The Broadway Melody.

Review #1330: The Broadway Melody.

Cast: 
Anita Page (Queenie Mahoney), Bessie Love (Harriet "Hank" Mahoney), Charles King (Eddie Kearns), Jed Prouty (Uncle Jed), Kenneth Thomson (Jacques Warriner), Edward Dillon (Stage Manager), Mary Doran (Flo), and Eddie Kane (Zanfield) Directed by Harry Beaumont

Review: 
It can be an interesting experience looking at an old film musical and think about the effort that it must have taken to make it come out to the screen, particularly when it comes to talking about the beginning of the sound era along with the studio of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The company had begun in 1924 as a merger of three studios: Metro Pictures Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures, since Marcus Loew desired better quality for films to distribute with Loew's Theatres along with find someone to run operations in Hollywood, which is where Mayer comes into the picture, alongside with Irving Thalberg (whose first notable film as a producer was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), which he did at 24) as production head. The studio became prolific very quickly, releasing major films such as Ben-Hur (1925), with a desire to tap into a need from the audience for stars and stories to go alongside them (whether through adapting works or big spectacle). Interestingly enough, MGM could have had a different fate before the decade would pass. William Fox from Fox Film Corporation had desired to expand his grip, seizing an opportunity to buy the holdings of MGM upon the death of Loew in 1927. Strong connections from Mayer, combined with an severe automobile accident involving Fox in late 1929 and the Wall Street crash ended any possibility of a possible merger. In any case, it should only figure that MGM's first full-talkie film would be a musical - what better way to attract appeal than with singing, talking, and dancing in one film. The original version of the film even had a Technicolor sequence included (which is now lost to time).

With all that in mind, one can then note how the film hasn't quite aged as well as others of its decade. It was a big hit with audiences and Academy voters for its day, but to me it is a bit of a clunker. Not every great film gets to have awards or initial recognition, but they manage to find a way to having staying power and interest after several decades. This is one of those cases where one can acknowledge some of the triumphs it must have had nine decades ago while still seeing it as a pretty mediocre experience. Beyond the clunkiness of the dialogue and okay direction is a movie that can do a bunch of singing and dancing but can't really sell its characters as anything other than cliches. Is it really a cliche if its the 1920s? If it seems like a cliche and looks like one, by golly it must be a cliche. Nobody seems to have chemistry with anybody, and the conclusion of its love triangle (or perhaps square since it really involves four people) seems awkwardly silly (getting punched out by a rich jerk when trying to help the younger sister of the girl you were involved with and then getting with said younger sister? ...sure, why not). The singing (aided through the music of Nacio Herb Brown and lyrics by Arthur Freed, both key MGM music figures) is fair, in the sense that one isn't checking their watch as much when compared to seeing a barely moving camera with mild actors trying to warm up pale characters on screen. Page and Love come out decently enough, in that they seem fitting to see perform on a screen moreso than when trying to be on-screen sisters. King may have been a vaudeville and Broadway actor, but that doesn't mean he brings the screen presence needed to really drive himself forward in interest. In other words, I don't really find myself gravitating attention to him in interest when on screen. Technically Prouty attracts attention, in that one can't really forget a stutterer - he isn't exactly funny, but then again the film's best hope is trying to not be unintentionally funny to pick at with its characters, so there's that. Look, this is a film that comes and goes at 100 minutes without too much trouble in delivering a fair bit of sound without devolving itself too much into noise for the sake of it. It has that kind of dated quality like The Jazz Singer had, but that film managed to pass off better with its sentiment and charm than this does. There exist three further Broadway Melody films (1936, 1938, 1940), in the sense that they aren't necessarily sequels but rather share a basic premise involving putting on a show, and there was even a remake with Two Girls on Broadway (1940). Whatever one prefers when it comes to a musical, there exist plenty to choose from, whether in starting with the 1920s or later. This isn't a bad one to go with as a companion to early talkie musicals, even if it isn't necessarily a great one to cherish as much as others could.

Next Time - Coquette, with Mary Pickford. Also, an announcement.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.