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DVD The Broadway Melody of 1929 (Special Edition)
"100% All Talking! 100% All Singing! 100% All Dancing!" If the math is slightly off, the now-legendary ad campaign for The Broadway Melody can be excused. After all, sound had just come in, and a full-scale musical film was still a novelty. This tuneful 1929 production became a smash hit and won the Best Picture Academy Award® in the second Oscar® ceremony. The story is a creaky tale of two sisters bringing their act to Broadway, but the fun is in the Roaring Twenties lingo and the showbiz melodrama. This is an era when a gal could become the toast of Broadway by standing, motionless, on a stage pedestal ("Those guys aren't gonna pay 10 bucks to look at your face--this is Broadway!"). The tunes include the standard "You Were Meant for Me"; most of the dramatic weight is handled by the peppy silent star Bessie Love, who was Oscar-nominated. --Robert Horton
Review(s): DVD The Broadway Melody of 1929 (Special Edition)
Broadway Melody of 1928
This D.V.D. is disappointing as, notwithstanding the claim on the packet that the production of this film ensured that the original presentation was preserved, the colour sequence was not reproduced. Halliwells Film Guide tells that the ' Wedding of the Painted Doll' sequence should be in Technicolour. (In view of the date of this movie, this would probably be Two Plane Technicolour.
This could probably be considered the first Hollywood Musical, and it is probably overlong. One can see the improvements that were brought about in 1933 by Busby Berkley in 42nd Street. However it is an historic movie to be viewed in that context.
THE BROADWAY MELODY
THE BROADWAY MELODY (1929, MGM, 100 minutes, b/w)
Director: Harry Beaumont (someone else staged the production numbers)
Winner of "best production" for the 1928-1929 Oscars (the equivalent of "best picture" in the second year of these awards), this film doesn't get much respect. Everyone agrees the music is good ("No skies of gray on the Great White Way / That's the Broadway melody"), but the reviews I found trash most of the rest of it. I agree the film isn't a classic, but without it there could have been no "42nd Street," "All About Eve," "Cabaret" or "Chicago." In these films, actors' lives take a backseat to their professional work. Bessie Love's lead performance is heartbreaking; she keeps going after losing her sister & future husband to one another. Gay themes include a swishy costumer played for laughs, & a relationship between the sisters that verges on incest. The DVD release isn't restored, so Technicolor production numbers remain black & white. Recommended to those who care about musicals on film, or who care about Hollywood history.
Broadway Mediocrity
Anybody fooled into thinking that "The Broadway Melody of 1929" is a full-fledged musical be forewarned. This film is essentially a backstage melodrama with acting and story values that are not uncommon to your average daytime serial. Certain allowances have to be made for this film because it is an early talking picture and the craft of working in this new medium had yet to be refined. This is not to say that the film doesn't have anything to recommend it. Bessie Love as Hank, the level-headed sibling of the film's featured sister act, gives probably the only full-bodied acting job. Anita Page as Queenie, the starstruck sister, is extremely easy on the eyes. There's a fantastic song score by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown. Ultimately one has to view this film more as a historic artifact and appreciate it for the ground it broke for future musical projects. This DVD contains an amusing parody of the film, "Dogway Melody" performed entirely by canines. As enjoyable as this short subject was it gave me a little bit of a pause because it appears as though the dogs are being manipulated by invisible wires.
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