1st saw this movie on TCM. I was enthralled by the spectacle of it all. Those memorable songs!! Those Hollywood sets!! The chorus & all those dancers!! The goofy story line!! Keeler & the young Dick Powell!! The whole dang movie is sheer delight!! It is a must see!! You'll be smiling, dancing & singing long after it is over..I promise!!
She was such a talent and I remember her at the Academy Awards when I was a kid in the 70's - she had wonderful stage presence! How could anyone forget her!
What a Hollywood classic! Doesn't look so bad in color, does it?! I think it's great! Ruby is so adorable! This legendary tap dance of hers has probably been the inspiration for more aspiring tap dancers over the years than any other! If an ordinary girl like Ruby could do it and become a star, so can you! Long live 42nd Street! Thanks for this clip. One of the greatest things on youtube!
This is 1932 and Ruby Keeler's dance technique was designed for Broadway. In those days without amplification the dancers really had to slam their shoes into the floor in order for the taps to heard at the back of the second balcony. The rapid change in tap dancing technique for film can be seen in the difference between Keeler and Rogers/Powell/Miller.
All those tap sounds in later movies were added in post production as that style of tap dancing didn't produce the distinct rhythm of sound required live to camera. I actually love Ruby Keelers clunky tap technique.
I just started watching a lot of classic movies for the 1st time and I came across Ruby Keeler. She's just so damn likable and charming. I'll be watching all of her movies.
I loved RUBY KEELER. Whether she looked at her feet while she danced or not, she was one of the best tap dancers of all time. Still she had something quite special. She was able to show her real self through all of her roles. She wasn't a vamp, or a sex symbol, or overly glamorous; but she had a sweet vulnerability that the audience fell in love with. She defined the quintessential 'girl next door. '
Anyone interested in seeing the whole movie should get the DVD. This piece is about twice as long. It's been cut here to remove, amongst other things, a murder. For more see the movie, it's brilliant even after 83 years.
Fayard, the elder of the Nicholas Brothers tap dancer pair, would applaud Ruby's excellent, graceful, sophisticated, refined and inventively expressive upper body gestures, especially of her velvet longgloved swanlike arms and hands.
Ruby Keeler - Star Quality - before a name was given to anyone Ruby Keeler held the title, an amazing dancer and actress, she had the "wow" factor to excite audiences to a frenzy. Movie after movie she was able to deliver the very best Hollywood had to offer. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler were Hollywood's heavy weights in the screen industry throughout the 1930's era during the Great Depression.
Anyone who daubs sickly pastels over a shimmering monochromatic design should get ten years in Leavenworth or eleven years in Twelveworth. What's next for the treatment, Durer's engravings?
Ruby will always epitomise the promising youth desperately thrust onto the stage at the last minute. That minor tear in her costume at 1.53 seems to add to the challenges she faced as she was in the spotlight. She triumphs sensationally. Bravo Ruby.
This actually was colorized in the early 80's. Ruby Keeler was a good dancer and her style was more like Irish dancing . Those clunky shoes didn't help. I met her many years ago in Palm Springs and actually had a VHS copy of the movie with me . She was shocked when I asked her to autograph it for me .
Female stage dancers always have those awful shoes with the ties across the top. Seems to be traditional for tapping. Thank god they seem to use better looking shoes now. I know they get a lot of punishment, but surely they could have looked better.
She was a stage tap dancer, and a good one. But Rita, Ginger and the others were artists, using another dimension, no doubt choreographed and staged by Astaire. PS: Ginger was in the chorus of this.
Ruby sings right bud bad, dances right but bad, taps like a hammer but she looks so pepsy while the ballet is the most wonderful moment I've ever seen on screen. For me, emotionally unsurpassable despite the ravages of time.
Thanks to this video post, I recently got a colorized dvd copy of 42nd Street (1933). What a difference, like looking at a whole new movie. And I love it!
WHAT A TERRIFIC DANCER AND THOSE OCEAN BLUE EYES WOW! THANKS RUBY HEY CAN'T 4 GET MR.BUSBY BIRKLEY WHAT A GENIUS THE MINUTE I VIEWED THIS MOVIE I PURCHASED IT.THANK U SIR. ALFREDS BABY GIRL.
LordAlmighty way can't we have more fun like this now in the depressing days on this decade 2010-2020. That is why the greatest generation is who they are, in the face of dark days, they kept on shinning on.
