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Film 42nd Street (1933)

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We tend to think of Depression-era musicals as assembly-manufactured escapism. But like most of Busby Berkeley's early-Warner Bros. triumphs, 42nd Street's toe-tapping ditties take a back seat to Berkeley and director Lloyd Bacon's nasty social critique and exaggerated cinematic gusto. The canted angles, stylized sets, and high-contrast photography have more in common with German expressionism than anything in Ziegfeld Follies. If the characters seem a little contrived (Warner Baxter's megalomaniac director returning for one last hurrah, Ruby Keeler's young understudy thrust into the spotlight), it's only because 42nd Street made them as indespensible as singing and dancing.

– Stephen Gossett

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