The Broadway Melody Blu-ray Review

The first full movie musical has much to offer.

The Production: 3.5/5

It’s fairly common for present day pundits to declare Harry Beaumont’s The Broadway Melody one of the worst-ever selections for the Best Picture Oscar, but those folks often fail to consider what a breakthrough the movie was in 1929: the first real film musical (not part-talkies as the Jolson pictures had been up to that time) with a song score written directly for the film that produced two standards and innovations utilized such as a boom microphone which allowed actors to move easily around the set without having to fret about their singing and speaking being picked up and the first ever use of pre-recording for a production number. Film historian Richard Barrios has done a bountiful defense of the film in his masterpiece book A Song in the Dark which covers basically the first seven years of the early talkie musicals, but suffice it to say that The Broadway Melody was the biggest hit of its year and undeniably serves as the grandfather of all movie musicals.

Song and dance man Eddie Kearns (Charles King) has written a sensational song “The Broadway Melody” which has been bought by Broadway entrepreneur Francis Zanfield (Eddie Kane) for his latest revue, and Eddie has talked his boss into hiring vaudeville act The Mahoney Sisters into performing it with him. Eddie has been stuck on older sister Hank Mahoney (Bessie Love) for awhile, but he’s shocked to see how younger sister Queenie (Anita Page) has matured into a great beauty, and he’s instantly smitten. Zanfield isn’t impressed enough with the act to keep the girls in that number, but he finds other places in the show for them and spotlights the beautiful Queenie in a “Love Boat” number that makes her the toast of Broadway. Show backer Jacques Warriner (Kenneth Thomson) begins lavishing Queenie with attention and expensive gifts making Eddie increasingly jealous finally making it obvious to Hank that she’s losing Eddie to her younger sister.

Edmund Goulding provided the story for the film with James Gleason and Norman Houston furnishing the quippy, snappy dialogue that punctuates the movie lovingly establishing the tough, wisecracking world of Broadway of that era. True, they fall victim to some of the era’s worst tropes: making a perpetual drunk a comic character and finding humor in someone who stutters, but there is no denying that some of the back-and-forth insults that fly fast and furiously through the scenes from a panoply of characters are funny and not without charm even with their pithiness. The song score by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed finds the title song performed three times in succession by star Charles King: first in the music publisher’s office with a jazz band as backup, once in Hank and Queenie’s hotel room to let them hear what they’ll be performing, and finally on stage in full costume during the show’s final dress rehearsal (when the girls get cut from the number and are superseded by a line of chorus girls and a dancer who taps en pointe). Brown and Freed also provide “You Were Meant for Me” as Eddie’s love song to Queenie, the film’s big production number “The Wedding of the Painted Doll” (which was filmed in two-color Technicolor now unfortunately lost to time), and Hank and Queenie’s novelty tunes “Harmony Babies” and “The Boy Friend,” and “Love Boat” which sets up Queenie to be noticed. “Truthful Parson Brown” written by Willard Robinson was interpolated into the score but doesn’t feature any of the movie’s principals. While the production numbers are proscenium-bound due to the limitations of the booth-encased cameras of the early sound period and feature at best rudimentary choreography by George Cunningham, it still must have astounded audiences at the time to see an original song and dance show complete with laughs, heartbreak, lavish costumes, and featuring new tunes no one had ever heard before. No wonder it was such a sensation.

The film’s central love triangle features one great performance (Bessie Love who well deserved the Oscar nomination she received as the feisty, crusty Hank who can’t seem to catch a break in either her personal or professional life), one good performance (Charles King who doesn’t have much flair as a singer or dancer but gets the job done dramatically), and one mediocre one (Anita Page whose flat delivery of lines and lack of musical talent wouldn’t serve her well in the years to come). Jed Prouty has the stutter bit down pat as the girl’s loving agent Uncle Jed, but Kenneth Thomson is creepy rather than comely as wealthy stage door Johnny Jacques Warriner. Drew Demorest gets three hilarious moments as the fey costume designer Turpe, and if you look carefully in the opening scene, that’s the film’s composer Nacio Herb Brown accompanying Charles King on the piano and James Gleason looking on wisely during King’s first public performance of the song.

Video: 5/5

3D Rating: NA

The film’s original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37:1 is replicated faithfully here in a 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. The film has never looked this good in any previous home video format with sharpness and clarity that belie in some ways the film’s near-century age. Grayscale also features rich black levels and crisp, bright whites while all of the dirt, scratches, splices, and debris of all those decades seems to have been terrifically wiped away. The movie has been divided into 30 chapters.

Audio: 4/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono sound mix makes these primitive audio elements sound the best ever on home video. While there is not a tremendous amount of bass in the sound, it’s certainly less thin and tinny than it has sounded previously, and the balance between singing voices and the live orchestra is much better here with the singers more prominent. There is some soft hiss that persists in the quieter scenes, but age-related pops, crackle, and flutter have been mitigated magnificently.

Special Features: 3/5

Metro Movietone Revues (HD): five collections of mostly singing vaudeville acts which can be selected from the menu:

• #1 (13:45): Emcee Harry Rose introduces Grace Rogers, Gus Van and Joe Schenck, and The Capitolians.
• #2 (16:37): Emcee Harry Rose introduces The Locust Sisters, Johnny Marvin, tapper Rosemarie Scott, and George Dewey Robinson.
• #3 (13:47): Emcee Jack Pepper introduces the Ponce Sisters, the tapping Reynold Sisters, and Joseph Regan.
• #4 (19:05): Emcee Jack Pepper introduces Joseph Regan, the Ponce Sisters, George Dewey Robinson, and song and dance artist Miss Ella Shields.
• #7 (8:27): with no emcee, the four acts are Tom Waring, Johnny Marvin, Yvette Rugel, and the Happiness Boys.

Gus Van and Joe Schenck (5:00, HD): the duo performs two numbers.

The Dogway Melody (16:23, HD): a 1930 entry in the Dogville series of comedy shorts.

Song Selection Menu: instant access to twelve musical moments in the movie.

Overall: 3.5/5

While Harry Beaumont’s The Broadway Melody is much a movie of its era of early sound production, it still contains some memorable songs and some vivid performances. The new Warner Archive Blu-ray release has done everything possible to spiff up its picture and sound resulting in a movie that’s much improved from any former home video format. For lovers of musicals, a must if only to see where many of the backstage musical tropes came from.

The Broadway Melody [Blu-Ray]

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Matt Hough

Matt has been reviewing films and television professionally since 1974 and has been a member of Home Theater Forum’s reviewing staff since 2007, his reviews now numbering close to three thousand. During those years, he has also been a junior and senior high school English teacher earning numerous entries into Who’s Who Among America’s Educators and spent many years treading the community theater boards as an actor in everything from Agatha Christie mysteries to Stephen Sondheim musicals.