- Joined
- Feb 8, 1999
- Messages
- 18,393
- Real Name
- Robert Harris
Charles King, Anita Page and Bessie Love fans are in luck...
Well, at least there are Anita Page and Bessie love fans.
Mr. King made a few unremarkable films and passed away in 1944.
Ms. Love had a long and successful career, beginning in Mr. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and with final performances in Warren Beatty's Reds (which we'd love to see on DVD as a very special edition) and well as Ragtime and The Hunger. Ms. Love died at the age of 86, in 1987.
Anita Page, like 94 year old Gloria Stewart, continues to appear in films and to make personal appearances.
The Broadway Melody was the Academy Award winning Best Picture for 1930. This is pure history. Look for James Gleason, William Demarest (It's a Mad.... World), and producer / lyricist Arthur Freed, all in bit parts.
This is a long prelude to a short commentary about a film which in typical WB fashion, has been beautifully represented on DVD. The film elements show the wear which has come from appreciation and use over the years, and make the film look correct.
What potential viewers must understand before popping this historic DVD into their players is that this is an extremely important film. After The Jazz Singer, it began a string of Hollywood musicals which continued for decades, including the continuing other Broadway Melody productions. Without it, there may have been no Gold Diggers of...
As the progenitor of so many great films, The Broadway Melody's importance is more historic than entertaining. This is an old film which looks and sounds like an old film. If you're thinking The Public Enemy, which followed The Broadway Melody by only 26 months... don't. The performances are stilted by today's strandards. The camera is locked down tight. Every one of the film's 110 minutes goes by slowly.
For those who are members of the fast-paced modern TV generation, some of those minutes may seem even longer.
But if you can somehow throw off the modern mindset, and allow yourself to go back to the era of just awakening sound in motion pictures, and imagine these images being projected in synchonization with a disc on a hot summer's night in a movie palace with "conditioned" air, you'll been taken back to a bygone era and will enjoy the film that literally started it all.
But here's the fun part.
And after you've seen the film, go to Ms. Page's web site, (www.anitapage.com/shopping), accept the honor of allowing her to sign a beautiful period photo for you and make a living connection, all the way back to...
The Broadway Melody...
of 1929.
RAH
Well, at least there are Anita Page and Bessie love fans.
Mr. King made a few unremarkable films and passed away in 1944.
Ms. Love had a long and successful career, beginning in Mr. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and with final performances in Warren Beatty's Reds (which we'd love to see on DVD as a very special edition) and well as Ragtime and The Hunger. Ms. Love died at the age of 86, in 1987.
Anita Page, like 94 year old Gloria Stewart, continues to appear in films and to make personal appearances.
The Broadway Melody was the Academy Award winning Best Picture for 1930. This is pure history. Look for James Gleason, William Demarest (It's a Mad.... World), and producer / lyricist Arthur Freed, all in bit parts.
This is a long prelude to a short commentary about a film which in typical WB fashion, has been beautifully represented on DVD. The film elements show the wear which has come from appreciation and use over the years, and make the film look correct.
What potential viewers must understand before popping this historic DVD into their players is that this is an extremely important film. After The Jazz Singer, it began a string of Hollywood musicals which continued for decades, including the continuing other Broadway Melody productions. Without it, there may have been no Gold Diggers of...
As the progenitor of so many great films, The Broadway Melody's importance is more historic than entertaining. This is an old film which looks and sounds like an old film. If you're thinking The Public Enemy, which followed The Broadway Melody by only 26 months... don't. The performances are stilted by today's strandards. The camera is locked down tight. Every one of the film's 110 minutes goes by slowly.
For those who are members of the fast-paced modern TV generation, some of those minutes may seem even longer.
But if you can somehow throw off the modern mindset, and allow yourself to go back to the era of just awakening sound in motion pictures, and imagine these images being projected in synchonization with a disc on a hot summer's night in a movie palace with "conditioned" air, you'll been taken back to a bygone era and will enjoy the film that literally started it all.
But here's the fun part.
And after you've seen the film, go to Ms. Page's web site, (www.anitapage.com/shopping), accept the honor of allowing her to sign a beautiful period photo for you and make a living connection, all the way back to...
The Broadway Melody...
of 1929.
RAH