I was watching the Ed Sullivan show, which was always broadcast live, back in maybe 1970. Ed introduced her and had her stand and take a bow, as he often did with celebs in his audience. With Ruby was her son, whom everybody said was adopted when she was married to Al Jolson. He acknowledged the audience, too, and lemme tell you, it was as if Al came back from the dead, a perfect clone of Al.
I apologise for disagreeing. She was all those things, but also a bit cloyingly sweet. Her dancing style was, by comparison with others, ungraceful and clumsy. I don't know about technicalities, and, as the man said, I know what I like....etc...
Cute, suggestive and pounding feet "come and meet those dancing feet stompstompSTOMPSTOMP" Just a memorable song of many out of these Warner Bros. times. Love the weird angle with Keeler and Powell at the end. :)
personally, I LOVE this movie, and especially Ruby Keeler's dance. I have heard people say that Ruby Keeler was never a very good singer, dancer or actor, but I think that her dance right here proves otherwise. Quite a few actors back then didn't sing their own songs (I.E: Westside story) so I do give them credit for allowing her to sing the song herself. And as for the choreography, wow! It might not be graceful or entirely traditional but isn't that what makes the great performances great? Going against traditions and stepping outside the box. Compared to what some consider dancing these days, this is what I consider great dancing. And cudos to finding a colourized version of this! I've seen it twice in black and white, but I really like the coloured version :)
julia montgomery Two Totally different eras. This was the Era where people were still multi-talented...so I can understand the frustration. But the most important thing is that people found her entertaining, yourself included...that's what really counts!
2reeler, thanks for this coloured version of the marvelous Ruby Keeler. Julie, Ruby was fantabulous! End of story. Critics, etc., can say want they want.
+Tim Doonan The fact that she wasn't a perfect singer just makes her all the more lovable and full of character. Everytime this movies come on TCM I DVR it and fall in love all over again. That was an era of Hollywood I find so attractive, beautiful glamorous women, glitz and Art Deco everywhere, just can't beat it.
Has anyone else here quoted what Keeler told an audience at a 60's revival of the movie: "It's amazing. I couldn't act. I had that terrible singing voice, and now I can see, I wasn't the greatest tap dancer in the world either!" (And as Pauline Kael later said, apparently no one told her to stop looking at her feet while she tapped) But there's something so sweet and likable about her, isn't there? Kind of innocently obtuse and uncontrived.
There's a line in Singin' in the Rain about the character Lena Lamont. 'She can't act. She can't sing. She can't dance! She's a triple-threat!' This line was originally said about Ruby Keeler. But you're right, she does well enough to be well worth watching!
That's right (great film, of course) Gene Kelly apparently liked that line, because--I remembered this vaguely, but had to Google the specific--in an LA Times interview in '94 he reminisced about the 'old days' and said of an actress MGM was futilely trying to turn into a star and foisted on him: "...and she turned out to be a triple threat who couldn't sing, dance or act. " (Marie McDonald, for trivia lovers)
"a triple threat who couldn't sing, dance or act" sounds paradise to many after a century of studio-dictated professionalism. My, they can create a whole culture yet get it so badly wrong at times. You go girl - the studio will want to forget, we'll remember! :)
WytZox1 In the few things I've seen her in, I thought she was charming, simple, earnest and sincere. Hardly necessary to say she lacked the depth, charisma and talent of, say, Judy Garland; but from what I've read she also had a much happier, saner life after show biz.
This is an excerpt lifted from the original film and colorized. This was not shot in technicolor (the only color process available at the time.) Warner developed its own color process called Warner Color.
+cinemabon Well you're right and kinda right, and wrong. 42nd St.was not shot in color nor did it include color inserts. While it is true that all Warner Bros. films that were either all color or included color scenes from this era were shot in Technicolor, Technicolor was by no means the only color film process available. Warner bros.did not develop Warnercolor, they just put their name on the Eastmancolor process, just as MGM did with Metrocolor, Pathe with Pathecolor, Columbia with Columbiacolor, and 20th Century Fox with Deluxe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_Warner_Bros._talking_features en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_color_feature_films www.nfsa.gov.au/site_media/uploads/file/2010/09/09/NFSAJournal-Vol3-Nos2_3.pdf (page 6) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9color
The fact remains this is a colorized black and white feature. I didn't go into the history of the colorization process because that would be too wordy. But at the time this film was made, only one color process existed in Hollywood and that was Technicolor.
