BROADWAY MELODY

The Broadway Melody
(aka "The Broadway Melody of 1929")
MGM, 1929, B/W, 100 minutes, ***
Released February, 1929

Broadway is auditions, struggle and heartbreak - where moxie counts above talent and the show must go on. Beloved show-biz scenarios could finally be heard as well as seen in this Academy Award-winning Best Picture.

History's first "All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!" movie was also All Hit, drawing enough 35-cents admissions to pile up an enormous $4-million box office. The film's sound-technology innovations were revolutionary, the performances had gusto (including Bessie Love's effective turn as a hard-luck older sister), the Arthur Freed / Nacio Herb Brown songs became irresistible standards and when all was danced, acted and voh-doh-de-oh-dohed, a new American art form emerged: the movie musical!

Produced by: Irving Thalberg, Lawrence Weingarten
Directed by: Harry Beaumont
Story by Edmund Goulding
Dialogue by: Norman Houston and James Gleason
Lyrics by: Arthur Freed
Music by: Nacio Herb Brown
Choreography: George Cunningham
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons
Wardrobe by: David Cox
Recording Engineer: Douglas Shearer
Photographed by: John Arnold
Film Editor: Sam S. Zimbalist

Awards: Academy Award for Best Picture; Academy Award nominations for Best Actress (Bessie Love) and Best Director

Cast: Bessie Love [Hank Mahoney], Anita Page [Queenie Mahoney], Jed Prouty [Uncle Jed], Kenneth Thompson [Jacques Warriner], Mary Doran [Flo], Charles King [Eddie Kearns], Edward Dillon [Stage Manager], Eddie Kane [Francis Zanfield], J. Emmett Beck [Babe Hatrick], Marshall Ruth [Stew], Drew Demarest [Turpe], James Gleason [Music Publisher], James Burrows [Singer]

Musical Program: [0:00] Overture (The Broadway Melody / Give My Regards to Broadway) (played by Orchestra behind Titles and through opening scene); [0:02] The Broadway Melody (sung by Charles King, accompanied by several Chorus Girls, a guitarist and a clarinetist); [0:16] The Broadway Melody (sung by Charles King, danced by King and the Mahoney Sisters in their hotel room); [0:21] Harmony Babies (sung and danced by Anita Page and Bessie Love); [0:34] The Broadway Melody (sung by Charles King, danced by King, Anita Page and Bessie Love in dress rehearsal); [0:36] The Broadway Melody (sung by Charles King, danced by King and Chorus Girls); [0:40] The Love Boat (sung by James Burrows and Chorus); [0:54] You were Meant for Me (sung by Charles King to Anita Page); [1:03] Truthful Parson Brown (sung and played by The Biltmore Quartet); [1:12] The Wedding of the Painted Doll (sung offscreen by James Burrows, danced by the "Zanfeild Dolly Girls"); [1:16] The Boy Friend (sung by Anita Page and Bessie Love, danced by Page and Love with the Zanfield Dancing Girls); [1:36] Harmony Babies (sung and danced by Anita Page and Bessie Love)