The Broadway Melody (1928)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:15
Fresh:6
Rotten:9
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: The Broadway Melody is interesting as an example of an early Hollywood musical, but otherwise, it's essentially bereft of appeal for modern audiences.
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Synopsis: Two sisters come to the big city to try their luck on Broadway. The elder sibling has a fiance waiting for her there, but when he sees the younger one, whom he remembers only as a little girl, he... [More]
Starring: Bessie Love, Anita Page, Charles King, Jed Prouty
Director: Harry Beaumont
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Reviews for The Broadway Melody
| Tomatometer | Critic | Review | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
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A tedious musical comedy embedded in a routine story like a fly in celluloid. Full Review |
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C+ |
The first musical and sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture creaks from old age. Full Review |
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Excellent bits of sound workmanship are that of camera and mike following Page and the heavy along the dance floor to pick up their conversation as they glide. Full Review |
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2.5/4 |
First musical to win Academy Award reeks of mothballs, but is undeniably the basis of perhaps a hundred others. Full Review |
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2/4 |
Mediocre performances and poorly-constructed musical numbers are the low points in this modestly interesting all-talking, all-singing production. Full Review |
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...cinematic evolution long ago froze The Broadway Melody in Precambrian amber. But while the movie is hopelessly dated now, it was the bee's knees in its day. Full Review |
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B- |
The first musical to win the Oscar, Broadway Melody is a weak song-and-dance picture, but at the time the movie was so popular that it launched a whole series Full Review |
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2/5 |
It is abundantly clear that they had not yet figured out how to stage or shoot musical numbers for the screen. Full Review |
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3/5 |
Its function as genre blueprint makes for quite the curiosity. More importantly, it also stands up quite well as a solid evening’s entertainment. Full Review |
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3/5 |
mainly a curiosity for film buffs who want to see how musicals erupted in the early days of the talkie Full Review |
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The Broadway Melody won the Academy Award for the best picture of 1929, but I am at a total loss to explain how or why. Full Review |
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3/5 |
Interesting only as an early sound curio.
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2/5 |
It’s dated, sexist (get a load of the ending!!!), and technically quite inept. Full Review |
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The staging is wooden, the story insipid, and the dialogue sequences mostly painful, but the film's integration of song, dance, and story was a clear narrative advance over the music pictures being released by Warner Brothers and Fox. Full Review |
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6/10 |
The Broadway Melody's snarky, wiseacre humor and effervescent charm save it from being completely dated, though the dance production numbers -- pure padding, all -- may try your patience. Full Review |
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