Project 501: The Broadway Melody
Once the era of silent film ended, the movie industry swung far to the other extreme as song and dance became all the rage in pictures of the day–they were doing choreography. It’s no surprise that the first talking picture to win Best Picture was not just any talkie, but a musical as well: The Broadway Melody, a dramedy about two sisters making their way on the Great White Way.
The Broadway Melody, which premiered the song of the same name as well as “You Were Meant For Me,” seen later in Singin’ in the Rain, is the story of sisters Hank and Queenie Mahoney, whose parents must not have liked them very much. The two are best friends, fresh-faced and game for anything when they arrive in New York, but soon find themselves wrapped up the harsh world of show biz, and fighting over a man, to boot.
To modern eyes, the “love triangle” is problematic: in 1929, the situation might have seemed heart-rending; today, it’s hard to work up much sympathy for any of them. Eddie Kearns (Charles King) is, by today’s standards, something of a weenie, which doesn’t help the audience to feel much for either sister. Surely two ambitious, pretty young women on Broadway could find somebody with a little more…character to his character? Kearns is helpful as a coattail on which the girls ride into town, but somehow the sense of real emotional attachment is tenuous at best.
Obnoxious love interests aside, the movie’s pretty good–it’s an equal mix of drama, musical numbers, and that brand of comedy that comes off as pure non sequitur today, but may have worked more intentionally at the time. Anita Page gives a particularly good performance as the ingenue-ish Queenie, who’s not the brains behind the Mahoneys’ operation, but becomes famous anyway. It’s about sisterhood and independence, doing what’s right in the moment and doing nothing right, and realizing it later. In all, it feels like a product of the pre-Depression period, all caught up in the glamor of 1020s New York, but tempered with a bit of a cautionary tale about the rough folks in show business.
The upshot: A little quirky (trust us about the non sequiturs), but good, especially the climax.
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