Roxie Hart must have been a dynamite morale booster in the early months of WW2: as pure escapism it had nothing to do with contemporary problems. The constantly-funny script uses a flashback structure that reaches a mere fifteen years into the past to find Chicago a completely different world of gold-digging flappers. The news media is out of control, and even the prosecutors and judges vie for publicity. The completely amoral newsmen use Dixie as a circulation builder and her fame snowballs. The husband is shut away from his own wife (can't have him mucking up the defense or the headlines), the jury foreman (William Frawley) falls immediately in love with the accused, and the young reporter (Montgomery) discovers that Roxie's fallback witness has died, throwing her absurd defense into a tailspin.

Nunnally Johnson's delightful dialogue is just as witty bu easier on the ears than the Hecht-MacArthur style of ten years before. Adolph Menjou wraps himself around at least 50 great lines. Phil Silver's corps of jolly cameramen jump like vultures at every phony courtroom revelation. Reporter Lynne Overman covers the courtroom proceedings on live radio like a boxing commentator. Cadaverous Milton Parsons cuts in for frequent commercial announcements.

Vivacious Ginger Rogers is introduced as a pair of legs sneaking down a fire escape. Chewing bubblegum with a game smile, she pushes the limits of what was acceptable to the hays office, all the while summoning fake tears and sobs when needed and grinning slyly at her own delicious wickedness. There's some cheating with the original details to appease the censors, especially who actually murdered who. But the spirit is all there, even Roxie's opportunistic gambit for sympathy - she pretends to be pregnant to keep her publicity from fading.

It's a necessary ploy to wrest the headlines back from a new media sensation, a Bonnie Parker-like rural gunslinger (in jeans, no less) called "2 Gun Gertie" (a wonderfully slummy Iris Adrian). Unlike the musical, the competition between gorgeous inmates is kept to a minimum. Roxie has an opening catfight (with cat yowls on the soundtrack!) with the previous star prisoner and spars a bit with Gertie, but hilariously tough prison matron Sara Allgood (Sara Allgood?!) calmly konks the combatants out like Wonder Woman.

The music is limited to real songs from the period and is nicely introduced in the 1942 wraparound bookend segment when a broken player piano suddenly revives and spits out a snappy 1927 tune. Ginger displays a little sexy dancing (The Black Bottom!) but wows us with a wonderful tap on the steel steps to the jail cells that integrate nicely with George Montgomery's growing infatuation. And then there's a silly number where Ginger and the press celebrate good times in the interrogation room with an all-out Charleston. Spring Byington (as gossip maven "Mary Sunshine"), Sara Allgood and a raft of square-looking newshounds cut a fancy rug. Seeing all the middle-aged actors dancing is a real treat ... they probably all learned them when they were brand new!

Why Fox's DVD of Roxie Hart doesn't qualify as a Studio Classics edition I don't know, because the movie is more entertaining than many of their key titles. Maybe 1942 was just too serious a year to elevate a comedy. The transfer is stunningly good, with Leon Shamroy's crisp lighting coming through perfectly, and the busy soundtrack keeps all those machine gun comedy lines strictly audible.

The only extras are a pair of effective teaser trailers. The photo of Rogers on the cover would make a great poster.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Roxie Hart rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: teaser trailers
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: April 18, 2004