Pretty unentertaining throughout. The music and performances were rough and it was a slog for me to get through.

Broadway Melody is completely outdated for this day and age but for the time it was incredibly realistic and as the first talking Oscar winner for best picture and also first talking musical for the time, it was incredibly ambitious and revolutionary for the time along with not only musical numbers, but also a love triangle, which is quite entertaining.

I didn't understand the plot of this movie. The story seems to progress with no reasoning behind it. People have weird and toxic relationships. Nothing seems realistic or genuine. The men are all creeps. Why Queenie would go with Ed astounds me. There were no stand-out actors for me. Bessie Love was ok when angry, but I didn't buy the sad scenes. I liked the opening with the various suites of music. They are showing off this new technology well. However, this movie's so-called professional musicians are terrible and amateur. The only performances I liked were the quartet at the dance and the Wedding of the Painted Doll number, which was a good audio-visual spectacular. The costumes were great, and the set design for the theatre was cool. I can't believe it won! It has the lowest score on IMDB for all the Oscar Best Picture winners. I'm not surprised. I'm okay with Bessie Love's nomination and even the directorial nomination, but I think there were no winners here. 6/10.

The first sound film to win an Academy Award it was also the first musical to use a Technicolor sequence, which sparked the trend of color being used. While it was the top grossing picture of 1929 and it is the first complete example of the Hollywodo musical, it is cliche ridden and overly melodramatic. It's an interesting example of an early Hollywood musical but otherwise is void of appeal. It has not stood the test of time in ways that many of its more artistic contemporaries have. Some deficiencies can be attributed to the way the genre has been re-shaped and improved.

This is kind of a slight film but it's worth watching for its significance in the history of Hollywood. One of the first talkies ever made, and the first musical film of many, it features a couple of songs that later reached cinematic perfection in "Singin in the Rain" and it's absolutely fascinating to see these early takes on "Broadway Melody", "Wedding of The Painted Doll", and "You Were Meant For Me" in black and white.

MGM still had a lot to learn about making musicals - and sound movies generally for that matter. Still, if you're interested in early cinema and it's development you might find this worthwhile.

Fast forward through the usual awful dancing and music and actually you get one of the better Oscar best picture winners from the early days. There is at least an interesting love triangle and a bit of personality to the film. Not the best film but not as dreadful as some. Why is that girl called Hank though? And why does everyone find her bang average sister to be so much hotter than her?

Might be historically significant but it isn't good. The actors keep it going.

Jumping from one genre to another, let's talk about The Broadway Melody, winner number two. In this film, The Mahoney sisters Hank and Queenie (Bessie Love and Anita Page) hope to "give their regards to Broadway" with their remarkable debut on a musical show. During which, Queenie "sits on top of the world" while Hank worries about her sister walking on the wrong tightrope. I know that The Broadway Melody was MGM's first Hollywood musical with sound. I know that the film's escapism lightened up the mood during the Great Depression. I know that this film was a game changer for movie musicals at the time. However, The Broadway Melody has not aged well, especially compared to modern-day musical films. With a cliched story, melodramatic performances, and sloppy scene transitions, the movie seems more like a novelty than a timeless classic. Nonetheless, the main redeeming value of the picture is the showtunes, which are entertaining and help set the cheery mood of the 20's. As is, The Broadway Melody is not terrible, but, needless to say, it isn't worth seeing, unless you're wasting your life doing a marathon of Best Picture winners at midnight in your pajamas like I am. (2 Sloppily-Edited Girly Punches in the Face out of 5) (Seriously, what was that?)

Incorporating sound into films was almost like discovering a new dimension in the medium - but The Broadway Melody will make you wish that they hadn't. The script is quite poor, clearly designed to accommodate the muscial scores (which are surprisingly sparing and undiversified given that they are the main draw), but the delivery and acting are atrocious. The sole redeeming factor of this film is its influence on the craft, paving the way for decades of far, far superior productions. This is a serious contender for the worst to ever win Best Picture. (1/5)

