Happy New Year! This week's revival film: 42ND STREET (1933)
SHOW TIMES: Saturday, January 2 - Noon ($6); Monday, January 4 - 7 PM ($8); Thursday, January 7 - 9 PM ($8).
42ND STREET 1933 Dir. Lloyd Bacon. Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, , George Brent, Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Ginger Rogers. Choreography by Busby Berkeley. 89m. bw. 35mm.
"42ND STREET's charm and fascination lie in director Bacon's fast-paced and vivid backstage atmosphere, crammed with exhausted chorus kids and sudden hysterics. The great cast is in fine fettle....The real star, though, is the master of kaleidoscopic imagery, Busby Berkeley. Backed by the ebullient songs of Harry Warren and Al Dubin, Buzz unleashed his startling creations on an escapism-hungry public. The dizzying combination of sexuality and abstraction in such numbers as "Young and Healthy," "Shuffle Off to Buffalo," and the title tune remains potent to this day. A film that returned it's $400,000 investment ten times over, inspired dozens of imitations and a Broadway reprise in the 1970s, 42ND STREET, "that avenue I'm takin' you to," remains hard to beat." -- TV Guide