If you look at the list of movies produced in color for the year 1933 or 1932, 42nd Street was NOT on the list (all the movies made in Hollywood in those years). Here is the source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_color_feature_films
Kelly Brown, Sorry but you are wrong. This was filmed in glorious black and white! Turner in the beginning colorized a lot of these old movies. All the Shirley Temple movies, Laurel and Hardy etc. Then he realized his mistake.
Problem is cinemabon, and the same goes to jonel's channel, is that Wikipedia isn't a totally reliable source of factual information (it continually asks for updates), you need to back it up with facts from another source.
Thank you so very much for posting this video! I taught three of my Grandsons how to tap dance using this song. Now my daughter-in-law wants to kill me! They’re wrecking her floors!
...Keeler also played the part of an unconfident amateur actress who took the place of another actress who was injured, in case anyone hasn't seen the full movie. In all of her movies she is somewhat awkward and amateur, but in my opinion that makes her much more natural, like a real person. I equally enjoy the refined unmatched class and beauty of Ginger Rogers with Astaire. Keeler had true charm all of her own, though.
That would explain why Ruby Keeler only appeared in 12 movies, 7 shorts and 8 Broadway musicals in 11 years, before retiring early in 1941. Then, because she "was an awkward clunky dancer and was a plain Jane," she returned to Broadway 20 years later in a musical, choreographed by Hollywood legend Busby Berkeley, with nearly 900 performances.
James Cagney was one of the best hoofers. However, he was typecast as a gangster by Warner Bros. until he got his big dancing break in "Yankee Doodle Dandy." That movie garnered him his only Oscar, for Best Actor.
This is quite a fascinating find. Ruby might not have been the best singer, but she was an amazing dancer, and she had such a charming, captivating personality, that you couldn't help enjoying watching her. I found a couple of things here that were quite interesting: that the 80s referred to here was actually the 1880s, which were only fifty years before this was filmed, and that they actually used the word "sexy" in a 1930s production, which comes across as a bit shocking even considering that this film was obviously aimed at adult audiences. Still a very enjoyable clip, though!
In the heart of little old New York, You'll find a thoroughfare. It's the part of little old New York That runs into Times Square. A crazy quilt that "Wall Street Jack" built, If you've got a little time to spare, I want to take you there. Come and meet those dancing feet, On the avenue I'm taking you to... Forty-Second Street. Hear the beat of dancing feet, It's the song I love the melody of, Forty-Second Street. Little "nifties" from the Fifties, Innocent and sweet; Sexy ladies from the Eighties, Who are indiscreet. They're side by side, they're glorified Where the underworld can meet the elite, Forty-Second Street.
I TAPPED PROFESSIONALLY ALL OVER ST. LOUIS FOR 20 YEARS, 55 PERFORMANCES 1988-2008, AGE 51, TILL I BROKE MY BACK. I WAS SO DEJECTED THAT I HAD TO QUIT!!!
I'm sorry for your troubles. Obviously that's a finite occupation, with all the rugged footwork involved. The fact you lasted that long is quite a feat. Ummm...
Ruby's voice got deeper and her dancing better. Her tapping here looks like she is trying to punch holes in the floor, but by the time of ' Colleen' (1936) she is creditably keeping up with Paul Draper, who was positively aerial. For all her limitations, she never fails to overcome them with her sparkling, slightly naive yet mischievous personality. Love her look when she and Dick pull the blind down.
Betty Davis was told once what she thought about black and white film turn into color. I can't remember her exact words but I know she said they where awful... I remember seeing that interview back in the 80s not sure if it was Jony Carson . I do remember her talking about how they never get the right color of what it really was. it affected the feel of the movie.. I know she hated it. ever since I saw that interview I always think about Betty Davis sentiment towards black and white film turn into color and I agree. Its best to see in Black and white as it was meant to be seen.
Disastrous theater fires -- Chicago's Iroquis fire killed 600 in 1903 --led to the asbestos curtains which made people feel safer but were really of little help when the building had no sprinklers, no alarms, no exit signs, and fire exits that were locked to keep people from sneaking in to see the show without paying...
While some may criticize her dance style, when Fred Astaire and Hermes Pan were trying to get Paulette Goddard off a musical he was making, Astaire suggested getting Keeler....so he must have felt she had some talent....
I suspect this is an 80's Colorization as the Original film was shot in b&W but it looks like it was done reasonably well with only a few times when you can see actors faces which are still in B&W.
There's a really fun, surreal part that was edited out of the middle of this clip. If you want to see it (in the intended black and white), just search "Ruby Keeler 42nd Street".
