Broadway (1929)

A naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.

Director:

Pál Fejös

Writers:

Phillip Dunning (play), George Abbott (play),

Stars:

Glenn Tryon, Evelyn Brent, Merna Kennedy

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Glenn Tryon	...	Roy Lane
Evelyn Brent	...	Pearl
Merna Kennedy	...	Billie Moore
Thomas E. Jackson	...	Dan McCorn
Robert Ellis	...	Steve Crandall
Otis Harlan	...	'Porky' Thompson
Paul Porcasi	...	Nick Verdis
Marion Lord	...	Lil Rice
Fritz Feld	...	Mose Levett
Leslie Fenton	...	'Scar' Edwards
Arthur Housman	...	Dolph
George Davis	...	Joe
Betty Francisco	...	Mazie
Edythe Flynn	...	Ruby
Florence Dudley	...	Ann

Storyline

A naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.

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Plot Keywords:

two strip technicolor | gangster | based on play

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Genres:

Musical

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 May 1929 (USA)

Also Known As:

Broadway - An der Todesecke der 135. Straße

Filming Locations:

Stage 12, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min 104 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono (MovieTone)

Color:

Black and White Color (2-strip Technicolor) (finale)

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Produced as an all-talkie, it has inventive camera work that contrasts considerably against other, mostly static, musicals of the 1928-30 period. Director Pál Fejös developed a special crane capable of moving the extremely cumbersome camera at 600' per minute.

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Connections

Remade as Broadway (1942)

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Soundtracks

"SING A LITTLE LOVE SONG"
Written by Con Conrad, Sidney D. Mitchell, Archie Gottler

User Reviews

terrific opening, then downhill

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.