Roxie Hart

Anyone razzle-dazzled by Chicago will get a kick out of this 1942 film based on Maurine Dallas Watkins' original play, which later inspired Bob Fosse's Tony- and Rob Marshall's Oscar-winning musicals. Ginger Rogers is "the bee's knees" as Roxie Hart, an aspiring showgirl cynically manipulated by opportunistic reporters to take the rap for a murder to enhance her career. Adolphe Menjou is Billy Flynn, "the great mouthpiece" who coaches "the prettiest woman ever charged with murder in Chicago" every step of the way. Meanwhile, her cuckolded husband is left out in the cold, and the media relentlessly hypes her story…until another murderess briefly steals the spotlight. Director William Wellman, whose Nothing Sacred also took a jaundiced view of the press, keeps the proceedings at a rat-a-tat pace, until the disappointing fade out, a victim of Hollywood's Production Code that required Roxie to be rehabilitated. Nunnally Johnson's script brims with hardboiled wisecracks, and Rogers wows with a couple of showstopping impromptu jailhouse dance numbers. Adding to the fun are some great character actors, including William "Fred Mertz" Frawley as a transfixed juror, and Phil Silvers as a jail and courthouse photographer out for the cheesecake. Boasting a fine DVD transfer on an otherwise extra-less disc, the verdict here is: recommended. (D. Liebenson)