The Broadway Melody: 1929

Coming in at number two, we have MGM’s The Broadway Melody of 1929, directed by Harry Beaumont, which was the first musical to win Best Picture. Like I did with Wings, I made notes as I watched. In order, this is what I have:

MGM - Harry Beaumont Dir.

CACOPHONY

Canned singing?

Eddie Kearns

Mahoney Sisters - Hank and Queenie

*title cards*

Hank & Eddie = <3

I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing this song a lot.

LOVE TRIANGLE

- This isn’t a musical — it’s a movie about one (Nevermind) —> kind of.

Gay jokes?

SOMEONE TAP DANCES IN POINTE SHOES OMG

Then, pretty much, I got lost about two thirds of the way through and stopped making notes.

I’ll be frank: there is a monumentally short list of movies that I dislike, and this movie unfortunately made it onto that list. I wouldn’t say it was a bad movie, per se, I just didn’t enjoy it. You’ll find by reading this blog that I have a pathological need to find the best in everyone and everything, so one of the hardest things for me to do is to have a negative opinion about something, so this post is going to be a tough one for me to write.

With both of the movies I’ve watched on this list so far, I record initial reactions and then leave my post alone in my drafts for a few days, to see what stuck with me or what I found truly memorable. For The Broadway Melody, what was memorable turned out to be: not much.

I remember being very confused during the whole movie about whom the gentlemen chose as the center of their affections. Out of the two sisters, I would have expected Hank to be the main love interest. When the Mahoney sisters were first introduced, Queenie seemed so dumb, defenseless, and undesirable that it was a wonder to me that she had everyone falling at her feet. To be fair, neither of the sisters proved to be particularly desirable as the film went on. This caused a bizarre love triangle which made the plot a bit chaotic.

I remember being stunned by the cacophony of sound in the first scene. I was a little nervous about the sound levels, because the world of talking pictures was still in its infancy, and I thought that the level of noise right at the beginning of the movie could have turned people off. Coming from watching the silent film that won the previous year, that only had a soundtrack and some sound effects, to hear that much live sound was a bit overwhelming. I welcomed the excitement of the chit chat and the laughter and plunking of piano keys, because I thought it set an exciting tone for the rest of the film. It definitely set a tone, but “exciting” would be putting a pretty positive spin on it.

I wouldn’t call this film a musical. At least, not in the way musicals are thought of now. There was no stereotypical “bursting into song” when an emotional reaction was too strong to just be put into words; although, my roommate later informed me that the first musical that follows the modern structure hadn’t been written at the time of The Broadway Melody’s release. I would be more inclined to consider this film a movie ABOUT a musical. The leading man sings the title song in the first minute of the story, and the same song is replayed at least four more times throughout the movie. The Mahoney sisters have a song that they use for an audition; there’s a strange ballad in the middle of the dress rehearsal scene; and Eddie sings a song (that has a reprise later) to Queenie that he wrote just for her about how much he loves her. As much music as there was in the movie, it was almost all repeated, and the backing soundtrack was the title song about 95% of the time. 

So, why, in my uneducated opinion and unfounded consideration, did The Broadway Melody win Best Picture? If I’m going to stick to my Aristotelean Six Element structure, I’m going to go with Music. Music, in reference to drama, encompasses all sounds heard in a piece. I would guess that since talking pictures were so new, the innovation of the filmmakers to not only mix the speaking of the actors into the sounds but also the singing of the actors AND the playing of the musicians as well was imaginably incredibly groundbreaking. Typically now, during movies or television shows with singing, the actors are lip syncing to a soundtrack, for what I’m assuming are sound mixing and sound editing concerns. (Remember when the live singing in the Les Mis movie was a huge deal?) All the singing and instrument playing on this film sounded live, not canned like more modern films. That’s my best guess. The story is chaotic and confusing, there isn’t much in the way of learnable moments or metaphor, nothing too groundbreaking in the way of character development or visual effects, and the language isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is. So Music is my best guess.

So that was The Broadway Melody. To be blunt, not blown away. Two down. Next up is All Quiet On The Western Front!