sings the title song. Or for that matter, watching and rewatching the big dance number that follows that song. Or for that matter, watching and rewatching the really really really BIG dance number that follows that number. And here I was thinking that I could never see myself ever voluntarily watching a Busby Berkeley musical.

Maybe it's the “old and quaint” element that works for it, but then Shirley Temple movies are old and quaint and I get the heebies jeebies just thinking about watching one of them.

So what makes this so addictive for me?

Could it be the delightful tap dancing of little Ruby Keeler?

The equally delightful performance of a pre-Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers?

The shamelessly over-the-top choreography of the aforementioned Busby Berkeley?

That silly Irish accent used by Dick Powell toward the end of the movie?

Or that final melancholy scene toward the end in which director Julian Marsh (played by Warner Baxter), having worked his heart out to produce one last success and having delivered that most classic of lines about Peggy Sawyer (the Ruby Keeler character) going out a youngster and coming back a star, hangs out backstage to “enjoy” his success in a way that makes All That Jazz's Joe Gideon seem like a happy-go-lucky person?

Whatever the reason, it seems obvious why this picture went on to become successful enough back in 1933 to financially rescue the studio that made it.

And why writer John Sayles had his character Polly Franklin adoring this movie in his 1979 gangster film The Lady in Red.

All movie musicals should be this good.