The Broadway Melody
Also known as Broadway Melody
1929 film by Harry Beaumont
AI overview
"The Broadway Melody" is a 1929 film directed by Harry Beaumont that depicts the lives and ambitions of performers in New York's theater district. It is historically significant as the first musical film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, marking an early milestone in cinema's embrace of the musical genre.
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Film · TMDB
5.2The vaudeville act of Harriet and Queenie Mahoney comes to Broadway, where their friend Eddie Kerns needs them for his number in one of Francis Zanfield's shows. When Eddie meets Queenie, he soon falls in love with her—but she is already being courted by Jock Warriner, a member of New York high society. Queenie eventually recognizes that, to Jock, she is nothing more than a toy, and that Eddie is in love with her.
Released: 1929-02-08101 minDir: Harry BeaumontMusic, Romance, DramaBudget: $379,000Box office: $4.4MPart of: The Broadway Melody Collection
Cast
- Charles King as Eddie Kearns
- Anita Page as Queenie Mahoney
- Bessie Love as Harriet 'Hank' Mahoney
- Betty Arthur as Chorus Dancer (uncredited)
- J. Emmett Beck as Babe Hatrick (uncredited)
- Nacio Herb Brown as Pianist (uncredited)
Themes
Article
The Broadway Melody, also known as The Broadway Melody of 1929, is a 1929 American pre-Code musical film and the first sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It was one of the early musicals to feature a Technicolor sequence, which sparked the trend of color being used in a flurry of musicals that would hit the screens in 1929–1930.
The Broadway Melody was written by Norman Houston and James Gleason from a story by Edmund Goulding and directed by Harry Beaumont. Original music was written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, including the popular hit "You Were Meant for Me". The George M. Cohan classic "Give My Regards to Broadway" is used under the opening establishing shots of New York City, its film debut. Bessie Love was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. Today, the Technicolor sequence survives only in black and white. The film was the first musical released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was Hollywood's first all-talking musical.