The 1929/1930 Oscar winning Best Picture is The Broadway Melody. It is not a great film, and barely a good one, but it is paced well enough that it is at least entertaining. Original for its time, the story is the now banal concept of a musical about the making of a musical. It is the first fully talking musical film made in the United States, though this is broken during numerous close-up shots that are inserted and noticeably devoid of any sound. These close-ups are a throwback to the more familiar silent films of the era and are jarring distractions scattered throughout the movie. The plot is thinner than tinfoil. Two mediocre singing and dancing sisters (Hank and Queenie Mahoney) move to New York City in order to make it on Broadway. They are assisted by their Uncle Jed. He has an acute stuttering problem, because that's good for a laugh in the 1920's. The girls are quickly cast in a Broadway show (solely because Queenie catches the eye of the producer, even though she is the less driven or talented of the two sisters). Queenie soon advances in the show and her sister Hank is jealous and disheartened. During all of this, Hank's boyfriend Eddie develops feelings for Queenie. Meanwhile, there are lots of large musical numbers, even though whatever plot there is to the ‘musical within the musical' remains completely unknown. It is fun to observe as a film created before the implementation of the Hays Code, it includes three openly (though terribly stereotyped) gay male characters. They are a costume designer and a couple investing in the musical. This may seem uninteresting today, but keep in mind that any portrayal of openly homosexual characters was forbidden in film from 1934 until well into the 1970's. If you are looking for a tight plot, good editing and great acting… this film is not for you. In fact the only actor worthy of mention is Bessie Love who played Hank Mahoney. She alone provides the one portrayal of depth for which the viewer can feel any sense of empathy. Without her, the movie really is more about providing the viewer of its time period to access of lots of sound and the spectacle of several Broadway musical numbers. For the average movie goer of little means or privilege in 1929 or 1930, this film would no doubt have been marvelous. Not so much for someone viewing it in 2020.

If you put to one side the novelty of combining musical numbers and plot, you're left with characters and dialogue steeped in cringeworthy stereotypes that stand the test of time as poorly as the choreography. The Broadway Musical is an example of a genre that was yet to have its creases ironed.

Harry Beaumont's The Broadway Melody was one of the first sound films ever produced and the first ever all-talking musical. It was also the first musical to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, but there are reasons why it doesn't tend to get mentioned in lists of classic musicals and why it isn't remembered with the same fondness as some of the subsequent examples. The Broadway Melody was pioneering in many ways. With the talkies still in their infancy and musicals even more so, Beaumont reportedly had to experiment extensively to see what worked, resulting in a lengthy shooting schedule with numerous retakes. He also had to make a movie that would work as a silent film, since it would be shown in cinemas that still didn't have sound equipment, which is presumably the reason for the occasional intertitles. The film's experimental spirit is demonstrated by the fact that one sequence was filmed in Technicolor, although it only survives in black and white. Although the film's ambitions are admirable however, the end result isn't very good. In technical terms it has aged far worse than many of its contemporaries, partly because with the emphasis on the musical numbers cinematographer John Arnold goes for static camerawork with mostly medium and long shots which gives the impression that the film has been shot on a theatre stage rather than a movie set; visually, it just isn't particularly interesting to look at. There are many such sacrifices for the sake of musical novelty. The story is about a group of characters trying to put on a Broadway show, which isn't inappropriate but is very slight. The characterisation is similarly flimsy, and motivated mostly by the inevitable romance at the heart of the film, with Jacques Warriner for example written as a textbook sleazy cad. It doesn't help that the script – clearly written to frame the songs – often clunks, with dialogue that rarely sounds natural and a smattering of terrible jokes ("I can't sing without a spotlight." "You couldn't sing if you had a searchlight!"). More interesting are the film's attempts to titillate, tame by modern standards but clearly pre-Code, with shots of Anita Page and Bessie Love half-naked and a gratuitous shot of lots of female legs at one point. The film acknowledges via the indignation of the sisters that sex is used to sell, as they are instructed to strip off much of their clothing because people will come to see the show because of their legs. The acting is variable. Page – who plays Queenie Mahoney – was a popular silent movie actress, but her delivery of her lines is often wooden. Charles King was presumably cast as Eddie Kearns because he can sing and dance, not because he can act, whilst Jed Prouty is terrible as the sisters' stuttering Uncle Jed. The stand-out performance is from Bessie Love as Harriet "Hank" Mahoney, who gives a much more convincing performance, for example when Hank screams and shouts at Eddie in the dressing room before breaking down when she is alone. The Broadway Melody remains a historical curiosity, not least because it won the Academy Award for Best Picture: one assumes that this was due to its novelty value as the first all-talking musical. That was obviously the film's appeal to audiences at the time, but with that novelty now ancient history and little else to recommend it, The Broadway Melody has not stood the test of time.

Supposedly the great grandfather of subsequent MGM musicals, but hardly a musical in the sense we have come to love the genre. Not a musical by modern standards. Music was logically integrated into the story line, rather than an intimate emotional expression of the internal dialog of the characters. A few Broadway song and dance numbers, but nothing really catchy. A worn story formula, even for the times: a sister act from the west arrives on Broadway with big dreams. Pretty sister is pursued by all, even by the finance of the ugly sister. Fiance get jealous of rich guy, and fights for the love of pretty sister. Long story short: pretty sister steals fiance from ugly sister, and ugly sister becomes ok with it, knowing that her role in life is to be a "trooper." Plenty of cliche stereotypes to go around. In the unrelenting male pursuit of female beautify, this picture has aged horribly in the age of #MeToo. Though Anita Page as Queenie is a stunning beauty in this film,

There were some nice songs. The actress that played Queeny was the best performance. The story was small. People trying to make it in American is simple and at times was not stretched. The acting was limited and the film does not hold its own against many film of its time. Surprised it won best picture Oscar. Very cliche script not saying a lot.

