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!!

boblipton If, like me, you are fascinated by films from the dawn of sound, You will enjoy Broadway. If you don't, you'll find it a clunky monstrosity in a bad print.The first thing you'll notice is the camera work: optical printing of a giant spritzing the Great White Way, a camera that flashes around the set and so forth. This is an enormously technically advanced movie for 1929.The next thing you will notice is the bad acting. It's certainly interesting to see Arthur Houseman in a sound film in which he's not a comic drunk, Thomas Jackson is fine in the role he originated on Broadway and Evelyn Brent gives an amazing performance. However, leads Glen Tryon and Merna Kennedy are whiny. In addition, a lot of the cast moves in strange ways, which I attribute to the fact that they're used to shooting for silent films, and don't have much understanding of how to pace movement with dialogue.What gave me the most pleasure is that this is an anti-Damon-Runyon show. I love Damon Runyon's stories, but, as some one noted, the pleasure of his work is that you never hear the gunfire, never see the murders; you see the people at the edge of the underworld, stupid and non-threatening. Here, in this backstage musical, you see the gangsters backstage, killing each other and threatening rape. My pleasure in this movie lies not in what it does, but what it tries to do and fails.

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.

FerdinandVonGalitzien After 75 years considered lost, "Broadway" directed by Herr Paul Fejos was found in Hungary, in a very well preserved copy with Hungarian titles but that European language is not a problem for this German Count because he remembers very well those Austro-Hungarian old times. This remarkable discovery gives silent fans the chance to watch the virtuosity of camera work of a director not very well known. His obscurity is a complete disgrace because Herr Fejos'surviving silents are absolutely fascinating."Broadway" tells the story of underworld criminals who run the "Paradise Club". In between musical numbers we have crimes and intrigues involving showgirls and special investigators. Passion, strange business and love affairs are all part of the mix too."Broadway" shows characters caught up in dual roles and the turmoil in which feelings come out into the open, the sort of conflicts that Herr Fejos was so fond of.The most remarkable aspect of this film is the extraordinary camera work, especially Herr Fejos' use of an enormous and amazing camera crane which he himself designed and which scrutinizes every corner of the "Paradise Club", giving a frenzied rhythm to the film with those incredible camera movements. It also highlights with many details and angles, the beautiful and astounding sets that are the backgrounds for the fuss, happy and dangerous night life in the Broadway streets. The second notable aspect of this modern silent film is that it was made before the superb "Lonesome" (1929) and, like that film, it is part of the transition period between silent films and talkies. "Broadway" was an early musical available in both formats, silent and talkie and what's more, the silent version found in Hungary is a complete copy that includes at the end of the film "Technicolor" footage ( faded after so many years ) of the final musical scene number and this so startled this German Count that his monocle popped out from his aristocratic eyes more than once.And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must leave vaudeville behind and attend the opera.Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/