I wonder why Jean Harlow's famous line to Chester Morris from Red headed woman was inserted at the end of this song? To let us know, perhaps that Harlow loved this number also?
I really enjoyed this. Very creative with visial surprises. Good use of color and transition from one scene to another. what's with the ASBESTOS label on the final curtain?
SDP that's non-flammable not inflammable. Curtain fires from footlights were a big deal and caused a lot of tragic theater fires. Advertising the non flammable nature was a reassurance that they were in compliance. And yes, they were gonna "set the woods on fire".
I seem to recall you once met Ruby Keeler. She appeared in the TV series "Glitter" in the '80's. Playing herself in a brief cameo appearance. To me she was and still remains "Miss Forty-Second Street".
To all the "nay sayers"; this was 1932 ! Talent, styles and even the body types have changed a Hell of a lot, since then and you are missing the point ! Busby Berkeley was a genius, known for his visionary skills. The period dictates the style and this is and was a great, fantasy escape for movie goers from the depression.
I'm in love! Unfortunately I missed this cutie by a few generations. Ruby Keeler was adorable.
Had u married her, she could be known thereafter as Ruby Keeler-Wheeler!
1st saw this movie on TCM. I was enthralled by the spectacle of it all. Those memorable songs!! Those Hollywood sets!! The chorus & all those dancers!! The goofy story line!! Keeler & the young Dick Powell!! The whole dang movie is sheer delight!! It is a must see!! You'll be smiling, dancing & singing long after it is over..I promise!!
Yes,I remember they had a season of classic films from the 30's.I so miss watching them
You would like "Footlight Parade" with Ruby and Cagney. Dancing galore. Also Busby Berkeley directed.
@@firetopman ...yes, I've seen Foootlight Parade. I have watched TCM since its inception.
She was such a talent and I remember her at the Academy Awards when I was a kid in the 70's - she had wonderful stage presence! How could anyone forget her!
She was my Grampy's cousin. Proud! :)
WOW!
Yes
@@DouglasGreenough-bh5tc 🙆💜🎶
I must be related to you then hehehe
Did you see Ruth Etting sing😅.
What a Hollywood classic! Doesn't look so bad in color, does it?! I think it's great! Ruby is so adorable! This legendary tap dance of hers has probably been the inspiration for more aspiring tap dancers over the years than any other! If an ordinary girl like Ruby could do it and become a star, so can you! Long live 42nd Street! Thanks for this clip. One of the greatest things on youtube!
❤
This is 1932 and Ruby Keeler's dance technique was designed for Broadway. In those days without amplification the dancers really had to slam their shoes into the floor in order for the taps to heard at the back of the second balcony.
The rapid change in tap dancing technique for film can be seen in the difference between Keeler and Rogers/Powell/Miller.
All those tap sounds in later movies were added in post production as that style of tap dancing didn't produce the distinct rhythm of sound required live to camera. I actually love Ruby Keelers clunky tap technique.
Absolutely MAGNIFICENT. It brought new life to the film.
I just started watching a lot of classic movies for the 1st time and I came across Ruby Keeler. She's just so damn likable and charming. I'll be watching all of her movies.
I’ve seen this movie so many times !!
Busby Berkeley was THE KING !!
Nobody else like him !!
And he could be rough on talent. For example, Judy Garland.
She was a terrific entertainer, putting her heart into every performance.
Ruby you saved the show! Hollywood at its greatest! Absolutely timeless!
My Grandfather 👴 knew her , James Cagney and George Raft from dance halls in Manhattan. He was born and raised in Greenwich Village. This is GREAT !
I loved RUBY KEELER. Whether she looked at her feet while she danced or not, she was one of the best tap dancers of all time. Still she had something quite special. She was able to show her real self through all of her roles. She wasn't a vamp, or a sex symbol, or overly glamorous; but she had a sweet vulnerability that the audience fell in love with. She defined the quintessential 'girl next door. '
Ruby Keeler was a huge, box office sensation during the Great Depression making movie after movie when many were unemployed.
I love watching her dance
One of the greatest movie tap performances ever!
i love ruby keeler. she may not have been the best tap dancer, but she had a charm, a quality about her and it worked.
Anyone interested in seeing the whole movie should get the DVD. This piece is about twice as long. It's been cut here to remove, amongst other things, a murder. For more see the movie, it's brilliant even after 83 years.
One of the earliest and best movie musicals made into a Broadway show!
Fantastic! What a great show! I love the step dance also! Great tune by the unforgotten Harry Warren! Thank You Biff for presenting such pleasure!
