Lord Byron of Broadway (1930) User Reviews

A creaking relic with some interest

[moorich · 6/10 · 15 June 2006]

This is a movie musical from 1930 so expect very static scenes as the sound equipment in those days greatly limited the actors and director. Second, let me caution that the actor in the lead male role and the two actresses in the top female roles are often blushingly amateurish. The director didn't seem to be much help and in a few years he would be at Monogram doing routine programmers.

So what's worthwhile here? First there is the performance of Cliff Edwards, who gets a chance at a full-bodied role and does well. He shows he could be more than a Disney footnote.

But the biggest surprise to me was the fine, natural performance of Benny Rubin. I was so accustomed to him as an aging ethnic comedian that I almost didn't recognize him. The role was flash-flash "Jewish" as he played an employee of a song publisher and he joked about charging the hero interest for a loan. But he was the most natural presence on the screen and he shined as a real human being. The camera loved him at the same time it gave scant grace to the leads in this film.

Rubin is often mentioned as a talented comedian who was limited in Hollywood by the ethnic prejudice. Here we see the very real evidence of what was lost because of that prejudice.

Dine, Women and Songs

[lugonian · 6/10 · 31 March 2017]

LORD BYRON OF Broadway (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1930), directed by William Nigh and Harry Beaumont, turns out to be another one of the studio's musical contributions to "The Broadway Melody" (1929) mode. With the title leaving the impression of a British Lord achieving fame and fortune on the Broadway stage, it's actually a scripted story from the novel by Nell Martin dealing with an American songwriter and the women and tunes in his life. While this production could have been a reunion for its "Broadway Melody" stars of Charles King, Bessie Love and Anita Page, MGM placed another singing Charles in the lead, Charles Kaley, accompanied by Broadway veteran, Ethelind Terry, and Marion Shilling as his female co-stars. As with many early musicals featuring star named performers from the theater making their mark in motion pictures, the names of Kaley and Terry just didn't go any further than this film. As much as they separately appeared later in short subjects and an obscure western film into the thirties, LORD BYRON OF Broadway was just another here today/gone tomorrow musical from the early sound era and nothing more.

The story introduces Roy Erskine (Charles Kaley), a piano playing songwriter coming to the Trocadero Café where he's met by another one of his rejected girlfriends, this one named Kitty, who sees him for what he actually is. With another girl out of the way, Roy encounters Bessie (Gwen Lee), a flirtatious blonde at the café. He escorts Bessie to her apartment where he not only gets an inspiration for another new song, but works fast with kiss and embrace with a woman he hardly knows. Later, Bessie introduces Roy to Mr. Millaire (John Byron), a song promoter interested in his latest composition, "Just a Bundle of Old Love Letters." In spite of her favor, Roy begins to tire and ignore Bessie. Later that night, Roy comes into a sheet music store where he immediately becomes interested in employee, Nancy Clover (Marion Shilling), who guides him through his "Love Letters" song. The song is soon introduced on the theatrical stage by Joe Lundeen (Cliff Edwards), the popular singer of songs. Roy and Nancy, who happen to be in the audience, are shocked when Lundeen credits the "Love Letters" song written by Mr. Millaire. As Roy proves he actually wrote that song, Lundeen's agent, Phil (Benny Rubin) stumbles upon a great idea by having Roy and Lundeen work as a song and dance team, with Nancy at the piano, and Roy providing his latest song hits. Now a popular vaudeville team, Roy, the ladies man, forgets his friends and spends much of it with Ardis Treyker (Ethelind Terry), a theatrical singer. After Roy and Ardis become engaged, Roy discovers his fiancé happens to still be married, and is surprised to find out the name of her husband of seven years. Also appearing in the story are Drew Demarest (Edwards, the Butler); Paulette Aqult (Marie, the Maid); Gino Corrado (Riccardi, the jealous husband); Rita Flynn and Hazel Craven, among others not credited in the cast listings.

