Made on Broadway

A lot of the ground and issues that were covered two decades later in Sweet Smell Of Success are covered also in this before The Code era film. Made On Broadway goes J.J. Hunsecker one better. Instead of just having a permanent table at the swankiest club in midtown Manhattan, Robert Montgomery as Jeff Bidwell owns his own club where New York's elite drink, gamble, and pay through the nose for the privilege. Montgomery has his eyes and ears everywhere as Broadway's number one press agent and has a genius for manipulating public opinion for a very steep price.

He's got a roving eye and wife Madge Evans left him for it. But one night on the ferry to New Jersey Montgomery jumps in the river and saves the life of a would be suicide Sally Eilers. At this point the film takes a Pygmalion like direction.

Eilers is one interesting character herself and the master manipulator gets himself used in some interesting ways. There's a key scene in the film when Eilers gets herself in a nice jackpot she let's down her hair with lawyer Joseph Cawthorn where you get a view of the real character. Takes Montgomery a bit longer to catch on.

If chronology did not label this a pre-Code film the plot would. There are a few things that Mr. Breen's book of rules would not have permitted after 1934.

Eugene Palette as Montgomery's valet is always good, but he's strangely subdued here. I always like to see more of Palette as he appears in My Man Godfrey.

Made On Broadway is a strangely forgotten film and should be better remembered. It definitely could be remade today.