42nd Street (1933).

42nd Street(1933). A Warner Bros. musical film directed by Lloyd Bacon with choreography by Busby Berkeley. The songs were written by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics). 42nd Street was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1934.

Broadway director Julian Marsh, ignores his weak heart, because he really wants to direct the new musical, "Pretty Lady" with producers Jones and Barry.

The leading lady, Dorothy Brock, has been already cast by her "sugar daddy" Abner Dillon. In a casting call, Marsh and his stage manager, Andy Lee, audition the dancers, choosing: Lee's girlfriend Loraine Fleming, a gold digger nick-named "Anytime Annie" and Peggy Sawyer.

Billy Lawler, falls in love with Peggy, but she has eyes for Pat Denning, Dorothy's lover and ex-partner.

Pat is getting tired of Dorothy's acting career and leaves for Philadelphia to live his own life. During the cast party.. Dorothy gets drunk, fights with Pat and sprains her ankle.

The next evening, Peggy goes in her place and becomes a overnight star.

Now.. she realizes that she really does love Billy, just as Dorothy admits that what she really wants is to retire and marry Pat.

This is a really charming musical with a top notch cast. One of my favorite scenes is during a drunken cast party the night before the musical opens. I also love the musical number..."Young and Healthy" with Powell running around in his underwear.

 

Bebe Daniels (January 14, 1901 - March 16, 1971) made over 230 films. Daniels father was a theater manager and her mother a stage actress.

The family moved to Los Angeles, California and she began her acting career at the age of four in, The Squaw Man. That same year she also went on tour in a stage production of, Shakespeare's Richard III.

The following year she participated in productions by Morosooa and David Belasco. By the age of seven Daniels had her first starring role in, A Common Enemy.

At the age of nine she starred as Dorothy Gale in the 1910 short film, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

At the age of fourteen she starred opposite film comedian Harold Lloyd in a series of Lonesome Luke two-reel comedies starting with the 1915 film, Giving Them Fits. The two began a romantic relationship and were known in Hollywood as... "The Boy" and "The Girl."

In 1919, she accepted a contract offering from Cecil B. DeMille, who gave her secondary roles in such films as: Male and Female (1919), Why Change Your Wife? (1920), and The Affairs of Anatol (1921).

In the 1920's, Daniels was under contract with Paramount Pictures. She became an adult star by 1922 and by 1924 was playing opposite Rudolph Valentino in, Monsieur Beaucaire.

Following this she was cast in: Miss Bluebeard, The Manicure Girl, and Wild Wild Susan. Paramount dropped her contract with the advent of talking pictures.

Daniels was hired by Radio Pictures (later known as RKO) to star in one of their biggest productions of the year. She also starred in the 1929 talkie Rio Rita. It was one of the most successful films of that year and Bebe Daniels found herself a star and RCA Victor hired her to record several records for their catalog.

As did many stars of her day, she used the therapeutic services of Sylvia of Hollywood to stay in shape.

Radio Pictures starred her in a number of musicals including: Dixiana (1930) and Love Comes Along (1930).

Towards the end of 1930's, Bebe Daniels appeared in the musical comedy, Reaching for the Moon. However, by this time musicals had gone out of fashion so that most of the musical numbers from the film had to be removed before it could be released. Daniels had become associated with musicals and so Radio Pictures did not renew her contract.

Warner Brothers realized what a box office draw she was and offered her a contract which she accepted. During her years at Warner Brothers she starred in: My Past (1931), Honor of the Family (1931) and the 1931 pre-code version of The Maltese Falcon.

In 1932, she appeared in, Silver Dollar (1932) and Busby Berkeley's choreographed musical comedy 42nd Street (1933) in which she sang. That same year she played opposite John Barrymore in, Counsellor at Law.

Her last film for the Warner Brothers was Registered Nurse (1934).

She retired from Hollywood in 1935. With her husband, film actor Ben Lyon, whom she married in 1930 and moved to London.

A few years later, Daniels starred in the London production of, Panama Hattie in the title role originated by Ethel Merman.

The Lyons then did radio shows for the BBC. Most notably, the series Hi Gang!, continuing for decades and enjoying considerable popularity during World War II. Daniels wrote most of the dialogue for the Hi Gang radio show. The couple remained through the days of the The Blitz. Following the war, Daniels was awarded the Medal of Freedom by Harry S. Truman for war service.

In 1945 she returned to Hollywood for a short time to work as a film producer for Hal Roach and Eagle-Lion Films.

She returned to the UK in 1948 and lived there for the remainder of her life.

Daniels, her husband, her son Richard and her daughter Barbara all starred in the radio sitcom Life With The Lyons (1951 to 1961), which later made the transition to television.

Pawsome Pet Pictures: Bebe Daniels.

Personal Quotes:

 "All during the war, we kept saying, Ben and I, that when it was over, we'd come back to Hollywood. But now we've been here, and we just have to be honest, this is no longer home. Home's back in London, because we went through the bombings with them."

Silent Actress: Bebe Daniels.

