Rent The Broadway Melody (1929)

Feathers, Sequins, and Lack of Silence - The Broadway Melody review by griggs

History has given this one a peculiar claim to fame: the second film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and often touted as the first full-blown musical of the talkie era. For that alone, it’s worth a look. You also get a taste of early-Hollywood spice — chorus girls changing backstage, romantic triangles edging toward the risqué, and enough feathers and sequins to dazzle anyone just upgrading from silent cinema. By later pre-Code standards it’s tame, but in 1929 this was bold enough.

What’s surprising is that, 90 years on, it doesn’t feel cartoonish or absurd. This isn’t a film to parody, because it takes its blend of song, dance and melodrama with an earnestness that still comes through. The problem is less its age than its substance: there’s simply not much to chew on.

The Broadway Melody is a relic worth noting, but not one that lingers. A milestone, yes, but hardly a masterpiece — more an artefact than an experience.