Best Pictures #22: 1928-29 (2nd) Academy Awards Outstanding Picture Winner, The Broadway Melody (1929)

by A.J.

Best Pictures #22: 1928-29 (2^nd) Academy Awards Outstanding Picture Winner

The Broadway Melody (1929)

In the first scene of The Broadway Melody, also known as The Broadway Melody of 1929 (there would be two sequels), there is a bevy of sounds for the ears: musicians tuning up various instruments, singers practicing, chatter here and there. We are in a music publishing office in New York City and eventually the din dies down so a young songwriter can sing his new song, “The Broadway Melody.” This isn’t just a talkie, it is a musical, and there will be a lot of the audience to hear. The Broadway Melody was the first musical and first sound picture to win Best Picture (then called Outstanding Picture). It is also the first movie to win only Best Picture. Reviews at the time were generally favorable, but reviews by modern critics and online reviewers are not as positive. As of 2016, The Broadway Melody is the lowest rated Best Picture winner on the website RottenTomatoes.com with an average score of 35%. I think that rating is a bit unfair since modern viewers can’t help but measure this movie by the decades of musicals that have been made since. While The Broadway Melody is undeniably dated, it is still not without some entertainment value.

The story is pretty basic for a backstage musical—a musical about making a musical—and will no doubt seem familiar to fans of the genre. Eddie Kearns (Charles King) has written a song, “The Broadway Melody,” for big shot producer Francis Zanfield’s new review and he wants to get the Mahoney sisters cast in the production. He’s dating one sister, Hank, but is in love with the other, Queenie, who is dating rival producer Jock Warriner (a play on the name of the Warner Bros. boss Jack Warner, just as Francis Zenfield is a reference to real life producer Florenz Ziegfeld). As you might imagine, the backstage lives of Eddie, Hank, and Queenie become complicated. Queenie, played by Anita Page, is chosen to be the star of the show, but her dancing consists of little more than just slightly moving her body around while standing in place on stage. Despite this, everyone thinks Queenie is great and it seems that the movie wants us to feel the same.

The story is thin but there is enough of it to fill out the film’s runtime so no one scene feels too stretched. Bessie Love plays Hank, the older and more business minded sister, and gives what is easily the best acting performance of the movie. Love was under consideration for the Best Actress award that year. The other acting performances were not especially noteworthy but are good enough to keep the movie entertaining. The characters themselves feel basic and thin. Queenie’s main character trait is being beautiful and desirable. Her other trait is that she doesn’t want to be thought of as a child anymore by her sister. Eddie, like every other man in the movie, seems to be in love with Queenie just because of her looks and, overall, does not come across as a likable character. The girls’ Uncle Joe is a stock comic relief character with a stutter like Porky Pig. Hank is by far The Broadway Melody’s most interesting character since her motivations give Bessie Love more to work with allowing her to give Hank some sense of personality and depth.

The Broadway Melody has many scenes and plot points that would become tropes and clichés in backstage musicals to follow. There are several scenes rehearsal scenes, most of which are comedic. The Mahoney sisters perform their number for Zanfeild on their first day on stage and, through no fault of their own, many, many things go comically wrong. We see chorus girls exchange quips with the choreographer. A stagehand literally throws the spotlight at an actor who asks for more light. The sister act reaches a breaking point, and Mr. Warriner’s intentions toward Queenie become more and more lascivious. What dates the film more than its checklist of musical plot points, is its normal for the time but now out dated values. The female characters in this movie all face the same dilemma: career or marriage, not both.

The show being produced in The Broadway Melody is a revue so there are several different themed songs, sets, and costumes. At times his movie feels like a play since most of the action takes place in a series of rooms with people entering and exiting. The camera moves very little, a problem with all early sound pictures, but the costumes and songs keep the static shots from being dull. There are enough peculiarities in The Broadway Melody to make it a curio for musical fans and film buffs in general. The song “Broadway Melody” is sung four times. The song “You Were Meant for Me” is sung by Eddie to Queenie. He says he wrote it for her, his girlfriend’s sister, making that song’s film debut unfortunately creepy. Most curious of all is the use of title cards in place of exterior establishing shots. This is no doubt a holdover from silent movies. This was MGM’s first musical, and for a studio that would become synonymous with the genre, it was a good start. If you decided to check out The Broadway Melody, I recommend watching the DVD, readily available, which includes in the special features Dogway Melody, a loose remake short of The Broadway Melody but with dogs. It is quite entertaining to say the least.

Nominee: MGM

Producer: Irving Thalberg, Lawrence Weingarten, Harry Rapf

Director: Harry Beaumont

Screenplay: Story by Edmund Goulding, Dialogue by Norman Houston and James Gleason, Continuity by Sarah Y. Mason

Cast: Charles King, Anita Page, Bessie Love

Release Date: February 1^st, 1929

Total Nominations: 3, including Outstanding Picture

Win(s): Outstanding Picture

Other Nominations: Actress-Bessie Love, Director-Harry Beaumont