Watch The Broadway Melody For Free

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

"The Broadway Melody" can be appreciated more for its context than its content. Although it contains some pleasant music, the dialogue is mediocre and the acting is mundane. However, it spans the transition from silent films to talkies--a transition that occurred so quickly that this film, which was MGM's first talkie, still contains remnants of the silent era.Most notable are the title cards which announce the locations though unnecessary. Also, the film companies were scrambling to find talent that could optimize the advent of sound. Charles King plays the male lead, Eddie Kerns, as if he is impersonating Jolson in both song and speech. He is unable to deliver his lackluster lines with conviction, so Eddie comes off as a shallow character. The two sister characters, Queenie (Anita Page) and Hank (Bessie Love), do feel like sisters. Love acquits herself the best, delivering an enthusiastic performance.The film feels like a glimpse behind the scenes of a Broadway revue. And its pre-Code atmosphere helps in that regard. Though some of the action takes place on a stage, there are song performances that advance the plot--a new development--like "You Were Meant For Me". The title song, also by Brown and Freed, is ubiquitous throughout the film, but could have been used to better effect. Here, it's just a throwaway tune that Eddie hopes will be successful.This film was 1929's top grosser and won the Oscar for Best Picture, so they did some things right. But in just a few years, talkies would blossom to fullness, giving viewers musical classics that are still loved today.

The first talkie to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards has an oft-used plot - people try to become famous amid complications - but it's not a bad movie. I'm not a fan of musicals, and many things about "The Broadway Melody" come across as dated. I guess that one has to try and imagine watching the movie when it first got released. It got released before the Hays Code got established, so some of the scenes look a bit risqué for the era (it even feels silly to write that sentence in an era when one can simply look for porn on the internet). The movie's a mildly fun look at 1920s music.* Most notably, the movie ushered in decades of musicals. Some of the musicals are among the most irritating movies.Anyway, this movie's okay just as long as you don't interpret it as the most serious type of movie. Accept it as plain old entertainment and you'll probably like it. As for me, my favorite movies from old Hollywood are gangster movies, horror movies, and slapstick comedies (especially the Looney Tunes cartoons).*Nowadays, probably the most famous 1920s song is "Midnight, the Stars and You", which featured prominently in "The Shining".

Most backstage musicals really had little plot line, but in the case of this MGM Oscar Winning Best Film, it has plenty of plot to spare, with some of the raciest dialog and controversial characters that indeed makes it understandable why this would have been the movie to see in the months preceding the start of the great depression. It's the story of two sisters (Bessie Love and Anita Page) who make it big as a song and dance team on Broadway (much like the Duncan Sisters who briefly had film careers at MGM) and have major issues as they both become involved with leading man Charles King. Older sister Bessie is pretty but lacks the sex appeal of her younger sister, bombshell Anita, who seems quite self-centered and spoiled. At one point, she has a temper tantrum backstage which has to be seen to be believed with her older sister trying to keep her from walking off in the middle of a performance. The musical numbers, most notably the title song and "The Wedding of the Painted Doll", are creaky to look at, but fascinating, a historical view of what transition movie photographers and sound engineers needed to fix from the transition from silent to sound and where to place the microphone so the camera and actors could move around rather than be static and stuck in one place. This is a fascinating companion piece to "Singin' in the Rain" which years later told the story of the early days of sound and the issues that movie musical filmmakers needed to work on.Charles King and Bessie Love truly shine in their leading roles as the leading man and sensible older sister, while Anita Page is quite impish in her spoiled girl role. Every archetype of Broadway character is presented both dramatically and humorously, with some hysterically funny banter between an obviously gay costume designer and a very butch wardrobe lady. Fine character performances by James Gleason, Eddie Kane (as a producer whose name parallels Broadway's real top producer at the time) and Jed Prouty, as well as appearances by the song-writing team of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, who ironically would go onto produce many of MGM's biggest musicals of the 1940's and 50's including "Singin' in the Rain". Obviously, he knew what he was talking about. So overlook the slow moving camera and put yourself in the shoes of 1929 audiences who definitely tapped away as they dreamed of no skies of gray on the great white way.

The following are lyrics by Arthur Freed - A million lights they flicker there - A million hearts beat quicker there - No skies of gray on the Great White Way - That's the Broadway Melody.Released in 1929 - The Broadway Melody is a somewhat difficult movie to review since one feels that with every comment they must be reminding the readers that this was one of the very first all-sound pictures to come out of Hollywood.Set against the backstage hubbub of an elaborate Broadway musical revue that's being financed by big-shot, Frank Zanfield, The Broadway Melody's all-too-familiar plot revolves around the romances, the heartaches, and the struggles of certain prominent cast members who are appearing in the show.I found that far too often it became quite clear that the technicians behind the cameras and sound equipment didn't have a full grasp of what to do with this new medium - And, as a result, a number of the scenes came across as being noticeably clunky, disjointed and overlong.It's interesting to note that this film (now 85 years old) predates the Hayes Code, which placed strong restrictions on what could and could not be seen (or heard) in movies.This film does not contain any nudity, but there were a number of scenes where 2 of the female characters were shown in various states of undress, including shots of them parading around indoors in just their undergarments.Even though The Broadway Melody wasn't a particularly good picture, it was interesting to view it in the context of its significance and value in the history of early movie-making.*Trivia note* - Back in 1929 movies generally had 35-cent admission prices. With that in mind - This film grossed nearly $4 million upon its initial release.