Tweet BROADWAY (1929)

I see the 1929 movie BROADWAY is coming to Criterion dvd and blu ray, as a supplement to the silent film LONESOME.

Has anyone here actually seen this film? I know about the crane, and have seen stills of the famous night club set...but I've never been able to actually see the movie. It is showing this summer at Film Forum in NYC...I was tempted to take the trip just to see it.

It seems to exist in different versions...B&W or color...sound or silent. This dvd release is supposed to be a "reconstruction" of the sound version. Curious to hear opinions and what version people have seen....and any historical info about these different versions.

[silentfilm]

I recently acquired the May 4th, 1929 Universal Weekly that features this film, and it is advertised in both sound and silent versions.

Atlanta to NY...and I thought I was mad to see Broadway! A reconstrution from stills, something like the reconstrution of Chasing Rainbows I'd presume, beats the hell out of "nothing," but as a theater presentation seems a little underwhelming...unless much more of the original survives than I have assumed.

Atlanta to NY...and I thought I was mad to see Broadway! A reconstrution from stills, something like the reconstrution of Chasing Rainbows I'd presume, beats the hell out of "nothing," but as a theater presentation seems a little underwhelming...unless much more of the original survives than I have assumed.

I knew Broadway was incomplete. I think it's missing a reel (someone correct me if I'm wrong). But it won't be like the Greed reconstruction, where over half the film is missing.

Since writing this post I have read on the Web that a complete copy of the entire silent version was discovered in Hungary. It is about 20 minutes shorter than the talkie because of shortened musical numbers. So I don't know exactly how Criterion is handling this. It will be interesting to see what they have put together. Read more about the the story of the film at the following link:

http://talkieking.blogspot.com/2009/01/broadway-1929.html

What a marvelous website from a rather unexpected part of the world! There is indeed much more of it than I had supposed existed, and the job of combining the original soundtrack with the silent footage was very well done. Not terribly impressed, I'm sorry to say, with the musical talent, Tryon & Kennedy--rather hard to believe the studio recruited such a lackluster pair for this expensive production. Brent, however...smoking, as usual. Nor can I entirely appreciate the viewing enhancement provided by filming from that famous crane--unless one prefers seeing a stage show from the perspective of a soaring vulture; I'd choose the view from the orchestra pit.

What a marvelous website from a rather unexpected part of the world! There is indeed much more of it than I had supposed existed, and the job of combining the original soundtrack with the silent footage was very well done. Not terribly impressed, I'm sorry to say, with the musical talent, Tryon & Kennedy--rather hard to believe the studio recruited such a lackluster pair for this expensive production. Brent, however...smoking, as usual. Nor can I entirely appreciate the viewing enhancement provided by filming from that famous crane--unless one prefers seeing a stage show from the perspective of a soaring vulture; I'd choose the view from the orchestra pit.

It's nice to have the view of someone who actually likes this era of film, most dismiss it out of hand. Too bad Jonas doesn't post new items very often.

I like Merna Kennedy in some roles although not so much here, but Glenn Tryon I have a difficult time with. It's a shame they couldn't get Lee Tracy to reprise his role (I don't know if the Broadway BROADWAY was a musical, ISTR Tracy was a dancer not a singer in it), but following that line we might have gotten Roger Pryor as the lead in the film Blessed Event.

[Danny Burk]

It's a shame they couldn't get Lee Tracy to reprise his role

Yeah, but he might have rained on their parade.


(snicker)

I like Merna Kennedy in some roles although not so much here, but Glenn Tryon I have a difficult time with.

I usually like Glenn Tryon too, but in BROADWAY he seemed too unnecessarily mean to Merna Kennedy too much of the time.

Frederick James Smith's review of BROADWAY in the July 6, 1929 issue of Liberty is brief, but illuminating:

* * * (out of four -- excellent)

Three years ago, Philip Dunning and George Abbott wrote a biting if unpretentious melodrama of New York stage life. It was Broadway -- and the first of a long line of Manhattan underworld dramas. It made a resounding hit, and Universal bought the film rights for $250,000, along with the restriction that BROADWAY would not be released until the stage original had expired.

Meanwhile, a lot of other melodramas of this genre have come and departed. That makes the going hard for the cinematic BROADWAY. The producers made it hard, too, by dumping a fortune into an over-elaborate production which almost swamps the original tangy story.

