42nd STREET (1933)
Warner Baxter’s character, Julian Marsh, in the 1933 pre-code musical 42nd STREET was originally written as gay - but only a brief glimpse of subtext remains in the film adaptation.
Today's post is by Larry Duplechan (@larry_duplechan_the_writer on Instagram) and is about one of the films featured in his latest book "Movies That Made Me Gay".
42ND STREET
1933. USA.
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Screenplay: Rian James & James Seymour
Based on: “42nd Street” by Bradford Ropes
Starring: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Una Merkel, Ruby Keeler, Guy Kibbee, Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell, Ned Sparks, George E. Stone & Allen Jenkins
Twenty-four hours before opening night, a Broadway musical’s temperamental (and quite shit-faced) star falls and breaks an ankle, and a rookie chorus girl goes on in her place and yes, the now-cliché trope started here. 42nd STREET (1933) is historically credited for resurrecting the movie musical genre after five years of stage-bound Broadway adaptations, operettas and (especially) revues had killed it dead.
Sexy and snarky as only pre-Code Warner Bros. dared to be – a chorus girl brags of her Park Avenue address, and another chorine quips, “And is HER homework tough.” - Bradford Ropes’ 1932 novel is far sexier, grittier and more true to life. Julian Marsh, director of The Show, is gay. He’s keeping second-lead juvenile Billy Lawler. In the movie, Peggy and Billy (Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell) are sweethearts; here he becomes her buddy, she his beard. Best of all is a chorus boy named Jack Winslow: Winslow is a sassy swish who takes zero crap off of anybody. When a couple of self-styled bad boys heckle Winslow on the street, he fires back: “Listen, Girlie … Don’t think you’re fooling anybody just because you’ve got hair on your chest. Every time you get a lump in your throat, you start sewing baby clothes!”
The only vestige of all this gayness to survive into the movie, is when Warner Baxter as Marsh, following a particularly harrowing workday, throws a heavy arm across George E. Stone’s shoulders and says, “Come home with me, Andy... I'm lonesome.”
Larry Duplechan’s Movies That Made Me Gay is a movie memoir: a wonderfully well-informed, witty and acerbic take on iconic Hollywood films, film stars, and indie cult favorites, from a Lambda Literary Award-winning author who is also a lifelong movie fan. It’s also a touching and extremely readable personal memoir of growing up gay and Black in the early '60s; surviving the early days of the AIDS pandemic; the adaptation of his novel Blackbird into a feature film starring Mo'Nique in 2014, and much more.
Order Movies That Made Me Gay from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite bookstore.
42ND STREET is streaming on Tubi (USA) – and available in some locations to rent/purchase through AppleTV, YouTube and Amazon. It’s also available on DVD and Blu-ray.