Fayard, the elder of the Nicholas Brothers tap dancer pair, would applaud Ruby's excellent, graceful, sophisticated, refined and inventively expressive upper body gestures, especially of her velvet longgloved swanlike arms and hands.
Love it ! My mother used to talk about her with great admiration
just a few years after her the greatest ever eleanor powell
I agree with you. Eleanor Powell the greatest tap dancer ever!
Ruby Keeler - Star Quality - before a name was given to anyone Ruby Keeler held the title, an amazing dancer and actress, she had the "wow" factor to excite audiences to a frenzy. Movie after movie she was able to deliver the very best Hollywood had to offer. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler were Hollywood's heavy weights in the screen industry throughout the 1930's era during the Great Depression.
Every time I hear this song especially when it is sung by miss Ruby Keeler I just want to tap my way down the street!
Love it when Ruby turns sideways and tap/shuffles! Cute as a button!
I like it! The colorized versions give the old movies a breath of fresh air. Art can be black and white but life happens in color.
Anyone who daubs sickly pastels over a shimmering monochromatic design should get ten years in Leavenworth or eleven years in Twelveworth.
What's next for the treatment, Durer's engravings?
Everything that Ruby Keeler did in this clip was so clunky but it was magnificent.....she gave it her all.
Ruby will always epitomise the promising youth desperately thrust onto the stage at the last minute. That minor tear in her costume at 1.53 seems to add to the challenges she faced as she was in the spotlight. She triumphs sensationally. Bravo Ruby.
Gorgeous is Ruby, give me the natural beauty any day of the week over the Ginger Rogers type. Disclaimer G.R. was awesome too.
This actually was colorized in the early 80's. Ruby Keeler was a good dancer and her style was more like Irish dancing . Those clunky shoes didn't help. I met her many years ago in Palm Springs and actually had a VHS copy of the movie with me . She was shocked when I asked her to autograph it for me .
That's an awesome story
Female stage dancers always have those awful shoes with the ties across the top. Seems to be traditional for tapping. Thank god they seem to use better looking shoes now. I know they get a lot of punishment, but surely they could have looked better.
Yeah they should have used less clunky shoes..she was pretty good but I think Rita Hayworth and Ginger Rogers are my favorites......
She was a stage tap dancer, and a good one. But Rita, Ginger and the others were artists, using another dimension, no doubt choreographed and staged by Astaire.
PS: Ginger was in the chorus of this.
Rita Hayworth was a great Dancer no doubt so was Ginger, But you got to include Ann Miller and Eleanor Powell.
From the beginning this film moves at breakneck speed, one of my favorites.
Ruby sings right bud bad, dances right but bad, taps like a hammer but she looks so pepsy while the ballet is the most wonderful moment I've ever seen on screen. For me, emotionally unsurpassable despite the ravages of time.
I agree!
Tapping was meant to be heard way up to the top of the cheap seats ...
This clip is a true gem... I'm so glad I found it.
She was one of a kind. Very talented tapper 🥰
I CAN NOT GET ENOUGH OF THIS! I LOVE IT!
Thanks to this video post, I recently got a colorized dvd copy of 42nd Street (1933). What a difference, like looking at a whole new movie. And I love it!
WHAT A TERRIFIC DANCER AND THOSE OCEAN BLUE EYES WOW! THANKS RUBY HEY CAN'T 4 GET MR.BUSBY BIRKLEY WHAT A GENIUS THE MINUTE I VIEWED THIS MOVIE I PURCHASED IT.THANK U SIR. ALFREDS BABY GIRL.
LordAlmighty way can't we have more fun like this now in the depressing days on this decade 2010-2020. That is why the greatest generation is who they are, in the face of dark days, they kept on shinning on.
I totally agree with you!
All the films out now seem to be about shooting & killing.
You've got that right.
.... Where the Underworld can meet the Elite, 42nd Street...
Sounds violent to me
compared to our world right now now the 2010s were good times 🫣
I was watching the Ed Sullivan show, which was always broadcast live, back in maybe 1970. Ed introduced her and had her stand and take a bow, as he often did with celebs in his audience. With Ruby was her son, whom everybody said was adopted when she was married to Al Jolson. He acknowledged the audience, too, and lemme tell you, it was as if Al came back from the dead, a perfect clone of Al.
Magnificent! An absolute delight! Thank you so much, 2reeler!
LOVE The Asbestos curtain!!!!
This is such a great movie
She's such a cutie pie
Stunning - absolutely loved it !!
