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| Talking! What a novelty! |
Movies have come a long way in the past 84 years, but at
least some things have stayed the same. If you look at the list of Best Picture
winners, you’ll see that almost all of them fall into some combination of three
categories: War Film, Rich People Problems, or Historical Epic.[1]
Wings took care of the first, so it’s
only fitting that the second winner, The
Broadway Melody, would take care of the second. In this case the rich people are two sisters with the completely normal names Hank and Queenie. Their
“problems,” such as they are, are that they’ve just moved to New York to try
and star on Broadway, and god forbid, they aren’t given top billing in their
first show. Oh, and somebody mispronounces their last name.
Granted, the real conflict in the story centers around the
love lives of the protagonists. The problem was that the film tried to set up
Hank as the heroine (in the loosest sense of the word), but she came across as
shrewish and intensely unlikeable. Hank and Eddie, a performer in the show,
were “together,” I guess, I don’t know, we’re just supposed to accept it, and
meanwhile, a wealthy socialite named Jock (or Jacques, depending on the scene)
began courting Queenie. Both Hank and Eddie are opposed to this blossoming
relationship, for reasons that are clear in Eddie’s case and utterly baffling
in Hank’s. It turns out that Eddie is secretly in love with Queenie, while Hank
just badgers her and tells her not to see him, ad nauseum, without ever explaining why. And they sang songs every
now and then.
None of this interested me, but throughout the film I kept
thinking about a chart I drew for my friend Margaret explaining the different
types of “love quadrilaterals.” At one point, it was only one connection away
from being the fabled Love Rhombus.
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| This is how I spent my time last year. |
Hank was in love with Eddie, who was in love with Queenie,
who was in love with Jock. But Jock screwed the whole thing up by going after
Queenie instead of Hank. I was very disappointed, to say the least. In the end,
though, Eddie reveals to Hank that he has been in love with Queenie the whole
time. Instead of reacting with horror or sadness, Hank tells him she knew all
along, and she’s just been dating him this whole time to bring him closer to
Queenie, which makes perfect sense. She calls him “yellow” about 764 times and
tells him to fight Jock for Queenie’s love.
Yada yada yada, he finds them together, and Jock’s trying to
rape her, so I guess everybody was right despite him not really ever previously showing
any signs of being a bad guy. Eddie “fights” him, by which I mean Jock punches
him so hard he flies backwards about ten feet, which is actually pretty funny,
though I’m sure not intentionally so. But Queenie and Eddie leave together and get
married (it was a short engagement, only lasting one fade-out and fade-in), and
Hank gets a starring gig in a show in Peoria, and everybody lives happily ever
after.
Oh, I forgot to mention the sisters’ Uncle Jed, who MUST
have been the inspiration for Porky Pig. Either that, or the Funny Stutterer
character was a common thing back then. The joke’s on you, though, Uncle Jed.
83 years later, the Funny Stutterer will win Best Picture AND Best Actor, so
take that.
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| Our "heroes," Queenie, Hank, and Eddie. |
The Broadway Melody
is by no means a great film, and it’s hard to believe it was the best movie of
its year, but I don’t want to insinuate that it has no redeeming value. As a
historical piece, it’s really quite fascinating. It was the first talkie to win
Best Picture, as well as being considered the first major movie musical. The
transitional period between silents and talkies must have been difficult to
navigate, and it is clear that the filmmakers were still working from a silent
film frame of mind. The actors used broad gestures when speaking, and title
cards were used between scenes to indicate a change of setting. In fact, a
silent version was released for theaters that had not yet acquired the
necessary equipment for screening talkies.
If you’re looking for an old-timey musical, there are plenty
of better options than this. But if you are interested in seeing the genre in
its most rudimentary form, as well as hearing people say “And how!” completely
unironically, look no further.
[1]
This makes it all the more shocking that Poor Brown People Problems film Slumdog Millionaire defeated The Reader in 2008. The Reader almost hit the trifecta.
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