Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

kidboots Had to pinch myself to see if I wasn't dreaming - just a mighty opening - Broadway, that monolithic monster chewing up all the hopes and dreams while daring the dreamers to come on in!! It was Universal's big special production of the year and Laemmle Jr. spent over a million to bring Phillip Dunning's and George Abbott's hit drama to the silver screen. Laemmle commissioned a huge Art Deco night club set, 70 feet high and a city block wide which replaced the small, intimate cabaret of the play. Paul Fejo is the real star - he designed a crane to give the camera fluidity of movement and travel from every angle.The musical numbers are secondary to the story and while, with countless imitations, it is as familiar as an old shoe, back in 1929 it was fresh and exciting. Even in 1929 the imitators started in with movies like "Broadway Babies" and "Broadway Hoofer" but as one contemporary commentator said "all they could steal were stones from the mountain, the mountain itself remained"!!Mordaunt Hall may have declared that Lee Tracy was a far better Roy Lane but Glenn Tryon was pretty good and he was comfortable with dialogue. He played Lane, a song and dance man in the Paradise Club who leads the chorus girls through their paces while waiting for a lucky break that is going to propel him and his partner Billie Moore to the big time - or at least "Chambersburg and Pottsville"!! "Hitting the Ceiling" and "Broadway" are the show stopping tunes but the real action takes place behind the scenes. Sweet Billie (Merna Kennedy, fresh from Chaplin's "The Circus") - she does tend to slow the story down a bit with her mushy "you wouldn't kid me would you" and "I'm for you , you know I am"!! She is being romanced by slick bootlegger Steve Crandall. As played by Robert Ellis he seems to have genuine feelings for her, calling her "little fella" and "I'd murder for you" but with his gang he is all business and it is the murder of Scar Edwards (Leslie Fenton), shot in the back that brings about his downfall.Thomas Jackson who repeated his role as the laconic detective Dan McCorn was singled out for high praise. His distinctive, dead pan delivery soon had him typecast as a stone faced law man in films such as "Little Caesar" etc. Evelyn Brent was also given good notices and for me she gave one of the best performances. She was Pearl, a tough chorine who has a good reason for wanting Crandall bought to justice.So different from a lot of the early talkies - actors play and recite their dialogue as though they mean it and the slang and the wisecracks must have enthralled movie goers at the time. "Weisenheimer", "swell fella", "four flusher", "if a Jane I'd pinned all my hopes on was going to Hell" and as one chorus cutie wisecracks when told to put on a happy face for the customers "smile at 'em? - we can hardly keep from laughing at 'em". And in cutting pre-code put down "If I've ever seen a professional virgin, she's it"!!!Highly Recommended!!

MartinHafer "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.

plushing-417-732925 I just came home from maybe the premier of the restored version with 2-color finale. The screening is part of a terrific series at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan going through a dozen or more Universal recently restored films. Last night's King of Jazz was one of the greatest movie going experiences I ever had.Ol' Man Law of Averages caught up tonight. This movie is cringe-worthy terrible, and if you want to see it for crane shots be my guest. For Historians and obsessives only.A hackneyed gangster/nightclub story. Acting that was so wooden you wanted to leap into the screen and help out. One standout character. Leading lady apparently recuperating from a recent lobotomy. There was some potential in the nightclub acts but thanks to a blurry shoot and that damn crane (again), the dancers look like mice.

calvinnme This musical was directed by Paul Fejos at Universal Studios in 1929. There were so many musical films made in 1929 with the title "Broadway" in them, thus you might ask - why is this one unique? For one its director was a Hungarian bacteriologist by trade who dabbled in film and is famous in particular for two late 20's films - 1928's "Lonesome" and this film, "Broadway". Fejos made a crane the actual star of the picture. It was a custom built contraption that allowed the camera to sweep about the nightclub in which most of the movie was set. Most early sound films were very static by necessity, and Fejos wanted his musical to have some of the fluid motion of the late silent era restored. However, during these sweeping scenes, Fejos had to use silent film and then dub over it with recorded sound. This gives these parts of the film a surreal and disembodied quality.The film is like "Faust" meets "Lights of New York" in that the film opens with a metallic-painted giant stalking about Broadway at night, filling his glass with ale, and gesturing for the residents of Broadway to join him in his debauchery. The film then moves to a nightclub where the story is largely unremarkable. It's basically just another gangster film set in a nightclub punctuated with two-strip Technicolor musical numbers. "Hitting the Ceiling" is the best and most remembered of these moments. My main complaint about this film is that Evelyn Brent looks so bored during most of it. She could and did turn in good performances in the early talkie era, so I'm not sure why with all of the intrigue that is lurking about the Paradise Club her reaction seems to be that it's just in a day's work.The film was shot both silent and in sound, and has never been on VHS or DVD. The silent version I saw had Technicolor, and the sound version I saw was in black and white. I don't think that a talking version with color still exists. Some people have attempted to dub the speech of the talkie version into the silent version to get the maximum effect of the music and the color, but what I've seen hasn't worked too well. The film's director, Paul Fejos, decided to leave the film industry shortly after "Broadway" was complete due to his dislike of the people running Universal. Instead he embarked on a career in anthropology, where he became a leader in his field. An unusual end to the film career of a man who made very unusual films.