Jean Harlow's voice at the end: "Do it again! I like it!!!"
DANIELE MOURA I thought that was Clara Bow's voice.
Nope, that is Jean from the film "Red Headed Woman" 1932, she is telling Chester Morris to slap her again.
I always saw Ruby’s signature tune dancing as a buck dance style……….combination tap/clog. 🤙 3
OMG! THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORIT MOVIES EVER!
She's so lovable!
some below pick apart the technicalities but she came across very warm and human onscreen,very natural and in the moment..Ruby was great
I apologise for disagreeing. She was all those things, but also a bit cloyingly sweet. Her dancing style was, by comparison with others, ungraceful and clumsy. I don't know about technicalities, and, as the man said, I know what I like....etc...
Not a great dancer and a mediocre singer but she had bundles of charm.
Just adding color makes it seem more immersive!
this is the cutest thing in history
Cute, suggestive and pounding feet "come and meet those dancing feet stompstompSTOMPSTOMP" Just a memorable song of many out of these Warner Bros. times. Love the weird angle with Keeler and Powell at the end. :)
personally, I LOVE this movie, and especially Ruby Keeler's dance. I have heard people say that Ruby Keeler was never a very good singer, dancer or actor, but I think that her dance right here proves otherwise. Quite a few actors back then didn't sing their own songs (I.E: Westside story) so I do give them credit for allowing her to sing the song herself. And as for the choreography, wow! It might not be graceful or entirely traditional but isn't that what makes the great performances great? Going against traditions and stepping outside the box. Compared to what some consider dancing these days, this is what I consider great dancing. And cudos to finding a colourized version of this! I've seen it twice in black and white, but I really like the coloured version :)
She was a hard worker. She started at age 13. God bless her.
Bob Knob well heck Elsie Janis started at 2 and she was a female actress and vaudevillian in her day
julia montgomery Two Totally different eras. This was the Era where people were still multi-talented...so I can understand the frustration. But the most important thing is that people found her entertaining, yourself included...that's what really counts!
I love this number and I think Ruby Keeler was fantastic! I don't know why some people put her down, she had charm and talent.
2reeler, thanks for this coloured version of the marvelous Ruby Keeler. Julie, Ruby was fantabulous! End of story. Critics, etc., can say want they want.
Super Sweet Ruby - Not the best singer but a fine dancer and, above all, the best smile in the 1930's Hollywood.
+Tim Doonan The fact that she wasn't a perfect singer just makes her all the more lovable and full of character. Everytime this movies come on TCM I DVR it and fall in love all over again. That was an era of Hollywood I find so attractive, beautiful glamorous women, glitz and Art Deco everywhere, just can't beat it.
SDpickups, I couldn't agree more with everything you just said
@@SDPickups words I could never find, but perfect summarization.
Has anyone else here quoted what Keeler told an audience at a 60's revival of the movie: "It's amazing. I couldn't act. I had that terrible singing voice, and now I can see, I wasn't the greatest tap dancer in the world either!" (And as Pauline Kael later said, apparently no one told her to stop looking at her feet while she tapped)
But there's something so sweet and likable about her, isn't there? Kind of innocently obtuse and uncontrived.
There's a line in Singin' in the Rain about the character Lena Lamont. 'She can't act. She can't sing. She can't dance! She's a triple-threat!' This line was originally said about Ruby Keeler. But you're right, she does well enough to be well worth watching!
That's right (great film, of course) Gene Kelly apparently liked that line, because--I remembered this vaguely, but had to Google the specific--in an LA Times interview in '94 he reminisced about the 'old days' and said of an actress MGM was futilely trying to turn into a star and foisted on him: "...and she turned out to be a triple threat who couldn't sing, dance or act. " (Marie McDonald, for trivia lovers)
"a triple threat who couldn't sing, dance or act" sounds paradise to many after a century of studio-dictated professionalism. My, they can create a whole culture yet get it so badly wrong at times. You go girl - the studio will want to forget, we'll remember! :)
True humility. Perhaps not the greatest yet still good at what she did. ☺
WytZox1 In the few things I've seen her in, I thought she was charming, simple, earnest and sincere. Hardly necessary to say she lacked the depth, charisma and talent of, say, Judy Garland; but from what I've read she also had a much happier, saner life after show biz.
This is an excerpt lifted from the original film and colorized. This was not shot in technicolor (the only color process available at the time.) Warner developed its own color process called Warner Color.
