--- title: "The Broadway Melody" year: 1929 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-broadway-melody" fi1m_id: "the-broadway-melody" imdb_id: "tt0019729" tmdb_id: 65203 wikidata_id: "Q463620" fi1m_score: 60 critics_reviews: 3 published: "2026-09-19" updated: "2026-09-20T21:04:41.788210+00:00" region: "PL" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Broadway Melody (1929) Directed by Harry Beaumont · 1h 41m · Music, Romance, Drama ## Identity The Broadway Melody - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-broadway-melody - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** the-broadway-melody - **IMDb ID:** tt0019729 - **TMDB ID:** 65203 - **Wikidata ID:** Q463620 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019729/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/65203, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q463620 **Fi1m score: 60** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* The camera is nailed down, the chorus is out of step, and Bessie Love acts as if nobody told her > The first all-talking musical is a museum piece with a pulse. The numbers are flat and the camera cannot move, but Bessie Love gives a performance so alive it makes the surrounding stiffness look almost deliberate. For the curious, not the casual. ## Synopsis New York, 1929. The Mahoney Sisters, Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney (Bessie Love) and Queenie Mahoney (Anita Page), arrive from the small-time vaudeville circuit with a trunk, a double act and a promise. Hank’s fiancé, the songwriter and hoofer Eddie Kearns (Charles King), has written a number called ‘The Broadway Melody’ and has a spot in a big Broadway revue. Hank wants the sisters on that stage together and manages everything: the bookings, the money, Queenie. The revue’s producer wants only Queenie, who has grown up prettier than her sister noticed. Eddie has noticed too. The first act moves between a Tin Pan Alley music publisher’s office, a cramped hotel room and a theatre in rehearsal, as Hank talks her way past a stage manager and a costumer while the two people she loves most begin to look at each other. ## Review This is the film that taught Hollywood the musical could talk, and it shows its age in every frame. Irving Thalberg’s studio put a vaudeville story, a handful of Nacio Herb Brown songs and a full stage revue in front of microphones and sold the result under the promise ‘All talking. All singing. All dancing.’ It does all three, none of them well, and it did them first. We recommend it to the curious, with the warning that curiosity will have to carry you through the long stretches when nothing else does. Edmund Goulding’s story is the backstage plot that musicals would borrow for the next twenty years. Two sisters from the circuit come to New York; the man engaged to the first falls for the second; a revue needs filling. It is told in slang so thick that some lines need a second hearing, and the dialogue scenes are played at the pace of a stage play, actors standing where the microphone can find them and waiting for each other to finish. John Arnold’s camera is the biggest casualty. In 1929 the camera lived in a soundproof booth so its whirring would not reach the microphone, and it could barely move, so it does not. Scenes are shot straight on from the middle distance, and the dance numbers are filmed as if we had a seat in the stalls: a full stage, a proscenium and a chorus line whose kicks do not quite agree with one another. Sam Zimbalist cuts when he can, but there is little to cut to. The exception is ‘The Wedding of the Painted Doll’, filmed to a recording made beforehand rather than with the singers live, and the number has a rhythm the rest of the film never finds. Brown’s songs are the reason the title still means something. ‘Broadway Melody’ is sung, sold and reprised until it wears a groove. ‘You Were Meant for Me’ is a plain, pretty tune that Charles King sings to Anita Page in a hotel room with the earnestness of a man who knows he is on the wrong side of it. King is a stage performer to his bones, a big voice and a small face for the camera, and he never works out where to put his hands. Then there is Bessie Love. She plays Hank, the plain sister who does the sums and loves a man who is looking past her at Queenie, and she is the only person on screen who seems to know the camera can see a thought. She talks fast, cracks wise and keeps busy, and every so often the busyness stops and the face underneath shows. There is a scene in the second half, alone in a room, that we will not describe, except to say it moved us more than we expected anything in a 1929 talkie to, because Love does it without music and almost without words. Page has the harder part, the beauty everyone wants, and she plays Queenie as a girl who has worked out too late that being wanted is not the same as being asked. We were also, for a good half hour in the middle, bored. The stage numbers arrive, sit there and leave, and no amount of period goodwill turns a static chorus into entertainment. Harry Beaumont directs the talk well and the spectacle hardly at all. The film is at its best when it forgets it is a musical and remembers it is about two sisters in a hotel room with one bed and one man between them. Four years later *42nd Street* would take a camera up into the flies, and *Singin’ in the Rain* would later turn the making of films exactly like this one into a joke. This is where they came from, and at 101 minutes it does not ask much of you. Watch it for Love, for the sound of a studio finding out what a microphone was for, and for the odd pleasure of seeing a form on its first day at work. It carries a U. *Fi1m score 60, published 19 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is The Broadway Melody worth watching?