The Broadway Melody was one a very early musical film, so I can see how it was enjoyed for the novelty. More modern musicals, however, make it feel incredibly boring. The musical numbers make sense for the plot of putting on a Broadway show, but are essentially just reprieves from the main plot. The main romantic plot, to its credit, ended unexpectedly, but for a film with two female leads, the sexist parts were very apparent.

It's a mildly entertaining, but forgettable musical film. Most notably, the titular show tune is not remarkable enough to justify the story woven around it.

It's hard to believe it actually won "best picture" in 1930 - since by today's standards, and even film standards 15-20 years later, it is clumsy, chunky, and beyond corny. Nevertheless, I do think that fans of film history, especially musicals, will be interested in its presentation and integration of song & dance. And on an even more positive note, some of the sets and costumes were excellent.

Having recently seen and reviewed An American in Paris (1951) I am beginning to realize that I have been far too harsh on more modern musicals but the early attempts at melding music and a minor plot are rough. Exhibit A is The Broadway Melody which somehow managed to win Best Picture in 1929 and although it's nice to have sound after Wings (1927) I would have to say that would be a more enjoyable spectacle. The many issues that the film has are compounded by the fact that it's leads are unable to sing and dance and the music is at best forgettable. This deserves to be considered one of the worst Best Picture winners of all time and the fact that it won is probably the only reason people have to go back and look at it. Two sisters, Queenie, Anita Page, and Harriet, Bessie Love, with dreams of superstardom as part of a vaudeville act. Zanfield, Eddie Kane, definitely a play on Ziegfeld, is setting up a large Broadway Revue and the sisters think they have a shot at making it. Eddie, Charles King, is engaged to the talented and hardworking Harriet but is in love with Queenie almost purely based on her looks. The two sisters get cut from the show, then Queenie is brought back because she's "hot" and Harriet is rightly miffed. The wrong guy, Jock, Kenneth Thomson, pursues the shallow Queenie and she stays with him even though she doesn't really like him. We get pretty bad song and dance numbers throughout although they are refreshingly diegetic and it's strange to see a genre this early in it's development. The redeemable feature of this film were the costumes, that's all I could think of. The girls wore cute little sparkly rompers that get a chance to shine when they kick their legs up, which they do repeatedly, or large groups of girls swarm together to create what I suppose would have been an impressive visual at the time. Queenie slips into a beautiful white dress at one point that shows off the impressive figure of Page and would still be elegant and fashionable by today's standards. Much like The Great Ziegfeld (1936) the best parts of the film are those at which you sit back and admire the visual beauty of the women's outfits but if that's the best part of your film you have a long way to go. The love triangle trope even when involving siblings can be employed effectively as seen in While You Were Sleeping (1995) and Brothers (2004) but here it all felt a bit too melodramatic. I wanted to empathize with Harriet or Hank as she is called in her struggle but none of the characters were grounded enough to feel human and they weren't dramatic or over the top enough to be campily enjoyable. Queenie didn't have any dimension added to her other than just being too ï¿ 1/2 1/2~beautiful' and I never felt any urgency to the love between her and Eddie as I was clearly meant to. Because none of these dramatic plotlines are interesting it makes it even more exasperating that the main plot about the two girls chasing their dreams is hard to root for because they aren't even good at their job. There is nobody to really root for in this film and that means it's hard to stay engaged between shots of their flashy costumes. It's again hard to evaluate whether this was a deserving Best Picture winner because I am not particularly familiar with the films of 1929. Despite this The Broadway Melody might be the best of the lot because it has sound and a clear plot. No, it doesn't stack up to more modern films and it's still a bit of a slog but it's certainly better than this poor attempt at a musical. If you are going to watch this be aware that it's hard to track down, I found a copy through the public library system but even then I had to go on a waiting list and as this review proved I don't think it was worth it.

Many movies from the early years of Hollywood have aged surprisingly well. The Broadway Melody is not among them. The first 'talkie' to take home the Academy Award for Best Picture ends after 100 minutes, and when the credits started to roll I had a hard time trying to work out what it was even about. The conflict between the lead sisters is rushed and unnatural, the musical numbers are forgettable, and the primitiveness of the production is blatantly obvious. Some scenes end with several seconds of actors staring blankly towards the camera with no sound at all. You can't be too harsh on it, since you have to start from somewhere, but from the dialogue, the acting, the choreography and the general feel, it's a 20s movie through and through. Musicals have come a very long way since The Broadway Melody, but it's nice to seeing one of the early templates, and examine how oft it was imitated in the years to come.