Broadway (1929)

A hoofer (Glenn Tryon) in a nightclub finds his partner (Merna Kennedy) being wooed by a bootlegger (Robert Ellis). When the bootlegger kills a rival (Leslie Fenton), he compromises the girl by giving her a diamond bracelet and asking her to not to "remember" the incident. Based on the Broadway show by George Abbott and Philip Dunning, this is a very stagnant backstage musical. The director Paul Fejos brings almost nothing of interest to this static early example of Hollywood's transition from silent cinema to the talkies. Visually, the only interesting thing about it is the massive Art Deco nightclub set which is very impressive and which Fejos and cinematographer Hal Mohr (THE WILD ONE) display to effect by the extensive use of a long shots via a large crane. The acting save one is pretty amateurish. The stand out is Evelyn Brent (von Sternberg's UNDERWORLD) who gives a solid performance as a gangster's moll. The production numbers are pretty shabby (Tryon is not a musical performer) and one almost wishes Busby Berkeley would take over and give the numbers some splash and kick. The film's finale is in two strip Technicolor. It's a curio for the film archivists among us, nothing more. But I was slightly taken aback when one of the characters referred to Kennedy as a professional virgin, some 23 years before THE MOON IS BLUE controversy.