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The Broadway Melody

THE BROADWAY MELODY

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CREDITS

1929, 110 minutes, B&W with Technicolor Sequences.
Producer, Lawrence Weingarten. Writers, James Gleason, Norman Houston, Edmund Goulding. Director, Harry Beaumont. Cinematography, John Arnold. Music, Nacio Herb Brown. Lyrics, Arthur Freed. Art Direction, Cedric Gibbons. Released February 1, 1929.

CAST


Queenie, Anita Page; Hank, Bessie Love; Eddie, Charles King; Uncle Bernie, Jed Prouty; Jock, Kenneth Thomson; Stage Manager, Edward Dillon; Blonde, Mary Doran; Zanfield, Eddie Kane; Babe Hatrick, J. Emmett Beck; Stew, Marshall Ruth; Themselves, The Biltmore Trio & Orchestra.

SONGS

The Broadway Melody, You Were Meant for Me, The Wedding of the Painted Doll, Harmony Babies, The Boy Friend, Love Boat by Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed; Truthful Parson Brown by Willard Robinson; Give My Regards to Broadway by George M. Cohan.

PLOT SUMMARY

"In the triangular plot, singer-hoofer-songwriter Eddie Kerns (Charles King) is engaged to "Hank" Mahoney (Bessie Love), but ditches her when he falls in love with, and eventually marries, her kid sister and vaudeville partner, Queenie (Anita Page). All three are involved in the latest Francis Zanfield (sic) musical extravaganza, The Broadway Melody, in which Eddie scores a hit by strutting across the stage in top hat and tails singing, in the title song, the praises of the Great White Way. Full of backstage wisecracks and cross talk, the film was said to have been inspired by the career of Vivian and Rosetta Duncan, a vaudeville sister act, who were originally slated for the leading roles, but instead were cast in the similar backstage musical, It's a Great Life ."
- Stanley Green, Hollywood Musicals: Year By Year

NOTES

"The Broadway Melody was the first of the all talking, all singing, all dancing entertainments to revolutionize the industry. . .Originally conceived. . .as a loosely disguised biopic of the Duncan Sisters. . .[it] became a backstage saga - a springboard which would be used for countless musicals to come - of a vaudeville sister act and the romantic entanglements that beset it."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"A basic story with some sense to it, action, excellent direction, laughs, a tear, a couple of great performances and plenty of sex."
- Variety

"When talkies were new, this was the musical that everyone went to see."
- Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights At The Movies

". . .The Broadway Melody is the first true musical film. It is also: The work that established movie musicals as potent and viable entertainment. The film giving stature to sound film at a crucial time. The instigator of a host of technical advances that greatly enhanced the production of talking pictures. A phenomenal worldwide success with audiences and critics. The first all-talking film produced by the industry's biggest company. The model for a multitude of successors and imitators. A showcase for a central performance establishing a high standard for sound-film acting. And on and on."
- Richard Barrios, A Song In The Dark

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS:
Best Actress - Bessie Love
Direction

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER:
Best Picture

The movie was remade by MGM in 1940 as Two Girls on Broadway .

The Technicolor sequences in The Broadway Melody are no longer known to exist.

The Broadway Melody was the top-grossing film of 1929. See Box Office Hits

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