Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Sadly Over-hyped

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Another typical Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland like film with a family rehearsing for a show in the barnyard. How many times has this theme been used in Hollywood musicals?That being said, the film is long on entertainment. Song and dance man George Murphy is wonderful as the son who feuds with his dad (an excellent Charles Winninger) over which show to produce. The supporting cast is great with Ginnie Simms just wonderful in a lead role. Too bad that her career was short circuited by Louis Mayer.I just loved Nancy Walker with her long hair and devilish looks. She with Ben Blue dance up a storm in "The Milkman" song-dance segment.The guy who did those fabulous imitations of James Stewart, Clark Gable, Ronald Colman and Bette Davis was phenomenal. How can I forget his take-off on FDR as well?This is a high entertaining musical even if the theme has been repeated.

I can hardly believe that Broadway Rhythm started out as Very Warm For May on Broadway, one of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, II's flop musicals. A look at the biography of Jerome Kern by Gerald Bordman tells me that other than it being a backstage story, the plot of Very Warm For May and Broadway Rhythm is completely different. The character names have been changed and almost an entire new score was written for the film.The one song retained from Kern's score is one of the best he ever wrote, All The Things You Are. It happens that way sometimes, a flop musical can yield a gem of a hit. Ginny Simms sings it beautifully.Don Raye and Gene DePaul wrote the original songs, nothing terribly memorable. Some other material was interpolated among them my favorite George Gershwin song, Somebody Loves Me which guest star Lena Horne sings to perfection. Oddly enough the song Broadway Rhythm isn't heard here or may have wound up on the cutting room floor.George Murphy plays a Broadway producer and son of an old time vaudeville performer Charles Winninger. Winninger thinks Murphy has gone too high hat and feels that sentimentality and schmaltz will always sell on Broadway. To prove it he and movie star Ginny Simms who Murphy is trying to get to star in a new show he's producing go out and invest their money and produce an old show that Murphy had discarded years ago.Broadway Rhythm has a lot of good talent in the cast like Nancy Walker, Ben Blue, Hazel Scott, and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Sad that it was all wasted on a very trite backstage story.

Hey Gang let's put on a musical! We can use that barn down the road and I know a Hollywood star who's just dying for a launching pad to Broadway. She's read the script and she's sure that it's a winner, much better than that new one that Uncle Johnny wrote. Boy we'll show him won't we? There's the story of Broadway Rhythm in a nutshell. With a great cast it might have made a passable time waster. But then great casts usually steer clear of lame scripts. So this movie got a pretty uneven cast. When Tommy Dorsey is a standout in the acting department you know you have to worry. Apparently Gene Kelly and Eleanor Powell were originally slated for this movie, fortunately they took different paths in their careers. The movie would have been much much better, but it might have sandbagged their careers. Unfortunately the leads went to George Murphy and Ginny Simms. Simms wears more make-up than a Macdonald's clown and always has a fake TV commercial smile plastered on her kisser. The effect is eerie. She gets to sing one of the finest songs of that era, "All the Things You Are" and it is almost a complete waste. It's her best moment but it certainly isn't the song's. Murphy's idea of wooing Ms Simms appears remarkably similar to dickering for a used car. According to the plot he's supposed to be a much better dancer than the youngster he won't give a break to even though he's the son of his father's former partner. To prove that he's such a great dancer, he doesn't dance. There is some dancing and singing that is worth watching. Most of it comes from Gloria deHaven, who looks gorgeous and natural next to Simms. She may just have inspired the term hot pants with her outfit in one of the scenes from their little musical. Nancy Walker, the comedy relief in "MacMillan and Wife" appears as a wannabe performer and she is a standout especially in her musical number. In an unrelated sighting (to the plot that is) we also see Lena Horne, who is given the number "Brazilian Boogie Woogie". For some that alone will be worth watching. The strangest bit has to be a trio who pop out of nowhere as the kids are negotiating for the barn. They sing like the Andrew Sisters and dance like Chinese acrobats. Was it a measure of the times that everybody seems to be under the impression that Spanish is the language of Brazil? Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!

A pleasing enough entertainment, working primarily as a pageant of various MGM specialty acts - impressionists, contortionists, nightclub acts, tap-dancers, as well as the standard musical theatrical numbers. The film isn't a musical in the traditional sense, as all the musical numbers are in the contest of an actual performance (some done toward the camera). It's much more in the tradition of a 1960s-70s variety TV show.There is a connecting plot, though only the slimmest possible. For me, the movie dragged whenever it stopped the music for a little story updating. George Murphy doesn't really dance much here - just briefly toward the beginning and end - and he does an OK piano medley in the middle. Ginny Simms isn't much of a screen presence, but has a great voice used to advantage. Close your eyes while she's singing and you won't miss much onscreen, other than the costumes.The highlights are in the supporting cast; great numbers from Lena Horne, Tommy Dorsey, Hazel Scott, and Nancy Walker (though you really have to wait for hers; she's a bit underused here). Really nice work from Gloria DeHaven and Kenny Bowers in their couple of tunes, as well as Walter Long's tap-dancing. The singing-contortionist Ross Sisters are something to see, but the impressionist got on my nerves after a while. (Some of his subjects will not register with viewers unfamiliar with the era; there's a couple of topical jokes elsewhere in the film also.)And Charles Winninger is a pleasure to watch in a diversion for him; I've rarely seen him in musical roles.In short, worth seeing for most of the musical segments; the rest is unremarkable.7 of 10