The first sound film to be awarded Outstanding Picture, The Broadway Melody is a backstage musical about two sisters who have been performing the vaudeville circuit and have now come to New York to become successful on Broadway. One of the sisters, Harriet “Hank” Mahoney (Bessie Love), has a boyfriend waiting for her there, the song-and-dance man Eddie Kearns (Charles King). Her younger sister, Queenie (Anita Page), starts to get all of the attention, leaving Hank to make a few difficult choices about her future. The plot isn’t really the most important or even the most outstanding element of the film, though. This film is really more about showing off the new sound technology.
The plot offers a bit of a new wrinkle on the old love triangle storyline. You see, Eddie falls in love with Queenie almost immediately after seeing how much she's grown into a beautiful woman. And the producer of the show in which they perform picks Queenie to be a featured player after the accidental fall of another girl from a high perch on a boat that's part of a set. Everyone talks about how talented Queenie is, but really all she does in the number is stand and point. Well, I guess some people have it and some don't. Queenie also catches the eye of one of the show's financial backers, Jacques/Jock Warriner (Kenneth Thompson), who begins showering her with diamonds and promises of even greater riches. It takes Hank to realize that she must give up Eddie so that Queenie can be "saved" from the clutches of the unscrupulous Warriner.
There is a certain quaint novelty to the film even today, despite movie musicals having grown considerably in quality since its initial release. Certainly, the backstage romantic triangle (well, quadrangle) is no longer a new plot device, but it might have been unique at the time to involve such close siblings in the mix. The incorporation of musical numbers into off-stage moments was also a very recent development in film. You can tell that the studio hasn't quite gotten the hang of making a sound film yet. The ability to hear the dialogue is wildly uneven at times, and during one of the tap dance numbers, the camera doesn't even show the feet of the dancers. Given that the camera had to be stationary in order to keep from making too much noise on the soundtrack, it's also disconcerting when characters sometimes just walk out of the frame or out of focus. And, to add to the overall effect of the newness of this medium, the film still uses intertitles to announce shifts in time and place. The Broadway Melody is obviously a transitional film from silents to sound, and all of the details that would need to be worked out are clearly in evidence here.
The song that provides the movie's title appears several times. My very unofficial count was five times. There are other songs, including a couple of renditions of the lovely "You Were Meant for Me," but "The Broadway Melody" is the star, and from the opening sequence to the end of the film, you'll never too far away from hearing some version of it. Interestingly, the lyrics for the songs in the movie were written by Arthur Freed. Perhaps only lovers of MGM musicals will recognize the name, but later in his career, Freed would be in charge of the musicals that came out of this greatest of all movie studios. How intriguing to see his name in the credits at the start of his career in "talkies."
Interesting, in the film’s plot, Eddie writes “You Were Meant for Me” for Queenie, not his fiancée. He clearly has already fallen in love with the younger sister, but he’s noble enough (?) to stay with Hank until, well, she dumps him so that he can actually be with her younger sister. We’re, of course, meant to see that the two sisters are very different from each other. Queenie is meant to be the beautiful one. She’s very sweet and rather naïve. She also has blonde hair, but her sister Hank has darker hair. Even in the late 1920s, Hollywood was setting up that dichotomy. Hank is also the more sensible one. She is smart and hardworking, and she tries to protect her younger sister. Hank also has quite a temper and is often ready to fight. For example, because this film is set in New York, there’s a bit of snobbery about vaudeville performers coming to Broadway. Hank and Queenie’s audition is sabotaged by a jealous chorus girl, and Hank wants to punch the girl.
The film actually begins with an attempt by Eddie to sing his new song “The Broadway Melody.” However, there's so much noise at the music publishing company—what with different songs in different styles being performed at the same time—he has to quieten them all down so that he can be heard. Everyone loves the song and wants to sing it, but he has plans to save it for the Zanfield Revue. If there's anyone who can't figure out that the film is playing off the Ziegfeld Follies, perhaps you should go back and study your musical history before giving this film a viewing. In fact, the musical numbers in The Broadway Melody could almost be considered a spoof of some of those ostentatious productions that Ziegfeld presented in his shows.
All that cacophony at the beginning of the film was certainly intentional. It was a clear way to tell the audience that “sound is here!” so you’d need to get used to lots of noise. Having the first big scene involve the musical theater industry and lots of people singing over each other is a rather smart way of letting everyone know that movies will not just be talking; they’ll also be singing (and dancing and…). The Broadway Melody was reportedly the first musical that fully used sound, and it was also the first musical produced by MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), starting a tradition that lasted for many glorious years at that studio. Of course, that means that in order to get even more musical moments into the film, the plot has to grind to a complete halt at times. That way we can see a full performance of “Truthful Parson Brown” by a quartet and a fully-staged production number in the Zanfield Revue called “The Wedding of the Painted Doll.” Neither of those numbers adds anything to the plot, but they do serve as showcases for what movies could potentially accomplish in terms of spectacle. Oddly enough, the Mahoney sisters have a number that we watch briefly before it’s cut from the show, only to have it followed by a very long solo by another dancer!
I can't end this posting without mentioning the homophobia that is evident in the film. The costume designer for the Zanfield show is portrayed as very effeminate, and he's the subject of ridicule each time he appears on the screen. He giggles over an ermine coat, and he’s subjected to a lot of teasing (bullying, really) by Zanfield’s “yes men” and investors. After complaining about how the chorus girls are not careful with his costumes, especially the enormous hats, he explains that he designed the clothes, not the doors to the theater. The response from the matron who oversees the chorus is that if he had, they'd all be lavender. Unfortunately, that must have been riotously funny to the movie audiences of 1929. It's sad to see an early stage in the genesis of such a stereotype, one that is unfortunately still too often evident in the movies.
Oscar Win: Outstanding Picture
Other Oscar Nominations: Best Actress (Bessie Love) and Best Director (Hugh Beaumont)
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