Panning for Gold: 1930 — 'The Broadway Melody'
Ah, now, eventually, you do plan to have songs in your musical, yes?
Welcome to Panning for Gold, my new series looking back at every Best Picture winner in the history of the Oscars. Each newsletter will go over some of the other nominees, some historical context for each movie, and a brief review. Scroll to the bottom for a list of all previous entries in the series.
Today’s entry is Harry Beaumont’s “The Broadway Melody,” a musical about show business.
Other Best Picture Nominees
“Alibi,” a crime film that experimented with new sound technology
“The Hollywood Revue of 1929,” Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s other musical from 1929
“In Old Arizona,” a Western and the first talkie to be filmed outside
“The Patriot,” a semi-biographical film about Tsar Paul I and Count Pahlen
Other Awards
None; was also nominated for Best Director and Best Actress (Bessie Love)
The Stats
Director: Harry Beaumont
Writers: Sarah Y. Mason (continuity); Norman Houston and James Gleason (dialogue); Earl Baldwin (intertitles); Edmund Goulding (story)
Producers: Edmund Goulding, Lawrence Weingarten
Starring: Charles King, Anita Page, Bessie Love
Cinematography: John Arnold
Editing: Sam S. Zimbalist, William LeVanway (silent version)
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 100 minutes
The Context
One of two Best Picture winners for 1930
Was the first sound/“talkie” film to win an Oscar
Wall Street Crash of 1929 happens in the fall of that year
The Movie
Well, we’re two for two with these Best Picture winners being exactly what the Academy likes nearly 100 years later.
“The Broadway Melody” is a musical about making a musical, fitting right in with the Oscars’ love affair with movies about showbiz.
It’s a snoozer of a film about the rift that grows between two vaudeville act sisters once a man gets added to the equation. (It’s also apparently about how funny it is to have a stutter.) It would be remade in 1940.
The music is few and far between, and the same songs get repeated a lot. This is probably because of the novelty of the new sound technology; there are still silent film holdovers in “Broadway,” like intertitles and overacting.
“Broadway” is more interesting as a historical document than as a movie. It was the first “talkie” to win an Oscar, it was MGM’s first musical, and it was the first musical to win an Oscar. But there was also a silent version released because not enough theaters possessed the right sound equipment to show the movie. Watching this is like watching the film medium experiencing growing pains in real time, shedding its silent origins but nowhere near the potential it could reach with sound.
It’s also the safest bet the Academy could have made for Best Picture. Like “Wings,” “Broadway” was popular; in fact, it was the highest-grossing movie of 1929. And, given the state of the economy by the time the 2nd Academy Awards rolled around, it was the feel-good choice, too. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
That wraps it up for now. I’ll be back on Monday with 1930’s second Best Picture winner: “All Quiet on the Western Front.” (Yes, it’s been an Academy darling before.)
All ‘Panning For Gold’ newsletters
This newsletter is written by me and edited by my favorite person, Taylor Tompkins. Views expressed here are my own and don’t reflect the opinions of my employer.
If there’s anything you want to see covered in a future newsletter, let me know!
You can find me in other corners of the internet as well, if you so choose. There’s Friends At Dusk, my podcast about Christopher Nolan films; my personal website (which focuses on pop culture, stories about religion and my journalism clips); a Twitter account and a Letterboxd account. Subscribe away.