"They were plenty smart when they made you beautiful."
1929 is shaping up to be a pretty terrible year. So far the nominees list includes a movie you can't watch, a movie with no plot, and The Broadway Melody.*
I felt like I was missing something the entire time I watched this movie. I could see it being a box office success (it was the highest grossing film of 1929), but a Best Picture winner? Surely I was missing something huge.
Or not. According to filmsite.org, 1929 was not a banner year for the Oscars. The winners were all closely associated with the Academy's Board, making the awards questionable at the very least. Then there was the not-so-small matter of "talkies" being made eligible for the first time. To quote filmsite: "The films nominated for this year's awards were some of the weakest films in the history of American cinema, reflecting the chaos of the transition from silents to sound films." So my best guess is that the Academy wanted to honor it's own and promote what it viewed as the future of film, even if the overall quality wasn't up to snuff.
Melody's story is a cliche backstage look at performers. Two sisters, "Hank" and Queenie, move to New York to follow their dreams of being Broadway stars. A love triangle develops between the siblings and friend Eddie Kerns. Kerns gets the sisters into a Francis Zanfield show, where Queenie catches the eye of Jock Warriner, a well-to-do society type. This film includes many staples of the "behind the scenes" genre, including: a spoiled actor, under appreciated stagehands and musicians, a gay costume designer, and jealous chorus girls starting a cat fight. I can't help but thinking that even in 1929 these stereotypes were less than fresh.
That being said, I don't think The Broadway Melody is a waste of time. As someone who loves musicals it was fun to see one of the first. The big production numbers are lively, and some of the songs are cute. Also, anyone looking to spice up their wedding ceremony should check out "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" sequence, because let's face it, everyone has already seen that Chris Brown wedding entrance. (But it's still fun to watch.)
*Plus there was all that Depression business right around the corner, but this isn't Planet Money and I haven't watched The Grapes of Wrath yet, so let's just save that discussion until later.
I felt like I was missing something the entire time I watched this movie. I could see it being a box office success (it was the highest grossing film of 1929), but a Best Picture winner? Surely I was missing something huge.
Or not. According to filmsite.org, 1929 was not a banner year for the Oscars. The winners were all closely associated with the Academy's Board, making the awards questionable at the very least. Then there was the not-so-small matter of "talkies" being made eligible for the first time. To quote filmsite: "The films nominated for this year's awards were some of the weakest films in the history of American cinema, reflecting the chaos of the transition from silents to sound films." So my best guess is that the Academy wanted to honor it's own and promote what it viewed as the future of film, even if the overall quality wasn't up to snuff.
Melody's story is a cliche backstage look at performers. Two sisters, "Hank" and Queenie, move to New York to follow their dreams of being Broadway stars. A love triangle develops between the siblings and friend Eddie Kerns. Kerns gets the sisters into a Francis Zanfield show, where Queenie catches the eye of Jock Warriner, a well-to-do society type. This film includes many staples of the "behind the scenes" genre, including: a spoiled actor, under appreciated stagehands and musicians, a gay costume designer, and jealous chorus girls starting a cat fight. I can't help but thinking that even in 1929 these stereotypes were less than fresh.
That being said, I don't think The Broadway Melody is a waste of time. As someone who loves musicals it was fun to see one of the first. The big production numbers are lively, and some of the songs are cute. Also, anyone looking to spice up their wedding ceremony should check out "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" sequence, because let's face it, everyone has already seen that Chris Brown wedding entrance. (But it's still fun to watch.)
*Plus there was all that Depression business right around the corner, but this isn't Planet Money and I haven't watched The Grapes of Wrath yet, so let's just save that discussion until later.
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