+cinemabon Well you're right and kinda right, and wrong. 42nd St.was not shot in color nor did it include color inserts. While it is true that all Warner Bros. films that were either all color or included color scenes from this era were shot in Technicolor, Technicolor was by no means the only color film process available. Warner bros.did not develop Warnercolor, they just put their name on the Eastmancolor process, just as MGM did with Metrocolor, Pathe with Pathecolor, Columbia with Columbiacolor, and 20th Century Fox with Deluxe.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_Warner_Bros._talking_features
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_color_feature_films
www.nfsa.gov.au/site_media/uploads/file/2010/09/09/NFSAJournal-Vol3-Nos2_3.pdf (page 6)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9color
The fact remains this is a colorized black and white feature. I didn't go into the history of the colorization process because that would be too wordy. But at the time this film was made, only one color process existed in Hollywood and that was Technicolor.
If you look at the list of movies produced in color for the year 1933 or 1932, 42nd Street was NOT on the list (all the movies made in Hollywood in those years). Here is the source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_color_feature_films
Kelly Brown, Sorry but you are wrong. This was filmed in glorious black and white! Turner in the beginning colorized a lot of these old movies. All the Shirley Temple movies, Laurel and Hardy etc. Then he realized his mistake.
Problem is cinemabon, and the same goes to jonel's channel, is that Wikipedia isn't a totally reliable source of factual information (it continually asks for updates), you need to back it up with facts from another source.
Thank you so much for posting this. I enjoyed it immensely.
Superb Ruby Keeler.
Saw Ruby Keeler when she was older and played in the musical, No, No, Nanette. It was in Philadelphia on Chestnut Street back in the 1970's.
Ruby is awesome.
Love this! I'm from the wrong era!
This is from a colorized version of 42nd Street that was made in the 60's. They only show the black and white version now because it is authentic.
Thank you so very much for posting this video! I taught three of my Grandsons how to tap dance using this song. Now my daughter-in-law wants to kill me! They’re wrecking her floors!
...Keeler also played the part of an unconfident amateur actress who took the place of another actress who was injured, in case anyone hasn't seen the full movie. In all of her movies she is somewhat awkward and amateur, but in my opinion that makes her much more natural, like a real person. I equally enjoy the refined unmatched class and beauty of Ginger Rogers with Astaire. Keeler had true charm all of her own, though.
But in her films Ruby's shucks-folks awk act suited her characters. As 42nd Street's Peggy, "who, ME?!"
Love pre-code Hollywood. Thanks!
god bless this wonderful woman
She's my great-great-great aunt.
WONDERFUL! thanks love it in color Ruby was so talented.
Ruby is a charm!!!!
It's still a great movie!
I can stand Keeler in this. She sounds like she's going to cry at any moment when she sings.
That would explain why Ruby Keeler only appeared in 12 movies, 7 shorts and 8 Broadway musicals in 11 years, before retiring early in 1941. Then, because she "was an awkward clunky dancer and was a plain Jane," she returned to Broadway 20 years later in a musical, choreographed by Hollywood legend Busby Berkeley, with nearly 900 performances.
She's so cute. They used to call girls who danced in that style "hoofers."
Anyone who tap danced were called hoofer
James Cagney was one of the best hoofers. However, he was typecast as a gangster by Warner Bros. until he got his big dancing break in "Yankee Doodle Dandy." That movie garnered him his only Oscar, for Best Actor.
And that dance down the steps at the White House in "Yankee" was a Cagney adlib! It was NOT in the script.
She is very cute. Great stage presence
love that style of tap, dead from the waist up
Wow! This is great.
they cut out the barbershop and the shooting scene in this rendition.
This is quite a fascinating find. Ruby might not have been the best singer, but she was an amazing dancer, and she had such a charming, captivating personality, that you couldn't help enjoying watching her. I found a couple of things here that were quite interesting: that the 80s referred to here was actually the 1880s, which were only fifty years before this was filmed, and that they actually used the word "sexy" in a 1930s production, which comes across as a bit shocking even considering that this film was obviously aimed at adult audiences. Still a very enjoyable clip, though!
No, the eighties means the block of streets in Manhattan. The fifties, same thing. Hence "42nd Street."
❤ Ruby and Ruth.
In the heart of little old New York,
You'll find a thoroughfare.
It's the part of little old New York
That runs into Times Square.
A crazy quilt that "Wall Street Jack" built,
If you've got a little time to spare,
I want to take you there.
Come and meet those dancing feet,
On the avenue I'm taking you to...
Forty-Second Street.