BROADWAY was a story of gang war and murder, the smoking gats popping all around its central figure, a bumptious young hoofer in love with a cabaret cutie. Originally, this took place in a tawdry, unostentatious speak-easy. Hollywood has glorified the place into a titanic cabaret. The footlight Paradise Club, with its shabby walls and six chorus girls, has given way to a towering, giant extravaganza with modernistic trappings, three balconies, and acres of dancing girls.

The two best players of the cast come from the original stage production. Thomas Jackson's playing of the laconic plain-clothes man, McCorn, is superb, and Paul Porcasi is excellent as the suave cabaret proprietor.

Hopefully it will be the talkie version of Broadway. I got the silent version which had the vitaphone sound disks from a dvd company an it was very jarring.

What makes me laugh is that BROADWAY was a commercial and artistic disaster!

Not only the reviews were bad... it did extremely bad at the box office too. When it was released in Argentina audiences booed the film throughout the projection. Although the film was exhibited for a month, the exhibitor was apparently unable to pull it out. In fact, a week later he created the very first double feature of the sound era, adding WHITE SHADOWS IN THE WHITE SEAS to the program to try to avoid big loses.

According to CITA EN HOLLYWOOD, no matter the place (Latin America or Spain) were the film was shown, the results were always horrible. That version was peculiar because it was promoted as the very first film in Spanish. Actually, it was the very first ever dubbed and everybody hated the results.

Here's the beginning of the film:

Here's the color finale edited together from the silent version and the surviving soundtrack:

Two problems. The complete silent version (in Hungarian) is longer than the talkie release of which only the soundtrack survives. In putting to the together, even in a musical number that is whole in both versions, the running speeds are different. I know someone who tried to patch the two together and it at least gives an impression of what the talkie was like but it is often out of sync.

What exactly will Criterion offer? Should be interesting.

[silentfilm]

What makes me laugh is that BROADWAY was a commercial and artistic disaster!

Not only the reviews were bad... it did extremely bad at the box office too. When it was released in Argentina audiences booed the film throughout the projection. Although the film was exhibited for a month, the exhibitor was apparently unable to pull it out. In fact, a week later he created the very first double feature of the sound era, adding WHITE SHADOWS IN THE WHITE SEAS to the program to try to avoid big loses.

According to CITA EN HOLLYWOOD, no matter the place (Latin America or Spain) were the film was shown, the results were always horrible. That version was peculiar because it was promoted as the very first film in Spanish. Actually, it was the very first ever dubbed and everybody hated the results.

While I'm sure that Broadway would have failed anyway due to artistic qualities, the book The High Noon of American Films in Latin America has several stories of American English-language films bombing in Argentina, Cuba and Brazil in 1929 due to nationalistic and native language concerns. I'm sure that Argentinian audiences greatly preferred tango music rather than Broadway music too.

What makes me laugh is that BROADWAY was a commercial and artistic disaster!

Not only the reviews were bad... it did extremely bad at the box office too. When it was released in Argentina audiences booed the film throughout the projection. Although the film was exhibited for a month, the exhibitor was apparently unable to pull it out. In fact, a week later he created the very first double feature of the sound era, adding WHITE SHADOWS IN THE WHITE SEAS to the program to try to avoid big loses.

According to CITA EN HOLLYWOOD, no matter the place (Latin America or Spain) were the film was shown, the results were always horrible. That version was peculiar because it was promoted as the very first film in Spanish. Actually, it was the very first ever dubbed and everybody hated the results.

While I'm sure that Broadway would have failed anyway due to artistic qualities, the book The High Noon of American Films in Latin America has several stories of American English-language films bombing in Argentina, Cuba and Brazil in 1929 due to nationalistic and native language concerns. I'm sure that Argentinian audiences greatly preferred tango music rather than Broadway music too.

No, there was nothing nationalistic. According to the reviews I managed to read 15 years ago. People were complaining because the film was dubbed (it was the very first one). There was also a report, before its release, about a gathering of Latin American and Spanish journalists to show a film in which they used "doubles" of the English speaking actors that spoke Spanish. When they were asked what did they think about the film, the journalists told the executives "don't distribute this film". I believe that the film had to be BROADWAY.

The very first talkie shown in Argentina, ironically, was THE BROADWAY MELODY. It was also the very first presented with subtitles. The film was a tremendous success. The Universal film was released two or three moths later. Then, Max Glücksmann presented Laurel and Hardy's LADRONES, which was extremely popular because it was the very first Spanish language talkie ever released. Almost immediately after all this THE JAZZ SINGER was released!!!!!!