While LORD BYRON OF Broadway gets by with its familiar plotting, the song interludes come off best. The motion picture soundtrack, credited by "Broadway Melody" composers as Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed include: "Just a Bundle of Old Love Letters" (sung by Charles Kaley); "The Japanese Sandman" and "Just a Bundle of Old Love Letters" (both sung by Cliff Edwards); "Just a Bundle of Old Love Letters" (reprise by Kaley); Untitled dance number; "Blue Daughter of Heaven" (stage production by Dmitri Tiomkin and Raymond B. Cagan, sung by James Burroughs); "Should I?" (sung by Charles Kaley); "Should I?" (sung by Ethelind Terry); "The Woman in the Shoe" (stage production sung by Ethelind Terry); and "You're the Bride and I'm the Groom" (sung by Kaley). The two production numbers, staged and filmed in color to an otherwise black and white film, are highlights to a degree. As much a some musicals of 1930 were beginning to improve in its staging by this point (as opposed to production numbers from 1929 with ensembles doing card-wheels or flip-flops), "The Japanese Sandman," for instance, is a predate to the Busby Berkeley numbers of the 1930s with chorus girls in circular revolving floors doing formations captured by camera from top of the stage. Yet, this production is credited not by Berkeley but to Sammy Lee, with ballet sequences by Albertine Rasch. "The Woman in the Shoe" is another color staged production that comes later in the story. Of the bundle of songs vocalized, "Should I?" is well received, considering it was the same score used in parts of the silent film production of OUR MODERN MAIDENS (MGM, 1929) starring Joan Crawford.

Though Kaley sings and acts his part well, like Charles King from "The Broadway Melody," they would only become associated only with early sound musicals during the 1929-30 season and nothing else. Ethelind Terry, better known for her stage role in the Florenz Ziegfeld musical, RIO RITA, receives second billing, yet surprisingly comes 40 minutes into this 70 minute story. One would assume it would be Ethelind as the good girl rather than the third-billed Marion Shilling, the actual co-star of the story. The only familiar faces seen here are Benny Rubin (with that distinctive laugh) and Cliff Edwards, considering their extended movie and later television roles, even if their latter day careers were far from major. Edwards, however, usually associated with singing and comedy routines, is quite effective with good when serious, especially during his showdown scenes with song and dance partner, Kaley.

With the exception of rare revivals in theatrical movie houses as Theater 80/St Marks in the 1970s, LORD BYRON OF Broadway remains virtually forgotten and unknown today, even with occasional cable television showings on Turner Classic Movies and availability on home video and DVD. It may not have been theatrically successful in 1930, LORD BYRON OF Broadway somehow holds interest for film buffs, even with the now lacking of better-known names heading in the cast. (**)

"The Lady in the Shoe" Number

[LGevirtz · 6/10 · 16 February 2020]

"The Lady in the Shoe" number, filmed in primitive color and sung charmingly by Ethelind Terry, is quite stunning for a 1930s film.

Originally announced for William Haines and Bessie Love

[drednm · 9 November 2007]

This backstage musical a la THE Broadway MELODY about love and angst behind the footlights was based on a famously nasty novel by Nell Martin. Haines and Love balked at the idea of playing in such a nasty plot so MGM had it re-written (watered down) and brought in stage stars Charles Kaley and Ethelind Terry, and ingenue Marion Shilling. Creaky and a little slow in places but very interesting for the music and the 2-strip Technicolor.

Kaley (who slightly resembles Haines) plays a user. He latches on to anyone or anything that will get him ahead. He uses women (Shilling and Gwen Lee) as well as his partner (Cliff Edwards). But while he meets his match in the grasping Ethelind Terry (the original star of RIO RITA on Broadway), he's not the one who pays.

One good song: "Should I" which one used in SINGIN'IN THE RAIN decades later. Co-stars included Benny Rubin, Drew Demorest, Eddie Kane, Rita Flynn, and the voice of Jack Benny. Ann Dvorak is in the chorus.

Shilling and Edwards, perhaps, come off best.

