THE BROADWAY MELODY

US, 1929, 100 minutes, Black and white.
Charles King, Anita Page, Bessie Love.
Directed by Harry Beaumont.

The Broadway Melody won the Oscar for best film of 1929 (the second year of the Oscars). It is considered the forerunner of the screen musical.

It was produced by MGM, but does not have the flair of the musicals of the 1930s let alone later. In fact, the theatre sequences, with a stage and proscenium, are distinctly small. This is surprising given the fact that the entrepreneur, Mr Zanfeld, is based on Florenz Ziegfeld.

In fact, the story, the treatment seem much more like the Warner Bros smaller-budger musicals of the 1930s like Footlight Parade or the Gold Diggers films.

The music was written by Herb Nacio Brown and Arthur Freed, with The Wedding of the Painted Dolls, Broadway Melody, You Were Meant for Me – music used in a number of films in succeeding years, especially the Brown and Freed musical of satirising the period of transition from silent to sound, Singin’ in the Rain.

The story is of two sisters who were vaudeville stars, coming to New York with their hopes, getting a break on the stage, the younger sister being hailed for her beauty, courted by one of the producers, a stage-door beau who simply wants to use her while offering her everything. At times, she succumbs, especially to get some independence from her older and tougher sister who looks after her. Anita Paige is the glamorous star. Bessie Love is the pert and very active older sister – who steals the show. Stage and vaudeville star, Charles King, is the singer-composer.

The film was directed by Harry Beaumont, a director from 1915 to 1948 with a hundred credits. Charles King made only six films between 1928 and 1932. However, the actresses were in films for many years, Anita Page from 1925 to a credit in 2010. Bessie Love from 1915 to 1983 (her last film, The Hunger).

The film’s style is very basic, reminiscent of that of silent films. Fixed camera, mainly focused sets – although some wider choreographed scenes in the theatre. There are also written captions to indicate the places and times. The dialogue comes pre-Motion Picture Code – and therefore is a bit freer in its picture of the chorus girls, the parties, the men courting them. Some of the dialogue is humorous – but audiences need to remember that this was 1929, only a year or more from the first sound film and that motion pictures were in transition. To this extent, the film is enjoyable in its way – though dated.