Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.
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Thanks for the memories!
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
This is a very good documentary and I strongly believe anyone who is remotely interested in live and musical theater, and the who's who of American theatrics will lap it up with glee. Great interviews with possibly everyone you might want to see (preserved and lucid) as well as incredible footage of the relevant past. It is the old footage that for me is the riveting charm of such a doco and it is as delightful as it is startling. The roll call of those recently departed is a touching climax to what has already been a most heartfelt experience. If you have relatives or friends who know of even a few of the astonishing talented genuine human beings celebrated here it will be one of the major highlights of your shared film viewing. I saw this doco as a cinema film and it truly is captivating and astonishing. If only we can have more of this type of doco capturing those who were there in those legendary times, I believe there is a solid and appreciative audience. Don't miss this!
Let's set the record straight. Simply appearing in two or three Broadway shows does not qualify any performer from suddenly acquiring the status of being a "Legend". When you're talking about "Broadway Legends", you're talking about Ethel Merman, Al Jolson, George M. Cohan, Cole Porter, Roger and Hammerstein, etc.,etc.. When this DVD's Producer, Rick McKay, makes claims that this DVD is based upon his recorded comments of ONE HUNDRED Broadway LEGENDS WHO WERE THERE, he's talking about performers like Fay Wray, Betsy Blair, Carol Burnett, Karl Malden, Farley Granger, Jane Powell, and many, many otherperformers whom he self proclaimed as Broadway "Legends". As a great admirer of the tremendous talents associated with true Broadway "Legends", I strongly resent this. I also believe it misleads the consumer.Regrettably, the DVD offers very little in the way of enter taining the viewer...that is, unless you enjoy watching over an hour and a half of wall-to-wall interviews. The only thing I garnered from my viewing was that, if, in those golden days of Broadway, you wanted to learn what show was hiring, or who was sleeping with whom, you simply had to linger around the soda fountain of either Grey's or Walgreens drug store.For a much more entertaining and educational DVD on the golden days of Broadway, I highly suggest "COLE PORTER-YOU"RE THE TOP", and/or "RICHARD RODGERS: THE SWEETEST SOUNDS".
For the older crowd, "Broadway: The Golden Age" is like finding something at a flea market that you didn't know you needed and can't live without (a lot of the cast are in movies and television too). For younger theatre fans, this will be like a banquet with a lot of choices and the frustration of thinking that being at the front of the line might have been better in some unknown, mid-century way. As is true in the films "Chicago" and "The Kid Stays in the Picture", the audience shouldn't file out or head for the bathroom as the credits roll, because the legends go on to sing lines from songs alongside the credits. Mimi Hines is a latter-day wonder! (For those who remember Phil Ford and Mimi Hines from, what, Jack Paar or maybe Johnny Carson, or both..)
Rick Mc Kay has given worldwide, movie audiences a glorious gift: "Broadway: The Golden Age". It's a Treasure of New York, The Theatre, Americana, Gypsies, Histories, and Dreams come true, by the dreamers who dreamed them, lived them, and vividly recount them, thanks to Mc Kay. "Broadway: The Golden Age" is a rich, reel legacy I wish everyone, everywhere could experience.