Broadway Serenade (1939)

Too much of everything

Strong and Moving!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Conventional musical with some odd touches in the musical numbers. Jeanette MacDonald is in good voice and her numbers are a bit more varied than her usual sets with Nelson Eddy. As someone who has a limited tolerance for both operetta and MacDonald/Eddy musicals I enjoyed the substitution of Lew Ayers for Nelson. Unfortunately his character makes little sense, he initially pushes his wife to grab the chance she's given than when she starts to succeed acts like a churlish jerk almost instantly and yet still she pines for him. So the story is wanting but at least the cast is full of good actors, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Rita Johnson, Virginia Grey, Esther Dale etc., all adding nice touches to the film making it much more pleasant than it would be.Shot for some unknown reason in inconsistent sepia tones which both add and distract from the flow of the film where this goes off the rails a bit is in a couple of musical numbers. The Madame Butterfly riff is interesting on an enormous stage that no theatre could possibly hold but with some beautiful almost surreal images. However the finale is like some crazy fever dream with a majority of the participants in creepy immobile masks. Not a major musical or even a major picture in any of the stars filmographies this is still an decent musical from the king of studios in the dream factory.

Through no fault of the players, this must be one of the worst major studio films of a great year for cinema--1939. Jeanette is charming as always, although I'd like to see her try Butterfly on stage without amplification. I'm afraid the orchestra would win that round! That said, she warbles beautifully and is great fun to watch.Lew Ayres plays a nearly saintly husband (albeit with a temper) and the supporting cast is just fine. The problems: a hackneyed script, and an incredibly tasteless and vulgar Busby Berkeley number to end the affair. Of course we expect BB's numbers to be over the top, we just don't expect them to be so poorly designed. Without this final extravaganza, I'd have given this a 5 at least, but after seeing that debacle, I'm giving it a 3.

Jeanette MacDonald filmed Broadway Serenade while her usual screen partner Nelson Eddy was busy doing Balalaika with Ilona Massey. She's married to Lew Ayres, musician and would be composer. They're a duo working in some real dives when we first meet them. Ayres has a short fuse involving his wife and manages to get himself fired after punching out a drunk. MacDonald dutifully follows her man.After that it's the usual backstage story for both of them. She becomes a big Broadway star and he has dreams of presenting his concerto, a treatment of Tschaikovsky's famous None, But the Lonely Heart. And they run into the usual situations involving her beauty and his temper.Jeanette sings beautifully and Ayres steps out from his Dr. Kildare image. At the time Broadway Serenade was being filmed, just as Jeanette was taking a break from Nelson, Ayres was on hiatus from the Dr. Kildare series which was at the height of its popularity.Also in the cast is Frank Morgan as a Broadway producer, the same role he had in Sweethearts and Ian Hunter as the playboy backer of Morgan's shows who's got a yen for Jen. But the best supporting part in Broadway Serenade is Al Shean who is sidekick and confident to Lew Ayres. This may have been Al Shean's best screen role. But what this film is probably best known for is the climax sequence involving Lew Ayres's concerto. Busby Berkeley did the number and it goes down as one of his worst.Berkeley who did so well at Warner Brothers with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler and later on at MGM with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, makes a ghastly debut at MGM. His None But the Lonely Heart dance number is like the number that Jack Buchanan did in The Bandwagon. Only that was supposed to be satiric, this one was for real.If Ayres's concerto had been presented simply as just an instrumental piece it would have been sooooooo much better. It was one bad creative decision to give Busby Berkeley an assignment here. Other than that, Jeanette's fans will go for this. She has some fine numbers to sing her in both the classical and popular vein.

With a string of glorious classics including The Merry Widow, Naughty Marietta, Rose Marie, Maytime and San Francisco, Jeanette MacDonald had rapidly grown from Paramount transfer to established musical Queen of the MGM lot. Her operetta series with Nelson Eddy was challenging the studio's intended blockbusters. Stars from Joan Crawford to Norma Shearer were taking new acting lessons and going over their contracts. Evidently MGM felt the need to show MacDonald her place, and railroaded her into this unworthy affair which remains among the "Iron Butterfly"'s weaker vehicles. MacDonald herself endures the film with her usual dignity, and there are the usual songs and arias to atone for the silly story. Also there's a chance to see Lew Ayres out of his "Dr. Kildare" strait-jacket, and Jeanette has some charming scenes with The Wizard of Oz himself, Frank Morgan. Anyone who loves the Lion will find something to like; everyone else beware.