Too many fans seem to be blown away

Sadly Over-hyped

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Broadway represents what you practically picture when you think of the typical, or in this case perhaps proto-typical or quintessential or one of those highfalutin terms - of the late 20's/early 30's back-stage musical. This isn't to say that it's entirely like something of the quality of, say, 42nd Street or other Busby Berkley musicals, it doesn't quite have that standard of artistry. But it has the edge, via director Paul Fejos, of containing a certain excitement to its plot by it being really kicked off by a behind- closed-doors murder (let's just take him out as if the guy is drunk, even though he's dead) and it has a good gangster edge to it. Maybe not fully that, but it has that criminal side that makes it more than just the standard back-stage drama. There's some romance too, between one of the guys that I think runs the show or runs the club or something like that, and one of the dancing/singing girls for the show. It feels like we know it will have a tragic outcome in some way or another, but we can't be totally sure how it will unfold (one may have an idea, and you may be correct, but who will eventually take out who turns out to be a real surprise). The main mark against it is that some of the dialog and performances haven't aged too amazingly, but then context is in order: this was one of the earliest tries at not just a sound picture but a sound musical, and in that sense it's phenomenally directed by nature of the movement of the camera. Of course one can tell when at certain times it has to stop dead and the actors are there on set for the sake of the microphone getting their dialog as carefully as possible. Also, as one might expect, some (or many) of the performances are more geared for the stage, how the dialog is spoken especially. What elevates it is the joy in Fejos's direction and that he doesn't get *bad* performances exactly out of his players (at worst they're just mediocre or forgettable). He also brings a certain authenticity, or just a 'movie' authenticity if that makes sense, to the feel of this back-stage drama and how everything does keep moving story-wise. It may run a minute or two too long, but the finale makes it all worth it as the filmmakers use an early two- strip technicolor for the big finale number "Sing a Little Love Song", which even has a couple of laughs simply by featuring the 'bitching-rest-face' performer (who does have a pivotal role in the climax just before this). This is probably the must-see part of the movie, and this comes after what has been a more than competently made musical that has the songs worked in to the story, not those that come inorganically, and if you have the patience for the technical imperfections as they were working things out, it's fun.

I finally saw this film after hearing about it for years. It has good photography for an early talkie, the art deco settings and the imaginative costumes are lovely to behold, and the acting and direction in the dialog scenes are putrid. Paul Fejos may have been a great visual director in silents, and, as I say, this film does have good visuals, but there are so many bad dialogue scenes, mainly by the men involved, that this becomes just another bad early talkie. Evelyn Brent, whom I admired so much in THE SILVER HORDE, has little to do here but scowl in her performance. Betty Francisco, as Mazie, comes off best of the females. None of the men turn in good performances, with the prize for worst acting going to the actor playing McCorn, the cop. He reads his lines in a flat monotone while he looks off camera as if for cue cards. The sound recording is good except for one scene when it totally drops out for a few seconds, and the print quality is pretty good, save for the Technicolor finale which looks pretty bad. This was apparently a hit when it came out. Practically anything with sound was in 1929, but take away the pretty trappings, and you have a pot boiler that would have lost money if, say, Tiffany had made it. Watching this suddenly elevates films like THE Broadway MELODY and ON WITH THE SHOW! to absolute greatness.

"Broadway" is a very unusual film. While it is a very early talky and is dated in some ways, in others it's amazingly advanced...especially with the truly spectacular camera-work. For the artistry alone, it's well worth seeing!The opening credits are shocking and very interesting...and you know you're in for a special film. Using a model of Broadway, a man dressed up like a demon roams the streets and the titles then appear over it! For a model scene, it was very, very well done. Also well done are scenes using cranes, amazing dissolves and a roving camera- - something rarely seen even in films of the 30s! Also amazing are the costumes....especially the one with the skyscraper hats!As for the story, a mobster named Crandall owns the theater in which the film is set. He's involved in bootlegging and early on in the picture, he murders his competition. As he and his sidekick are dragging the body outside, Billie and Roy see them...and are told the guy was drunk and they are 'helping him'. This story is unquestioned...but when Scar is found dead nearby, Roy realizes what has happened. As for Billie, she obviously has feelings for Crandall, and he's been heaping his attention on her, and she lies for the guy when asked about this later. So what's going to become of Billie and Roy? And, what of the murder? Will it go unpunished?This film is unusual because although you see lots of costumes and dancers, it's not a musical until the very end--which is, incidentally, in Two-color Technicolor...and it's very degraded (looking mostly black and orangy-red). The copy I saw on YouTube sure could stand restoration.As far as the overall film goes, it was BRILLIANT for 1929....and still holds up pretty well today.

If you take away director Paul Fejos's flashy crane shots and stunning opening sequence set to the music of Ferde Grofe's "Metropolis," there isn't much left to "Broadway," an otherwise static transfer of a stage play to the screen in the early talking era. The quality of the sound is superior to most talkies made in 1929 and the camera set ups and actor blocking are slightly less moribund, but there are still too many long sequences of posed bodies mouthing dull dialogue. Glenn Tryon, the appealing vaudevillian from Fejos's "Lonesome" the year before, is fine as the hoofer who dreams of getting out of Club Paradise and hitting it big. And Evelyn Brent, in what amounts to a supporting role, dominates the screen with her smoldering presence whenever she appears. Problem is, in order to make this routine play about backstage intrigue involving showgirls and bootleggers interesting as cinema, Fejos chose to make liberal use of innovative, ambitious crane shots, requiring an inflation of the nightclub setting to such gargantuan proportions that the main character's ambitions seem questionable; isn't he already headlining in the biggest show place on earth outside a football field? Rather than a small-time venue, we get something more like a surrealist-cubist airplane hangar and it soon becomes clear that the movie is simply an excuse for Fejos to experiment with a new toy. The sweeping camera draws attention to itself, whereas the liberal use of superimpositions in "Lonesome" a year earlier revealed truths about modern mechanized drudgery and the nature of urban crowds. Most of the songs by Con Conrad, Sidney D. Mitchell and Archie Gottler are cut off before they can get much beyond their introductions, their purpose reduced to another means of showing off the gigantic stage set. At well over 90 minutes, "Broadway" outstays its welcome. The much-touted finale, synced to a reprise of the film's best song, "Hittin' the Ceiling," looks like a jerkily animated third-generation color photocopy.