The next film to flop really bad was RIO RITA, which was probably the second one that was dubbed. There were no scandals this time, but nobody liked the film.

What came out of all this, a new meaning for the word "dub". Until then, the meaning in Spanish was "to mention, to name, to give a nobility title". The process to replace the English voices with Spanish ones (or others) was originally called by exhibitors as "vocal reproduction in Spanish". Latin American audiences didn't at all like the voices of the "doubles" or "dobles" in Spanish. Until then, "dobles" were just the stunt men that replaced the actors in action scenes and the word got a new meaning to refer to the dubbing process with contempt. Thus, since 1930 the word "dub" also mean "doblaje".

Although tango was popular, the sound film revolution created a big crisis because movie theaters got rid of the orchestras and many people lost their jobs including artists that manged to left recordings because people began to listen more jazz, which took over in popularity for a while. It took several years to tango to really recover, almost 5 years.

Has anyone seen the Criterion release of BROADWAY yet on either bluray or DVD? I would be fascinated to know how they have restored it?

Oh by the way, when you all say that both the talkie version and the silent version still exist... am I right in saying that with the talkie version only the soundtrack survives? Or does the actual footage still survive? I am really curious. Thanks.

I've seen some of it- the picture and sound are both good, except for the technicolor finale which survives only in a poor print.

The sound version survives complete with soundtrack- except for the color finale footage which is missing.

The silent version survives- it is an edited cut down version with a shortened recut version of the color finale. The present restoration has edited the surviving soundtrack to fit this. It doesn't look very good but there is no alternative.

The silent version survives- it is an edited cut down version with a shortened recut version of the color finale. The present restoration has edited the surviving soundtrack to fit this. It doesn't look very good but there is no alternative.

How bizaare going out to watch a silent movie and then watching "Musical numbers" within that silent movie?? It doesn't make sense really does it LOL? For example the "Hitting The Ceiling" number (above) would be rendered quite useless without the sound? I imagine it would've been accompanied by a live piano tinkling away, and Glenn Tryons lips singing away, but NO SOUND coming out. How bizaare.

Silent films DID have musical numbers- scenes from SO THIS IS PARIS and OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS are full of dancing. The only thing they didn't do was have long shots of people singing. My guess is that when the musical sequences of BROADWAY went into the silent version they were trimmed to feature the dancing, which could be livened up with music- and by 1929 few theaters would have been content with a solo piano. You can do quite a lot with an orchestra and a pipe organ.

WHOA THAT ONEEEE

Props to that

Actually I saw long time ago on PBS back in mid 1980s I THINK SO

Nor can I entirely appreciate the viewing enhancement provided by filming from that famous crane--unless one prefers seeing a stage show from the perspective of a soaring vulture; I'd choose the view from the orchestra pit.

The reviewer (Freddie Schader) for "Motion Picture News" (June 1, 1929 issue) agreed:
He wrote "It is really a pity that Paul Fejos decided that his night club would have to be as big as Madison Square Garden and be shot from all the weird angles possible to make it effective. Outside of that he has done a marvelous job in the direction."

Other things he had to say:
He felt that the three outstanding performances were those of Thomas Jackson, Robert Ellis and Evelyn Brent. He said that both Glenn Tryon and Merna Kennedy were "disappointing". He said "Miss Kennedy may develop later on the talking screen but in this instance she is far from being what was necessary to put this role over. Tryon overacted and mugged constantly, and the doubling for his (singing) voice was so palpable that it brought a laugh at times."

The cast list included with the review lists Fritz Feld as a character called "Mose Leavett". I have watched the movie three times now and still haven't seen this character. He must have been cut from the final edit.

I've never really warmed up to Glenn Tryon- he tended to play the sort of smartass wisecracking kind of character I find unappealing. He's much better in LONESOME, but even there he pulls out his fake sophisticated nose-in-the-air look; supposed to be so very funny but it just irritates me- if Barbara Kent wasn't there to warm the film up I couldn't watch it. I'm not surprised that his onscreen career faded out in the early 30's- though I admit I'd be interested in seeing his 1929 version of Skinner's Dress Suit (Skinner Steps Out)

Glenn Tryon sort of reminds me of a 1920s Jack Lemmon.

Glenn Tryon sort of reminds me of a 1920s Jack Lemmon.

I'd put Harrison Ford in that category.