Should I reveal exactly how I feel?...Blehhh!

[paulwl · 4/10 · 15 June 2006]

If the name of Ukulele Ike makes you smile with informed warmth, you may want to give a quick flip past "Lord Byron of Broadway" when TCM replays it in thirty years or so. If you're obsessive-compulsive enough to wait out scene after scene of tepid love talk for two-strip Technicolor Albertina Rasch dance routines, or lesser-known Nacio Herb Brown songs trilled by operetta-singing stiffs, you may even sit thru a good portion of it. But whatever you bring to it, be warned that you cannot possibly like this picture.

Even to the 1929 audience, "Lord Byron" must have been a bland plate of turkey indeed. The color dance numbers aren't too bad to look at - Mme. Rasch owed a debt to Busby The Great, or maybe vice versa - but listening to the draggy, chirpy musical settings is painful even if you love the music of the 20s. And if the name of lead actor and grade-B recording star Charles Kaley means anything at all to you, you've watched entirely too much Joe Franklin. Or perhaps you ARE Joe Franklin.

Strictly for nostalgia nerds, this, and even for them, it's not all that rewarding.

Mediocre, but with good numbers

[tamsin-parker-262-538925 · 3/10 · 22 January 2020]

The costumes are amazing, the choreography is solid and Cliff Edwards is likeable, but the leading man is a stalker as well as a womanizer which makes him unsympathetic, intentionally or not. The color scenes, while impressive for 1930, have the quality of a 1970s infomercial. It's just okay, and it's interesting to see where "Should I?" came from.

A PUZZLEMENT

[rgcabana · 5/10 · 29 March 2022]

ETHELIND TERRY WAS A THEATRICAL SINGER OF BEAUTY AND TALENT, THE HEIGHT OF HER CAREER STARRING IN THE TITLE ROLE OF THE LATE-TWENTIES BROADWAY HIT, "RIO RITA". SHE WAS PASSED OVER FOR RKO'S 1929 MOVIE VERSION IN FAVOR OF BEBE DANIELS - THIS PRODUCTION WITH AN EXTRAORDINARILY LENGTHY RUNNING TIME! MISS TERRY DID HAVE THE FEMALE LEAD IN "LORD BYRON OF BROADWAY" (MGM; 1930), A BAD FEATURE ALTHOUGH WITH THE SONGSTRESS PERFORMING IN A TRULY WONDERFUL MUSICAL NUMBER, "WOMAN IN THE SHOE", PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE TWO-STRIP TECHNICOLOR PROCESS AND LATER REUSED IN "NERTSERY RHYMES", A 1933 MGM COMEDY SHORT FEATURING THE THREE STOOGES WITH TED HEALY (HE AN ANCHOR AROUND THEIR NECKS BEFORE THEY LEFT HIM IN 1934 FOR COLUMBIA PICTURES). TERRY CONTINUED TO STAR IN VARIOUS STAGE MUSICALS, NONE VERY SUCCESSFUL. IN 1937, SHE APPEARED IN A TEX RITTER WESTERN FOR GRAND NATIONAL (A SMALL STUDIO) ENTITLED "ARIZONA DAYS", AND THEREIN LIES A TRULY STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCE: RECEIVING PROMINENT BILLING (THIRD AFTER RITTER'S HORSE, "WHITE FLASH"!) ON POSTERS AND LOBBY CARDS - AND HAVING A BIT OF DIALOGUE WITH ANOTHER WOMAN, BOTH SEATED UPON A WAGON EARLY IN THE STORY - THE SINGER DISAPPEARS FROM THE PRODUCTION! STILLS SHOW HER PERFORMING IN A STAGE NUMBER, VERIFYING THAT SHE HAD A PROMINENT ROLE INITIALLY. BUT ETHELIND TERRY NO LONGER IS EVEN BILLED IN THE PICTURE'S MAIN CREDITS! WHAT HAPPENED? ASIDE FROM A FEW NEWS PHOTOS OF HER AS ASSISTING THE WAR EFFORT BY BEING EMPLOYED IN AN AIRCRAFT PLANT, THIS IN 1943 - STILL HIGHLY ATTRACTIVE - SHE SEEMINGLY DISAPPEARS, AS SHE DID FROM THE TEX RITTER FILM. HER DEATH IS GIVEN AS MARCH 17, 1984 IN FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA, REPORTEDLY WEALTHY ; ADDITIONAL DETAILS, HOWEVER, ARE NOT INCLUDED. PERHAPS AN EXPLANATION WAS RENDERED FOR HER NO LONGER BEING IN THE WESTERN FEATURE, THIS IN A TRADE PAPER SUCH AS "VARIETY" OR "THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER" - UNLESS THEY, TOO, HAD BY THEN LITTLE IF ANY INTEREST IN THIS ONCE VERY SUCCESSFUL SINGER.

