Best movies like 42nd Street

The film focuses on the representatives of the Thirteen original colonies who participated in the Second Continental Congress. 1776 depicts the three months of deliberation (and, oftentimes, acrimonious debate) that led up to the signing of one of the most important documents in the History of the United States, the Declaration of Independence.

A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.

Ambitious stage mother Rose Hovick wants desperately for her daughter, June, to become the vaudeville star she never was. With the help of savvy but kind-hearted agent Herbie Sommers, Rose realizes her aspirations for June, but when her new star rebelliously elopes, June's shy sister, Louise, reluctantly steps into the spotlight, transforming herself into the legendary burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee.

An engaged Philadelphia policeman falls in love with a beautiful woman while dealing with a corrupt superior.

Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.

Jenny Stewart is a tough Broadway musical star who doesn't take criticism from anyone. Yet there is one individual, Tye Graham, a blind pianist who may be able to break through her tough exterior.

In New York, a surly, down-on-his-heels playwright meets a country girl who's giving up trying to act and returning home. He goes with her for inspiration when his agent convinces a stage star to take his next effort. When he returns to Broadway, his girl stays behind and starts seeing a local businessman.

The road-show troupe of a top Broadway show go cross-country while taking the audience along on the on-stage scenes as well as what happens and is happening back stage of the production. The spectacular dancing ensembles and colorful costumes and pulchritude on-stage offers a contrasting background to the drabness of the backstage, where joy, sorrow, tragedies, deception, and romance are intertwined.

Broadway producer Johnny Demming is only interested in big-name talent and scoffs that his sister, father and other small-time talent could be used in a successful show.

Steve, revue producer in Rio de Janeiro, is still in love with his ex-wife Vicki, his star Linda is in love with Steve and Tito is in love with Linda. Because of this they all get small problems.

Three struggling theatrical performers meet a famous songwriter who is trying to convince a wealthy oilman to finance a musical he is scripting, promising them stardom if it comes to fruition.

Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids. Fortunately, he is able to convince studio head Melville Crossman to cast him in the adaptation of a hit Broadway show. Crossman has one condition: Slade must travel to New York and convince the female star of the stage production to join the film. Slade goes, but, when he eyes the winsome Julie Clarke, he hatches a different scheme.

The Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse London and Broadway musical hit Stop the World, I Want to Get Off is given literal treatment in this filmization. Newley stars as Littlechap, whose allegorical rise to success is countered by the instability of his private life. Like the play, the film is staged impressionistically, with Newley decked out in mime makeup and periodically stopping the action to address the audience, and with all the women in his life -- German, American and "Typically English" -- played by a single actress (Millicent Martin, taking over from the stage version's Anna Quayle). In Wizard of Oz fashion, the play itself is lensed in color, while the brief prologue, showing the actors preparing for their performance, is in black-and-white. The production includes such standards (and perennial audition pieces) as What Kind of Fool Am I? and Gonna Build a Mountain.

Bickering husband-and-wife stage stars are manipulated into a break-up for publicity purposes.

A tangled web of affairs is weaved around actress, Desirée Armfeldt, and the men who love her: a lawyer by the name of Fredrik Egerman and the Count Carl-Magnus Malcom. When the traveling actress performs in Fredrik's town, the estranged lovers' passion rekindles.

The Captains is a feature length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors whom have portrayed Starship captains within the illustrious science-fiction franchise.

A filmed version of the Broadway show starring comedienne Gilda Radner, complete with the characters she made famous on the TV show "Saturday Night Live."

While breaking into a bank safe, a gangster overhears a bank employee singing and decides to put her in a Broadway revue

The story takes place at a summer theater in the Berkshire Mountains, where heroine Joan Barry (Carol Bruce) is staging a Broadway-bound musical comedy. Only one problem: two guest stars are shot and killed on two successive evenings, right in front of the audience. Hoping to solve the mystery, detective William Demarest demands that everyone -- actors and theatergoers alike -- return the following weekend to restage the show. But with no major performer willing to assume the fatal guest-star slot, Joan is forced to hire the Three Jolly Jesters (Al, Harry and Jimmy Ritz), Manhattan washroom attendants with showbiz aspirations.

Myrt has a show chock full of talented performers that deserves to be on Broadway, but can't raise the necessary money. Jackson, a lecherous "producer", provides the money in order to get his hands on the show's pretty young star, Marge. Myrt teams up with Marge's boyfriend to try to thwart the randy producer and get the show to Broadway.

