BROADWAY SERENADE

US, 1939, 114 ,minutes. Black and white.
Jeanette Mac Donald, Lew Ayres, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Rita Johnson, Virginia Grey, Katherine Alexander.
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard.

Broadway Serenade is a quite lavishly-made M.G.M. musical of the late '30s. It has not lasted well. The story is the old one: almost a variation on A Star Is Born - the wife becomes a successful star while the husband feels himself a failure. However, this film has an upbeat ending with the husband composing the greatest piece of music ever and its being staged with his wife as star. 'The End' comes on as the curtain closes on her successful performance.

The film is a vehicle for Jeanette Mac Donald who sings both opera and contemporary songs as well as a specially composed cantata for the finale. Again, Jeanette Mac Donald has not worn well as a popular star. She is supported by Lew Ayres, who looks much younger than she, as the piano accompanist husband who becomes a disappointed alcoholic but who then proves self. Distinguished and dapper English actor Ian Hunter is the other man who has some moments of success with Jeanette but ultimately and gallantly bows out. Frank Morgan is engaging as usual (always a variation on The Wizard of Oz) as a millionaire producer with humorous and eccentric mannerisms and a glamorous actress wife, played by Rita Johnson.

The film was produced and directed by Robert Z. Leonard (The Great Ziegfeld, Pride and Prejudice, When Ladies Meet - during the late '30s and early '40s). The film, is in black and white, has a Madame Butterfly aria as well as some popular songs and finishes with a Busby Berkeley-directed, rather offbeat - even kitsch - cantata about modern and ancient song. Musicians and singers and dancers are all masked-which gives it a somewhat eerie tone.

The usual show business and marriage themes - with the style and sentiment of the late '30s.