SINCERELY, RAY CABANA, JR.

Boy meets girl, boy makes good...boy becomes fat-head....it's a story as old as Hollywood.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 23 January 2016]

According to IMDb, this film originally was supposed to be a bigger budgeted prestige film starring one of its huge stars at the time, William Haines (he's all but forgotten today but was one of MGM's biggest box office stars). However, the plot was rather bizarre and the studio apparently lacked confidence in the project and so that is why the folk who star in it are mostly no-name actors. The only guy in the credits that you might recognize is Cliff Edwards...who was later the voice of Jimminy Cricket. Still, it must have been a prestige picture to some extent, as there is a Two-Color Technicolor dance sequences in the film...and color was still rather expensive at the time and relatively rare.

The story is very familiar--but perhaps not so familiar back in 1930. In fact, the story is so similar, it's practically a giant cliché. A nice young man meets a girl and they fall in love...though neither knows it. The boy suddenly makes good and becomes a bit star...and his head swells to enormous proportions! Now, he's forgotten about the girl and is in love with a big-time singing star. Can the fat-head manage to get his head straight and realize what he's had all along or will he just ruin his life due to his incredible stupidity?!

Charles Kaley's singing in the lead isn't bad--particularly his rendition of "Should I Reveal". However, the woman who then sang it was just god-awful and listening to it was pure torture! The story is okay...just too familiar. Plus, Kaley's character was just too stupid and unlikable--even more fat-headed and selfish than it should have been. As a result, the film clearly has suffered from time. While it might have been pretty good for 1930, today only the most long-suffering viewer (like me!) would bother finishing the movie. Not bad...but not all that good as well. Plus the film's ending seemed to take forever to finally arrive...

Underrated early musical gem

[mgconlan-1 · 8/10 · 15 June 2006]

I've seen this film twice and I think it's really one of the most underrated early musicals. Yes, it has its flaws: there's some typical early-talkie clunkiness in the direction, and Charles Kaley as the leading man is good-looking and a competent actor but hardly the irresistibly charismatic woman-magnet and energetic go-getter the script tells us Roy Erskine is. (Imagine this script as an early-1930's Warners product with James Cagney in the lead and you've got a good idea of what this story could have been.) But the story has real bite and pathos, its picture of the music business as exploitative and cutthroat rings as true now as it did then, and next to Rouben Mamoulian's masterpiece "Applause" this is probably the darkest backstage musical ever made. Even the ending, which in other hands could have been unbearably sentimental and sappy, is handled with the same realistic toughness as the rest of the film. Worthy of note is the appearance of a Columbia record label on screen (the label Charles Kaley actually recorded for; I have a 78 of him singing "Hello, Bluebird," a song Judy Garland revived in her last film, "I Could Go On Singing") instead of a made-up record company, and the two beautifully preserved two-strip Technicolor dance numbers (including an Albertina Rasch ballet that features Busby Berkeley-style overhead shots a year before Berkeley himself ever made a film) that show off what a gorgeous process two-strip Technicolor really was, with a harmonious, painterly color scheme that often is more pleasing than the often overripe colors of the early three-strip process which replaced it.