** *The Broadway Melody* is worth watching for the curious rather than the casual, and we scored it 60. The first all-talking musical has a camera that cannot move and stage numbers that sit there and leave, but Bessie Love gives a performance alive enough to carry you through the flat stretches. Come for her and for the sound of a form on its first day. **How long is The Broadway Melody, and what is it rated?** *The Broadway Melody* runs 1h 41m. It is a music and romance film. **Where can I watch The Broadway Melody in Poland?** *The Broadway Melody* is not on any streaming or rental service in Poland at the moment. It is available in 7 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How does The Broadway Melody compare to Singin' in the Rain?** *The Broadway Melody* is the film [*Singin' in the Rain*](https://film.one/film/singin-in-the-rain) makes fun of: the same Nacio Herb Brown songs and the same panic about microphones, but shot straight on from a soundproof booth with a chorus out of step. Donen and Kelly's film is the better one by a wide margin, funnier and freer, and the one to choose for an evening. Watch the earlier film afterwards to see what the joke was about. **What should I watch after The Broadway Melody?** After *The Broadway Melody*, try [*Singin' in the Rain*](https://film.one/film/singin-in-the-rain) (1952, Fi1m 93): The same songs, the same panic about microphones, and everything this film could not do. Then [*42nd Street*](https://film.one/film/42nd-street) (1933, Fi1m 82): The backstage plot again, with a camera that has finally been let out of its box; and [*Blackmail*](https://film.one/film/blackmail) (1929, Fi1m 74): Hitchcock’s first talkie, which treats sound as a weapon rather than a novelty. ### Reviews we read (3) - **Los Angeles Times**, Edwin Schallert (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as a revolutionary eye- and ear-opener and the best talkie yet, praising its blend of songs, plot, spectacle including a color sequence, smart direction by Harry Beaumont, and standout emotional performance by Bessie Love. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2022-09-20/from-the-archives-wow-of-a-sound-film-on-screen-broadway-melody-sets-new-pace-for-talkies) - **Variety**, Sid Silverman (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it the fastest-moving talker yet with a solid story, excellent direction by Harry Beaumont, laughs, tears, great performances from Bessie Love and Anita Page, and innovative sound work, predicting it will be a major box-office hit. [Read](https://variety.com/1929/film/reviews/broadway-melody-1200410242/) - **The New York Times**, Mordaunt Hall (30/100, inferred): The critic describes a noisy, slang-filled backstage story with predictable elements and some harsh dialogue, but notes clever direction by Harry Beaumont, effective emotional moments, and strong work from Bessie Love, while questioning the entertainment value of the constant upsets. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/melody-re.html) ## Details - **Director:** Harry Beaumont - **Director:** Harry Beaumont - **Writer:** Edmund Goulding - **Cinematography:** John Arnold - **Editor:** Sam Zimbalist - **Music:** Nacio Herb Brown - **Producer:** Lawrence Weingarten, Irving Thalberg, Harry Rapf - **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); James Burrows as Singer (uncredited); Eddie Bush as Quartet Guitarist and Singer (uncredited) - **Runtime:** 1h 41m - **First release (the US):** 1 February 1929 - **Genres:** Music, Romance, Drama - **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Winner, 1928) - **Budget:** $379,000 - **Box office:** $4 million ## Where to watch in Poland Not streaming, renting or buying in Poland at the last check. Also available in: AU, CA, MX, NZ, PA, RO, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1930: Best Picture (won) ## If you liked this - *Singin' in the Rain* (1952), Fi1m 93: The same songs, the same panic about microphones, and everything this film could not do — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/singin-in-the-rain.md) - *42nd Street* (1933), Fi1m 82: The backstage plot again, with a camera that has finally been let out of its box — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/42nd-street.md) - *Applause* (1929): Made the same year, and proof the camera could move if somebody insisted - *Blackmail* (1929), Fi1m 74: Hitchcock’s first talkie, which treats sound as a weapon rather than a novelty — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/blackmail.md) - *The Artist* (2011), Fi1m 82: A silent film about the day the talkies arrived, fond and slightly heartbroken — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-artist.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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