Apart from saving Warner Bros. the movie revolutionised screen dance by choreographing the camera as well as the dancers, with shots taken from scaffolding and even the studio roof to achieve the kaleidoscopic effects of the dancers below.  All of this was down to the supreme genius of Broadway choreographer Busby Berkeley.  Halliwell wrote that Berkeley’s innovative style…

‘…came to full flower in the Warner musicals which brought to the fore stars like Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell, filling the years from 1933 to 1937 with such shows as Footlight Parade, Forty-Second Street, Dames, Wonder Bar, Flirtation Walk and the annual Gold Digger comedies.’

Forty-Second Street was also the first musical for which the numbers were pre-recorded, so that the actors could concentrate on the dance movements during filming.  Nearly fifty years later a theatrical version of the story ran on Broadway and in the West End.

Halliwell’s dedication to Berkeley, in the Filmgoer’s Companion, went thus:

‘For pushing to the limit the decorative possibilities of chorus girls, grand pianos, and optical processes.’

Year: 1933