I don't get it

[HandsomeBen · 3/10 · 16 March 2021]

A womanizer makes songs based on the women he left heartbroken, and gets rich and famous off it.

The lead actor is not good looking, I don't understand why these women get so attached to him. He doesn't even come off as charming or intelligent. He looks like a shark. The film itself loses steam quickly. No matter how dismissive he treats a woman, she will always be by his side. It got tiring to watch. However it was nice to see the dance numbers in color. But with all these old movies it ends up in romance and the ending is sweet.

Lord Boredom of Boring

[AAdaSC · 3/10 · 29 December 2018]

It's a musical with song-wrier and singer Charles Kaley (Roy) ruthlessly following his blind ambition to be a star. His songs are rubbish and his singing isn't that good. He only sings one good song in the whole film. The film is completely unmemorable apart from a couple of sequences in colour with Busby Berkeley- style choreography. Even they are nothing too brilliant but a definite stand-out in the film. I fell asleep about 5 times during this rubbish.

A very early charmer. Musical as can be.

[ddanzl-2 · 8/10 · 15 June 2006]

This film is full of very talented actors and actresses, who I've never seen before, and don't know their names. I think 1930 is getting pretty close to the start of talkies, but the sound is fine in this one. Its full of good songs and good performers, instrumental and vocal, men and women. Dancing extraordinaire! Busby Berkely type routines on stage with Circles of high kicking young ladies. This captures the feeling and the passion of the music of this day. Charles Kaley, (Roy Erskine) is one of the main singers and actors. He is superb in both respects. The ladies opposite him are perfect to a "T" also. Flappers galore. Where are they now? If you would like to be taken back to the 20's in fine style, catch this short film. Dave Danzl

Not for Everyone But Still Worth A Look

[westegg · 8/10 · 22 June 2006]

Don't let some ol' sourpusses diminish the charm of this admittedly antique musical. For those who find early sound musicals innately fascinating, this one is a key film, particularly for the two-strip Technicolor sequences. And the music is very, very evocative of the era. I'm glad we have such early films available on TCM, since they don't deserve obscurity, whatever their dated qualities. There >is< definitely something to like about this film, which is unfortunately at the mercy of sometimes ignorant and unforgiving 21st century sensibilities. Look beyond the hokey acting and let the authentic feel and sound of the late '20s cast a unique spell. It's still worth a visit.

Much better than its reputation

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 31 January 2010]

I watched this film expecting it to be quite bad, so I was pleasantly surprised at its quality. The film is about Roy Erskine (Charles Kaley), by night a singer and piano player at a café, and by day a songwriter. He uses women and then discards them, using the experience of breaking their hearts as material for songs. He gets a break after vaudeville singer Joe Lundeen (Cliff Edwards) sings one of his songs in his show and invites Roy to be part of the act. This is followed by some records, and pretty soon Roy has hit the big time. Through it all Roy is loved secretly by the girl who transcribed his first hit song, Nancy Clover, who is also part of the vaudeville act. However, Roy does eventually fall hard for a woman who turns out be more than his match in the user department.

There is some good music in this one including two attractive Technicolor numbers - "Blue Daughter of Heaven" and "The Old Woman in the Shoe". "Should I", featured in "Singin in the Rain" is performed a couple of times including once by Charles Kaley. "The Japanese Sandman" is not sung in its entirety, but it's a quite catchy jazz tune as performed by Cliff Edwards. There are several other good tunes, mainly written by songwriting team Herb Nacio Brown and Arthur Freed. With good direction, a compelling plot, good music, and competent acting what went wrong? Why did this film flop at the box office?

