Welcome to 42nd Street, where everyone wants to either be or do Miss Margret Sawyer.

Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), a fresh new face to the industry, is nervous for her very first audition and is immediately bullied after the mean girls smell the fear radiating off of her.  This leads to an awkward encounter between Peggy and the up-and-coming male lead Billy Lawler (Dick Powell) where she barges into his dressing room while he was in his underwear.  Billy, sporting the biggest heart eyes, escorts her to the stage to point out the director.  Lorraine and Ann decide to take pity on Peggy and let this skittish woman under their wings.  After it has been confirmed by the men in the room that the women have excellent legs, the trio officially gets hired (with a special second endorsement by Billy).  After signing the contracts, the rigorous rehearsal process commences.

Much like Ruby’s character Peggy, this was Ruby Keeler’s first film, although she was not a stranger to the stage.  She was married to Al Jolson at the time she made this film – they met in Los Angeles when she was asked to help promote The Jazz Singer.  She was 19 at the time and he was 42 (although this article in The Reading Eagle said he was 45, which is only a few years younger than Ruby’s father, so that’s neat).  To make this even more icky, when asked about his third wife Al said, “Ruby Keeler is an adorable kid.  If there is a sweeter child in the world I haven’t met her.”  Cool.  Cool cool cool.  They starred opposite each other in Go Into Your Dance, and as much as I would love to watch that nightmare unfold, I’m just going to assume it’s just as creepy as watching Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby kiss and leave it alone.  They were married for about 12 years before she finally divorced him, remarried, and left show business.  Can’t imagine why she might not have been able to get a gig after divorcing a titan of the industry… Ahem.  Out of the constant spotlight, she started a family, opened a dance studio, and after her husband’s death in 1969 made her return to the stage in a Busby Berkeley “supervised” production of No, No, Nanette.

While she was making pictures Ruby mostly starred opposite of Dick Powell, with several of them also choreographed by Busby Berkeley, which only proves if it works once, Hollywood will beat the concept into the ground until nobody wants to see musical movies anymore.  One of her other famous co-stars, James Cagney, later went on to star as Ruby’s first boss George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy.  She worked on one of Cohan’s shows, The Rise of Rosie O’Reilly, when she was only 13. 42nd Street is less focused on Ruby’s dancing, but instead allows Ruby’s acting to shine – at least the part of her range where she’s encouraging men to take her on dates.

While Billy is battling actual dancer Terry for Peggy’s attention, we discover that is not the only blooming romance behind the scenes.  Dotty has a secret lover, her former Vaudeville partner Pat Denning.  They have to hide their relationship from Big Abner so as not to jeopardize her starring position in the show, which leads to all kinds of creative ways to sneak around and meet in dark corners. 

In one particular instance, Pat is loitering outside the theater hoping to catch Dorothy on her way out the door when instead Peggy is dumped in his lap after she fainted during run-throughs and chucked outside by the crew to get some air.  With Miss Brock preoccupied with making her sugar daddy happy, Pat and Peggy go on a date since we need more people fawning over the ingénue.  After a series of unfortunate events that starts with Pat getting decked in the face and ends with Peggy getting evicted from her apartment, the two of them wander back to Pat’s bougie nest funded by his secret girlfriend.  Although there are a few amorous close calls, they keep their distance from one another and the next morning Pat decides he’d rather start off his career somewhere else instead of forever being forced to live in Dorothy’s shadow.  Dot takes the break up in stride since she only had herself to blame for the position they were in, and Pat heads to Philadelphia to strike it out on his own.

The closer “Pretty Lady” approaches its opening date, the more Dottie’s cracks start to show.  The first blow was discovering the show would be opening in Philadelphia, the new home of her ex lover, instead of Atlantic City.  The second is seeing said ex get into a car with chorus girl Peggy (although Dot’s unaware he’s escorting Peggy to a date with Terry).  During the pre-opening night party, Dot gets drunk and tells off Abner making it very clear she doesn’t want to touch his penis anymore.  Abner gets pissed and huffs himself off to the Director’s hotel room in an effort to get Dot removed from the show lest he withdraw his 70k worth of capital.  Julian talks him down on the promise Dot will apologize for her behavior that night.

Little does he know Dot, in a moment of weakness, called Pat and asked him to come over. Peggy, after blowing off Terry for being too handsy, witnesses Pat walk into Dot’s room with the producers discovering the same thing. She tries to warn Pat shit’s about to go down, but Dot, drunk and in a fit of jealousy, tries to come at Peg and trips and breaks her ankle. Now truly out of the show, Julian is left with a production that opens the next morning without funding and a leading lady.

Anytime Annie, noticing a hole where a sugar baby should be, cozies up to Abner and convinces him to continue to fund the show but with her as the lead. When they present the plan to Julian, Annie comes clean, admitting she doesn’t have star power, but she knows who does… Peggy Sawyer. He agrees to rapid-fire train Peggy since he has no other option, musing, “I’ll either have a live leading lady or a dead chorus girl.” After 5 hours Mr. Marsh deems Peggy “fine” as the show must go on.

Continuing the “Everything Goes Right for Peggy” streak, right before the show Billy admits his feelings for Peggy, and Dot gives her blessing as she bows out of show business and runs away to get married to Pat. With the fate of the entire company behind her, Peggy takes the stage in the first kitschy number, “Shuffle Off to Buffalo”.

This was a signature of Mr. Berkeley, and even if you don’t recognize his name, you’ll recognize his work as the prime example of Pre-Code Hollywood musicals.  Even a scene from Footlight Parade was included in “The Great Movie Ride” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (before it was replaced by some Mickey & Minnie thing because every ride needs to be part of Disney’s vertical integration initiative, but I digress).  From The Muppets to Campbells and Burger King, inspiration from Busby’s work can be seen in the strangest places even today.  By all accounts his personal life was a mess and while working the dancers struggled to live up to his vision because it was expensive and uncompromisable.  But he did get results, however odd they may be.