Bebe Daniels (January 14, 1901 – March 16, 1971). Had already performed as a actor by the age of four in a stage production of Richard III. In the US, she had her first leading role at the age of seven and started her film career in movies for, Imperial and Pathe. At 14 she was hired by Hal Roach to star as Harold Lloyd's leading lady in his "Lonesome Luke" shorts. Lloyd, seriously considered marrying her, but.. she wanted a film career and they remained lifelong friends. Unlike.. many actors of her era, the arrival of sound was no problem for her. She had a beautiful singing voice and performed in the films:

Rio Rita (1929). Musical/comedy starring Bebe Daniels and John Boles along with the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey. The film is based on the 1927 stage musical produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, which originally united Wheeler and Woolsey as a team and made them famous. The film was the biggest and most expensive RKO production of 1929, but it was also the studio's biggest box office hit until King Kong (1933). Its finale was photographed in two-strip Technicolor. Rio Rita was chosen as one of the ten best films of 1929 by Film Daily.

My favorite Bebe Daniels film, 42nd Street(1933). Musical, directed by Lloyd Bacon with choreography by Busby Berkeley. The songs were written by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics), and the script was written by Rian James and James Seymour, with Whitney Bolton (uncredited), from the novel by Bradford Ropes. 42nd Street was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1934.

The story begins during the early days of the Depression, Broadway producers Jones and Barry put on a musical starring, Dorothy Brock. Her "sugar daddy," Abner Dillon is sponsoring the show and behind his back she dating the out of work actor, Pat Denning.

Julian Marsh, is hired to direct, But Marsh is broke as a result of the Stock Market Crash. Marsh, now must make his last show a major hit if he is to have enough money to retire on.

Cast selection and rehearsals begin and newcomer Peggy Sawyer, is dumped until, Lorraine Fleming takes her under her wing.

Rehearsals, continue for five weeks, until the night before the shows opening, when Brock breaks her ankle. Abner Dillon, wants Marsh to cast Ann Lowell, as the star. Annie does not feel ready to perform, but tells Marsh that Peggy Sawyer is.

Marsh rehearses Sawyer, until an hour before curtain time and the show is on with three Busby Berkeley numbers: Shuffle Off to Buffalo, I'm Young and Healthy, and the title song 42nd Street. The show is a success.

Fun Facts:

42nd Street's success permitted a higher budget and more elaborate production numbers in Warner's follow-up film to this one, Footlight Parade.

Her second cousin, Dr. Lee De Forest, "the father of sound", frequented the set of Rio Rita (1929) while she rehearsed. He was instrumental in improving the sound quality of the early talkies and significantly helped her career through his technical expertise.

While making a personal appearance at a Chicago hotel, several thousand dollars' worth of jewelry was stolen from Daniels' hotel room. Gangster Al Capone, a longtime Daniels fan, heard about it and put out the word that whoever stole the jewelry had 24 hours to return it "or else." The jewelry was returned the next day.

Daughter of actress Phyllis Daniels.

Her film The Speed Girl (1921) was made to capitalize on her ten-day jail sentence for multiple speeding tickets. The movie's poster shows her walking out of a jail cell.

Video: Bebe Daniels rehearses the number "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me" from the 1933 Busby Berkeley classic film 42nd Street.

WHY CHANGE YOUR WIFE? (1920) Gloria Swanson

"Why Change Your Wife?" (1920) is my favorite of the romantic comedies that Cecil B. DeMille directed with Gloria Swanson as the star. In this film, Swanson plays Beth Gordon and Thomas Meighan plays Robert Gordon, a married couple who have begun to grow apart. Robert is growing tired of Beth putting down his ways, which include his extravagant wine cellar, his smoking, and his love for his dog. Beth prefers classical music to his fox trots and rejects his advances. Robert wants fun and romance so he goes to "Le Maison Chic," a dress shop, to purchase Beth a negligee to spice up the marriage. While Robert is at the dress shop, one of the models, Sally Clark, played by Bebe Daniels, sets her eyes on him. When Beth ignores Robert's gift he becomes depressed. The next day Sally shows up in Robert's office with a missing article from his previous day's purchase. Robert had just been turned down by Beth for a night on the town minutes before Sally's arrival. He takes Sally out instead and finds out they have much in common. Eventually, Robert divorces his stern wife and marries Sally. After a few months, Robert learns that Sally is not all that he thought her to be and feels trapped in a loveless marriage. Can Robert ever be happily married? You will have to watch the film to find out. "Why Change Your Wife?" is somewhat of a sequel to "Don't Change Your Husband" but it is more entertaining. There are so many funny moments in this film. In the first scenes the viewer is introduced to Robert shaving and Beth getting dressed in the bathroom. While Robert shaves, Beth nags him into buttoning the back of her dress. Both of them are amusing as they frustrate each other. These bathroom scenes became a Swanson/DeMille trademark. Another comical scene is when after the divorce Beth overhears two women gossiping about her wardrobe in the next changing room at the dress shop. She decides to get rid of her frumpy clothes and instructs the dressmaker to give her something "sleeveless, backless, transparent, and indecent."

My favorite scene is when Robert and Beth end up at the same Atlantic City resort where Beth is trying out her new stylish appearance. Viewers today should take a look at the 1920's style bathing suits which were considered daring for their day. "Why Change Your Wife?"is really about three things: sex, women, and clothes. It seems that Swanson was primarily used as a clotheshorse. However, it is well directed, brilliantly produced and the performances by Swanson, Meighan, and Daniels are simply top-notch. The witty subtitles are so fun to read. Like the other DeMille romantic comedies, "Why Change Your Wife?" is very much a product of its time and may not be appealing to many modern viewers. On the other hand, this sophisticated comedy challenges the assumption that silent film is just slapstick and melodrama. What I love about the film is that Gloria Swanson represents in her role as Beth the modern female of the post World War I years in America who was worldly wise and sophisticated.