A famous stage actor hopes to land the lead role in a big new Broadway musical, but he's unaware his teenage son has already been given the part.

Applause is a musical with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. The musical is based on the 1950 film All About Eve and the short story on which the movie is based, Mary Orr's "The Wisdom of Eve". The story centers on aging star Margo Channing, who innocently takes a fledgling actress under her wing, unaware that the ruthless Eve is plotting to steal her career and her man. The musical opened on Broadway on March 30, 1970 and ran for 896 performances. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Lauren Bacall won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical. The musical was later adapted for television, starring Bacall, with Larry Hagman replacing Len Cariou in the role of Bill Sampson. It aired in the United States on CBS on March 19, 1973.

Based on the semi-hit Broadway musical of 1968 starring Joel Grey, this TV version has been re-fashioned in significant ways. The premise here is that a small group of modern-day performers have gotten together in a rehearsal studio to celebrate George M. Cohan's life and work. Joel Grey and Bernadette Peters (also from the original cast) and the other cast members are apparently playing themselves, with Austin Pendleton serving as a stage manager/director.

On leave, a sailor falls in love with a young lady aspiring to become a Broadway dancer, but their relationship is jeopardized by an established Broadway star, who is also enamored by him.

A young woman who wants to break into the theater schemes to become the protege of a famous Broadway star.

The Magic Show is a one-act musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Bob Randall. It starred magician Doug Henning. Produced by Edgar Lansbury, it opened on May 28, 1974 at the Cort Theatre in Manhattan, and ran for 1,920 performances, closing on December 31, 1978. Henning was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and director Grover Dale was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. In 2001, a filmed performance staged especially for the cameras in 1980, directed by Norman Campbell at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto, was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment. This production, originally intended for cinema release, differed notably from the original Broadway production, with several of the most memorable songs, such as "West End Avenue" and "Solid Silver Platform Shoes", removed. Doug Henning reprised his original starring role, while Didi Conn co-starred as Cal.

Broadway star Fay Lawrence (West) is a temperamental diva who is reluctantly persuaded by a Broadway producer (Gaxton) to star in his latest production.

Musical version of the comedy by Brandon Thomas. As part of a simple enough ruse, a Cambridge student poses as his aunt but his scheme goes wrong, first when someone falls for the aunt, and then when the real aunt turns up.

Dee is a naive chorus girl living in a boarding house full of low-paid actors. Dee and Billy are in love and he helps her to move from chorus girl to star. Things run afoul when jealousy, misunderstandings and sleazy men enter the picture.

Nancy Carroll stars in Manhattan Cocktail as Babs, a college coed who dreams of becoming a famous actress. Joining up with her campus chums Fred (Richard Arlen) and Bob (Danny O'Shea), likewise aspiring thespians, Babes heads to Broadway with stars in her eyes. The winsome threesome are quickly disillusioned by the heartless machinations of nasty producer Renov (Paul Lukas) and his harridan wife (Lilyan Tashman). Before the plot proper gets under way, the audience is regaled with a cute "mythological" prologue, featuring the same three leading actors. Manhattan Cocktail was a silent picture, except for two brief musical numbers showcasing Nancy Carroll.

Broadway dancing star Adele Dorey who, overworked and exhausted, suddenly ups and leaves New York in favor of a country village. But when promoter Bobby Lewis (Egan) of the barnstorming Gay Girlies Burlesque Company arrives in town, he picks an incognito Adele among all the pretty village girls to star in his new show. On a lark, Adele introduces her maid Jane (Louise Fazenda) as her mother and accepts a contract. When Adele's identity is finally revealed, the slumming star apologizes for her deception by offering Bobby a Broadway job.

Musical comedy star Jimmy Leighter wants to get away from show biz and his leading lady Winnie Clark, so he joins the Army. There he gets the order to put on a show, Winnie Clark appears in a camp show, hears about his task and offers him his help. He thinks, she does it for her publicity only, so he doesn't want to know anything about this, till he finds out, that she has no such intentions.

Abridged version of the classic Cole Porter musical as broadcast live on the Hallmark Hall of Fame series on NBC

In this comic western, a Broadway star leaves his musical revue to go West and help out his troubled friend. While there, the performer finds himself forced into becoming the town sheriff. Mayhem ensues, but somehow, the crooner manages to round up a band of killers.

Madame Adele, once a great star of the Paris theatre, has fallen upon hard times. But she allows a young American performer, Marie Duval, to perform as the Madame Adele of old, and both become the darlings of Paris, one again and the other newly-crowned.