Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

The Broadway Melody Blu-ray Movie Review

Flash in the pan.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III August 3, 2023

Harry Beaumont's early musical The Broadway Melody was a full-sound feature from MGM that famously took home Best Picture at the 2nd annual Academy Awards, although it's rather infamously included on most contemporary "least deserving" lists alongside films like Cimarron, The Greatest Show on Earth, and Crash. Three sequels were made during the next decade and all were named for their approximate release year: Broadway Melody of 1936, Broadway Melody of 1938, and Broadway Melody of 1940. The collective quartet has been intermittently released to DVD over the years (though oddly never as a boxed set), but only the last and now first have reached Blu-ray via Warner Archive.

You'll notice I've said nothing so far about The Broadway Melody's plot, because it's certainly not the film's strength. Musicals have been historically song-driven for obvious reasons, where intermittent performance breaks serve to add color, complexity, and character development... but here, during the genre's infancy, the surface-level narrative is a long way from silky-smooth and feels kind of thrown together. (Our database's user-submitted movie synopsis on the "Overview" tab manages to sum everything up in just one sentence, which I've left it as-is just for fun.)

But The Broadway Melody's story is at least enough to warrant a slightly beefier run-through, so here goes: performer Eddie Kearns (Charles King) has found potential new starlets in "The Mahoney Sisters", Queenie and Harriet (Anita Page and Bessie Love), and has brought them to The Big Apple for an act showcasing his titular song. The sisters' different strengths -- Queenie's got the looks, and Harriet AKA "Hank" has a keen business sense -- occasionally cause a bit of friction, but they've got to combine powers to collectively impress tough revue producer Francis Zanfield (Eddie Kane). Drama naturally ensues, including on-stage rivalries between the performers, a competing offer from their Uncle Jed (Jed Prouty), at least one injury, and even a love quadrilateral involving both Mahoney sisters, Eddie, and playboy Jacques "Jock" Warriner (Kenneth Thomson), a clear stand-in for real-life rival studio head Jack Warner.

It sounds fine enough on paper, but The Broadway Melody isn't exactly a well-oiled machine: the staging and overall pace often end up undercutting (or at least competing with) its "just enough" plot, which of course is intermittently broken up by requisite song-and-dance numbers that, if nothing else, attempt to bolster what's otherwise a decently entertaining time capsule that will likely be watched more for its historical significance. During the next decade, Warner Bros. and Busby Berkeley would take the then-fledgling genre to dizzying new heights with films like Gold Diggers of 1933 and especially Footlight Parade and, when compared pound-for-pound, the relatively meager Broadway Melody barely even grazes that level of spectacle. But for a film made so early in the sound era (only two years after The Jazz Singer), it's not half-bad; this still isn't Best Picture material, but the competition was fairly weak that year with films like In Old Arizona, Roland West's Alibi, and Ernst Lubitsch's mostly silent (and since lost) The Patriot. As good as that last one may or may not have been, how can an 18th-century Russian biopic compete with dancing girls?

Regardless, Warner Archive treats their catalog titles -- home-grown and acquired -- with equal respect and, as such, this historically significant film gets the red-carpet treatment alongside the previously-mentioned Cimarron this month. As usual, it earns a stunning new A/V restoration and also gets a nice collection of era-specific musical entertainment as bonus features, turning what might otherwise be a curiosity into a surprisingly well-rounded package.

The Broadway Melody Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio, Warner Archive's sparkling new restoration of The Broadway Melody stems from a new 4K scan of safety preservation elements, cleaned and polished to perfection with a round of careful manual cleanup that doesn't compromise its varying grain structure. As seen from these direct-from-disc screenshots, Warner Archive has done their usual marvelous job, offering a purist-friendly presentation that looks exceptional even on large displays -- quite a feat for "only" 1080p. Fine detail is crisp and tack-sharp in close-ups, textures are clearly visible, and contrast levels look robust with no signs of black crush or blooming. The boutique label's solid disc encoding gives the show plenty of room to breathe on this dual-layered disc with no apparent signs of posterization, macro blocking, or other compression artifacts standing in the way. This is yet another five-star effort that absolutely reaches Warner Archive's high standards for visual excellence and again pushes the boundaries of Blu-ray.

The Broadway Melody Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track reaches similar heights; a reliable source informs me that it's been sourced from mint Vitaphone discs, newly captured and restored, with minimal traces from a 16mm dupe negative. The result is a surprisingly clean and crisp presentation of this early sound picture, one that combines clear dialogue with reasonably well-balanced background effects and of course music cues to pleasing effect. Traces levels of hiss and crackle can be heard, but certainly not to a distracting degree. Obviously film audio would come a long way in the next few decades but, for this era, it's a strong and capable effort that again far outpaces earlier home video releases.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the main feature but not the extras.

The Broadway Melody Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with vintage poster-themed cover artwork and no inserts. Extras include a nice little mix of pre-show musical entertainment from the Vaudeville era.

• Metro Movietone Revues - Five Vaudeville variety acts from 1929 presented in unrestored HD.

• #1 (13:45) - The irreplaceable Harry Rose presents a handful of talents including Grace Rogers, Gus Van & Joe Schenck, and The Capitolians. He also performs the infamous song "Frankfurter Sandwiches".
• #2 (16:37) - Rose returns to entertain us along with four more acts including The Locust Sisters, Johnny Marvin, tap- dancer Rosemarie Scott, and George Dewey Robinson.
• #3 (13:47) - Notably less colorful presenter Jack Pepper plays the ukulele and shows off the talents of the Ponce Sisters, the tap-dancing Reynold Sisters, and Joseph Regan.
• #4 (19:05) - Pepper returns with some familiar faces an few new ones: Joseph Regan, the Ponce Sisters, and George Dewey Robinson, along with song-and-dance artist Miss Ella Shields.
• #7 (8:27) - A sadly truncated installment (with no host!) that nonetheless includes the decent lineup of Tom Waring, Johnny Marvin, Yvette Rugel, and The Happiness Boys.

• Gus Van and Joe Schenck (5:01) - The popular singing duo, previously seen in Metro Movietone Revue #1 (above), returns for two quick bonus performances presumably recorded around the same time. Sadly, Schenk would die less than a year later at the age of 38.

• The Dogway Melody (16:23) - A film-themed entry from the then-popular "Dogville" comedy series, this musically-driven piece features a group of dressed-up pups talking and singing thanks to the magic of editing. You know, tastes haven't changed all that much during the last century.

• Song Selection - Instant access to all 12 of the film's main song and dance numbers.

• Main Title
• The Broadway Melody
• The Broadway Melody (Apartment reprise)
• Harmony Babies
• The Broadway Melody (On stage reprise)
• Love Boat
• You Were Meant for Me
• Truthful Parson Brown
• The Wedding of the Painted Doll
• The Boy Friend
• Harmony Babies (Reprise)
• End Title

The Broadway Melody Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Harry Beaumont's early musical The Broadway Melody probably didn't deserve the Best Picture it won at the 2nd annual Academy Awards, but this watchable sound production walked so the next decade's wave of genre spectacles could run. From today's perspective it's clearly more than a little dated and meager but, if nothing else, can be appreciated for its historical importance and time-capsule appeal. Warner Archive's Blu-ray offers solid support with another absolutely outstanding A/V restoration and a nice collection of pre-show entertainment from the era. Recommended.