The Broadway Melody

The story

The 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.

What critics & audiences say

Tomatometer42%Rotten#98 of 98 winners

IMDb5.59.2K votes#98 of 98 winners

Metacritic66/ 100#90 of 93 winners

TMDB5.1/ 10

Fun facts

1. The Broadway Melody was the first sound film to win Best Picture. It was also MGM's first musical and Hollywood's first all-talking musical.Wikipedia · Introduction
2. Because the crew was learning to record sound by trial and error, sets were modified and scenes re-shot after viewing rushes. Bessie Love's brief ukulele-playing scene took over three hours to film.Wikipedia · Production
3. The film's 'Wedding of the Painted Doll' number was shot in early two-color Technicolor, but the color footage is lost. Only a 16-second fragment survives, discovered in 2012 at a film lab in Amsterdam and now preserved at the George Eastman Museum.Wikipedia · Production
4. For early takes a full orchestra played off-camera, but for later takes the actors sang and danced to prerecorded music.Wikipedia · Production
5. The Broadway Melody was the top-grossing picture of 1929 and made MGM a profit of $1.6 million.Wikipedia · Contemporary
6. Variety's review said the film 'has everything a silent picture should have outside of its dialog', including 'a couple of great performances and plenty of sex.'Wikipedia · Contemporary
7. Its Technicolor sequence helped spark a trend: color quickly became associated with musicals, and a flurry of 1929–1930 musicals featured color sequences or were shot entirely in color.Wikipedia · Production
8. The George M. Cohan classic 'Give My Regards to Broadway' made its film debut here, playing under the opening establishing shots of New York City.Wikipedia · Introduction
9. MGM followed it with Broadway Melody of 1936, 1938 and 1940, with dancer Eleanor Powell in all three. A 1943 entry starring Gene Kelly was cancelled when Kelly was loaned to Columbia for Cover Girl.Wikipedia · Sequels
10. A 25- to 30-second establishing shot of New York City, missing from 35mm prints and the DVD, was later found in a 16mm print and restored for the 2023 Warner Archive Blu-ray.Wikipedia · Home media