Hear the beat of dancing feet,
It's the song I love the melody of,
Forty-Second Street.
Little "nifties" from the Fifties,
Innocent and sweet;
Sexy ladies from the Eighties,
Who are indiscreet.
They're side by side, they're glorified
Where the underworld can meet the elite,
Forty-Second Street.
Thank you for the lyrics post.
I TAPPED PROFESSIONALLY ALL OVER ST. LOUIS FOR 20 YEARS, 55 PERFORMANCES 1988-2008, AGE 51, TILL I BROKE MY BACK. I WAS SO DEJECTED THAT I HAD TO QUIT!!!
I'm sorry for your troubles. Obviously that's a finite occupation, with all the rugged footwork involved. The fact you lasted that long is quite a feat. Ummm...
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Just heard an 80's interview of Ms Keeler... I was shocked .... She has a really deep voice! I liked it though- :-)
Ruby's voice got deeper and her dancing better. Her tapping here looks like she is trying to punch holes in the floor, but by the time of ' Colleen' (1936) she is creditably keeping up with Paul Draper, who was positively aerial.
For all her limitations, she never fails to overcome them with her sparkling, slightly naive yet mischievous personality. Love her look when she and Dick pull the blind down.
Betty Davis was told once what she thought about black and white film turn into color. I can't remember her exact words but I know she said they where awful... I remember seeing that interview back in the 80s not sure if it was Jony Carson . I do remember her talking about how they never get the right color of what it really was. it affected the feel of the movie.. I know she hated it. ever since I saw that interview I always think about Betty Davis sentiment towards black and white film turn into color and I agree. Its best to see in Black and white as it was meant to be seen.
Wow! What a set of legs.
Leave it to a man to reduce a woman to body parts.
I wasn't expecting the asbestos sign at the end 😂
Wow, tap dancing looks easy, but its probably not! Ruby Keeler really knows how to tap her shoes! :)
Absolutely...She was cute with charisma and boy could she tap. I guess you could say that she had "IT" --- what true stars are made of.
Disastrous theater fires -- Chicago's Iroquis fire killed 600 in 1903 --led to the asbestos curtains which made people feel safer but were really of little help when the building had no sprinklers, no alarms, no exit signs, and fire exits that were locked to keep people from sneaking in to see the show without paying...
While some may criticize her dance style, when Fred Astaire and Hermes Pan were trying to get Paulette Goddard off a musical he was making, Astaire suggested getting Keeler....so he must have felt she had some talent....
I suspect this is an 80's Colorization as the Original film was shot in b&W but it looks like it was done reasonably well with only a few times when you can see actors faces which are still in B&W.
There's a really fun, surreal part that was edited out of the middle of this clip. If you want to see it (in the intended black and white), just search "Ruby Keeler 42nd Street".
To me she seems to be mixing a bit of clog dancing with tap---very earthy and cute
I wonder why Jean Harlow's famous line to Chester Morris from Red headed woman was inserted at the end of this song? To let us know, perhaps that Harlow loved this number also?
It's to coax you into running the video again a second time!
Love this number!!!!
I really enjoyed this. Very creative with visial surprises. Good use of color and transition from one scene to another. what's with the ASBESTOS label on the final curtain?
+Steve Digby Asbestos, thats a fire curtain, as I remember they were inflammable curtains to protect against fires.
SDPickups it's cause they are so "hot"
SDP that's non-flammable not inflammable.
Curtain fires from footlights were a big deal and caused a lot of tragic theater fires. Advertising the non flammable nature was a reassurance that they were in compliance.
And yes, they were gonna "set the woods on fire".
I'm so glad the colorization of black and white movies didn't catch on. I love black and white movies.
EXCELLENT! Enjoyed, thanks
1:06 That move is sick.
That's style.
I seem to recall you once met Ruby Keeler. She appeared in the TV series "Glitter" in the '80's. Playing herself in a brief cameo appearance.
To me she was and still remains "Miss Forty-Second Street".
I really like Ruby’s dance style it’s not as graceful as the tapping we see later on but there’s something so Charming about it
If it were't for UA-cam many of these old gems would never be seen by most of us. Thank you, UA-cam, but do you need so many, many adverts?
2:00💛'it🎈.
To all the "nay sayers"; this was 1932 ! Talent, styles and even the body types have changed a Hell of a lot, since then and you are missing the point !
Busby Berkeley was a genius, known for his visionary skills. The period dictates the style and this is and was a great, fantasy escape for movie goers from the depression.