As a BIG fan of old movies, I was severely disappointed with BROADWAY, which suffers from typical pre-1932 s-l-o-w dialogue and story progression, dull character development, over-done camera movement and a barn-like set supposed to be a nightclub.

I wrote the following review of the entire package for one of the rental websites:


The main feature LONESOME was an unusually compelling romantic drama--thanks to some imaginative camera work, exteriors and color sequences. Thankfully, it is the version with added original music, effects and dialogue scenes. Definitely worth viewing! Transfer quality very good.

The second feature, THE LAST PERFORMANCE--a late silent-- features Conrad Veidt. Transfer quality on it is only fair, due to small gauge film source (16mm)

The third feature (which was why I wanted to see this set) BROADWAY was a disappointment! After years of hearing about its legendary huge deco set, the special camera crane designed just to photograph that set and a supposedly groundbreaking story---I found ALL the characters annoying, the huge night club over-done, the constant crane shots showing a dizzying blur of amateur production numbers just not entertaining! The only redeeming feature was to see perennial drunk (from Laurel & Hardy and other films)Arthur Houseman playing a mostly sober gangster. The print quality was good until the last sequence in 2-strip Technicolor that was so "dupey" and muddy you could hardly make out who was doing what.

Still, thanks to Criterion for bringing these rare films to us.
Not sure if the transfers would look any better in Blu-Ray....I just saw the standard DVD.

The documentary about the crane was pretty interesting, but after a while got tired of Hal Mohr's inappropriate cussing in his descriptions to the interviewer.

I think even Criterion thought this was a turkey. Getting bottom billing on the suplementary menu says it all. So far I have watched the first 10 minutes of it before I decided on an early night. Better to watch this film when the mind is more curious and alert. Stll the print quality is very good at least in the begining. Overall this is an excellent Bluray package and gratefull that such curiosities are made available.

The third feature (which was why I wanted to see this set) BROADWAY was a disappointment! After years of hearing about its legendary huge deco set, the special camera crane designed just to photograph that set and a supposedly groundbreaking story---I found ALL the characters annoying, the huge night club over-done, the constant crane shots showing a dizzying blur of amateur production numbers just not entertaining! The only redeeming feature was to see perennial drunk (from Laurel & Hardy and other films)Arthur Houseman playing a mostly sober gangster. The print quality was good until the last sequence in 2-strip Technicolor that was so "dupey" and muddy you could hardly make out who was doing what.

Most unwelcome news...but I'd rather be prepared for the worst when I do eventually see it, than entertain false hopes.

I found Broadway to be so 'of its time' it's really kitschy in some ways, like the giant camera crane. I really loved Evelyn Brent, as much as I loved her in Interference.

[Christopher Jacobs]

There is a lot to like in BROADWAY, if viewed in small excerpts, and a trailer could be edited that would make it look like a must-see film on the par with some of the classic musical and gangster pictures from a few years later. A good editor might have made it into a halfway decent (and somewhat shorter) early talkie. There are really spectacular crane dolly shots, some great Precode dialogue, interesting social attitudes and implications, all in an okay story of gangsters and backstage nightclub life.

However, when viewed straight through from beginning to end the film's weaknesses are all too apparent. The pacing is slow even by early talkie standards (it almost, almost made me want to watch the relatively breezy THE LIGHTS OF NEW YORK again for contrast). There is very little "coverage" (i.e., shot variety) of each scene in terms of closeups, cutaways, and over-the-shoulder dialogue cutting -- it's mostly played in long takes in medium and long shots, like an early Vitaphone short might be. The performances are mostly adequate at best, with Glenn Tryon overacting like he's on stage (he's far better in LONESOME) and Merna Kennedy just sort of showing up (neither as effective nor appealing as in THE CIRCUS), although Evelyn Brent is quite good and Thomas Jackson gives his usual cynical cop performance. The music, sadly, is pretty forgettable on the whole for a putative "musical" and the dance numbers are underwhelming both in choreography and execution, let alone their pedestrian photography and editing. The concluding color scene looks like a dupe of a dupe, so does not give much idea of what the color actually looked like but at least the scene is viewable. Picture quality on the surviving material used for the Blu-ray is only fair, and thus really looks no better than a good DVD could reproduce. Nevertheless, while it should have been much better, the film remains a must for die-hard fans of those 1928-30 transitional talkies. (At least it's better than HOWDY BROADWAY!)