Throughout the years I have never heard mention the scene where the chorus girls and boys are rehearsing a number. Una Merkel and others sit on the men's knees. One young man says to her, 'where you sittin'. And she says, 'on a flag pole dearie, on a flag pole'. I wonder how it got past the censor. It's very funny. Maybe it was just before the Hays code
shareIn the early scene where the girl's are in a lineup, and Ruby Keeler pushes her way next to Una — Una leans towards Ginger Rogers with her mouth open, and appears to do an obscene pantomime to suggest what Ruby will do to get in the show.
shareI don't know why people keep making a big deal about pre code verses post code. The Hays code was enforced due to the still large amount of conservative people in America in the 30s. But compared to 21st century behavior, pre code was still a lot more innocent than today. Even though there were some differences between pre and post code films, they were still both much more closely related to each other than to anything today.
shareHere it is : http://imgur.com/a/ryK9u
Not sure about your interpretation, though...
42nd. Street was a Pre-Code film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood
The Hays code was not enforced until 1934.
42nd. Street is my favorite Busby Berkeley musical followed very closely by Gold Diggers of 1933. Both are great films.
I loved "Dames" too with Ruby in "I only have eyes for you", and I also loved " Gold diggers 35" with that musical number with beautiful Gloria Stewart and all the girls and the pianos. They might've been post code but the musical numbers were still just as great as the numbers in the pre code films. The main difference was the absence of suggestive lines like "I'm sitting on a flagpole".
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