It's been a long time since I has don't my first Best Picture Winner. Really it's been almost two years....
Anyways, I am picking up where I left off at and I quick reminder. The first couple of films that have won are not going to be in correct year order. The Academy did not do the awards by calendar year at that time. So, Wings was made and nominated in 1928 but the next movie was also made in 1928 and won it. So, that is why the years might be a little off.
Ok, on to the review!
The Best Picture Winner in the 1928/1929 Awards was The Broadway Melody. It was released by MGM On February 1, 1929 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California. With a budget of $379,000 (5,242,279. 24 in today's money), MGM created the basis of what Classic Musical would soon become. The film beat out United Artists and Feature Productions' Alibi, Fox's In Old Arizona, Paramount's The Patriot and MGM's other nomination Hollywood Revue for the award. The other awards The Academy nominated it for was Harry Beaumont for Best Director and Bessie Love for Best Actress. A big production, big musical numbers, and a touch of color... kinda, it's not doubt as to why the film won it for that year.
In the late 20's and early 30's Hollywood was going through a revolution in technology. With the very recent introduction of talking films, color was the next big venture, and if you were lucky enough to get the two together, you were bound to have a hit. Since this was going to be on of first musicals in a talking format the extra glitz and glamour would be the cherry on top. The Broadway Melody was not filmed all in color but there was a sequence of the film that was in color. That sequence was for the song "Wedding of the Painted Doll", however, in the version of the film that we see today it is not in color because the version that had the color sequence has been lost. Reading about this news after watching the film it made sense because that sequence in the film was a really focused on for not having any of the stars in the song at all. It was focused on so it could so off the red and green filters that the movie originally had. Even without the color in the film it's a beautiful and fun scene.
Like I mentioned earlier, Bessie Love was nominated for Best Actress for the film playing full forced Harriet "Hank" Mahoney. The Award ended up going to Mary Pickford in Coquette. I would have to say that she was by far the best actor or actress in the film. I think she had the best part because it was the only part in the film that expected a full range on emotion. The other Stars of the film are Anita Page as Queenie Mahoney, Hank's beautiful sister, and Charles King as Eddie Kerns the slick music writer for Broadway and Hank's fiancé. King was ok for the most part of his performance. He really is happy go luck or jealous through the whole film and stings Hank along while he is falling in love with Queenie. Anita Page's performance would have been more impressive if it were a silent film. She did more acting with her face (over reacting) than what he voice matched up with.
The best part of the film is the music. I loved all of the songs in this film. The music was composed by Nacio Herb Brown and the lyrics are by brilliant Arthur Freed. The reason that I, and many others, would know and love this music is because it was all used again in the major block buster hit Singing in the Rain. It was really great to see the origins of the music in this film and how they have been shaped for Singing in the Rain.
I would have to say that while the music is amazing this film is not one of my favorites. While I do appreciate one of the foundation musicals, I won't be enjoying this film again any time soon. It was good but it lacked that magical quality to gives musicals the ability to last the tests of time.
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