The main problem with this film, and probably the reason that it flopped, is that the biggest star in it is Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike), and he is just a supporting player. William Haines was originally slated as the lead, but he thought playing such a despicable character as Roy Erskine would hurt his film career, so he declined. So, instead, MGM cast a tuneful Haines look-alike, Charles Kaley. Unfortunately, the resemblance ends there. Haines' characters could behave obnoxiously in his films and still get the audience to root for him because you felt that, beneath the facade, there was a good man just waiting to get out, and by the end of the picture that good man never failed to appear. However, in Kaley's depiction of harmonious heel Roy Erskine you feel that what you see is what you get, and never expect him to redeem himself. This was Kaley's only film at MGM. He was only in three other films, all of those at poverty row studios, and as far as I know all three of those films are lost.

If you like the early talking films and musicals, I highly recommend this one. It's been well preserved and both the video and audio are clear on the copy I've seen.

Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards is the Reason to Watch This Movie!!!

[kidboots · 8/10 · 3 May 2012]

"Lord Byron of Broadway" and "Chasing Rainbows" were intended to be MGM's blockbuster movies of 1930 after "The Broadway Melody" but both were flops. "Chasing Rainbows" was shelved for 6 months (it was made in mid 1929) so it failed to capitalize on it's hit song "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Lord Byron of Broadway" was hampered by the fact that the two leads were complete film novices. Charles Kaley, a Richard Arlen look alike, was known as the "Singing Band Leader" of vaudeville and Ethelind Terry had originated the role of "Rio Rita". Compared to these two Marion Shilling was a movie veteran, having made a movie "Wise Girls" the year before. Fortunately the score by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed was great.

The bottom of the barrel story had Kaley as an egotistical song writer, Roy Erskine, whose strange way of becoming inspired was to exploit personal events in his friends lives, eg when Bessie (Gwen Lee) shows him some letters written by an old beau, Roy pens "A Bundle of Old Love Letters". He sweet talks Nancy (Shilling) a music store manager into making a piano copy of it and before you know it, it is being introduced by Joe Lundeen (Cliff Edwards, the best actor in the movie, who brings pathos to his role), at the local vaudeville house. Before you know it they have teamed up with Joe - Roy supplying the songs and pretty Nancy at the piano but Roy finds it impossible to stop his roving eye and Nancy is heartbroken.

There is an attempt at innovation - a montage of piano keys tinkling over a Broadway skyline and there is a blazing Technicolor sequence in a nightclub. "Blue Daughter of Heaven" is a Chinese inspired ballet choreographed by Albertina Rasch to music written by her husband Dimitri Tiomkin. The dance also featured some early overhead camera work - that reveals some pretty out of step dancers. Roy then sings the catchy "Should I Reveal".

Enter temptress Ardiss Trevelyan (Terry) a high class singer and another conquest for Roy. She takes the act to the big time - the Amsterdam Theatre. Another spectacular color production - "The Woman in the Shoe" is very reminiscent of "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" number from "The Broadway Melody", looked like the same dancers wearing the same costumes. The dance has a nursery rhyme theme with a line of chorus girls dressed up as "4 and 20 blackbirds" and Ardiss, in a beautiful spangley dress with an ostrich feather fan, sings the song.

Joe has something he wants to get off his chest, he is married to Ardiss but when he is mocked and berated by Roy he runs into the night and is killed in a car accident. Nancy realises how low Roy is when he tries to publish a song about Joe - "Old Pal, Why Did You Leave Me" - she feels it is cheap and tasteless. That only leaves about 10 minutes for Roy to hit rock bottom and take to the bottle before he realises that Nancy has been the girl for him all along. Is it any wonder the picture was a flop. The critics were scathing, feeling the inexperienced cast was partly to blame. Kaley and Terry didn't receive any more offers and Shilling, who was pretty bad I thought, soon found herself in shorts and low budget movies. The only person to earn ticks, in my opinion, was "Ukelele Ike" - his rendition of "Japanese Sandman" at least had get up and go!!!

Also the reason there were two directors credited. The film's producer, Harry Rapf lost a fortune in the stock market crash (which happened during the film's production) and when he saw the first rough cut he wanted to scrap the whole film but ended up bringing in Harry Beaumont to replace William Nigh and Benny Rubin was bought in to liven the film up!!!