The Broadway Melody (1929)

Winner of 1 Academy Award:

Best Picture

M-G-M

Nominated for 2 Academy Awards:

Best Directing

Harry Beaumont

Best Actress

Bessie Love

It won 1 Oscar out of a total of 3 nominations in 1928-29.


The Broadway Melody is an all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing dramatic sensation that centers around a song-and-dance man who commissions a vaudeville sister act to appear in his Broadway revue.  Behind-the-scenes, a wealthy suitor courts the younger sister of the musical duo, creating tension and jealousy among the talented threesome.

It was the first musical and the first sound film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Originally, the film's sequence featuring the song "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" was presented in Technicolor on a two-color track.  This helped initiate a trend for movie musicals to feature color sequences, which would continue for some years later.  Unfortunately, the Technicolor sequence in The Broadway Melody is presumed lost, and only a black-and-white copy is known to exist at this time.


Editorial:

It is easy to beat up on this film.  There seems to be a general consensus that it is one of the least deserving Best Picture winners in Academy history.  But there is a reason as to why it won.  The novelty of sound at the time probably gave it incredible momentum in terms of commercial appeal.

It was certainly groundbreaking, and it did set the stage for all of the sound films - especially musicals - that followed.  But that alone cannot save the film from unquestionable mediocrity.  Without being too harsh, it does come off as rather dull and silly.  The musical numbers were few and far between, seaming together a senseless story about a showbiz love triangle that was both prolonged and ridiculous.  That being said, it was a pioneer of the genre.

Score  |  03/10  |  This motion picture may be worth trying.