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!!

I finally saw this film after hearing about it for years. It has good photography for an early talkie, the art deco settings and the imaginative costumes are lovely to behold, and the acting and direction in the dialog scenes are putrid. Paul Fejos may have been a great visual director in silents, and, as I say, this film does have good visuals, but there are so many bad dialogue scenes, mainly by the men involved, that this becomes just another bad early talkie. Evelyn Brent, whom I admired so much in THE SILVER HORDE, has little to do here but scowl in her performance. Betty Francisco, as Mazie, comes off best of the females. None of the men turn in good performances, with the prize for worst acting going to the actor playing McCorn, the cop. He reads his lines in a flat monotone while he looks off camera as if for cue cards. The sound recording is good except for one scene when it totally drops out for a few seconds, and the print quality is pretty good, save for the Technicolor finale which looks pretty bad. This was apparently a hit when it came out. Practically anything with sound was in 1929, but take away the pretty trappings, and you have a pot boiler that would have lost money if, say, Tiffany had made it. Watching this suddenly elevates films like THE Broadway MELODY and ON WITH THE SHOW! to absolute greatness.

"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.

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/