Broadway Thru a Keyhole

Al Jolson punched and knocked out the writer of this picture apparently because he thought the story was based on his wife, Ruby Keeler whereas in reality surely he did this simply because Jolson was so annoyed that he'd written such an awful film?

This must have been embarrassing for Darryl Zanuck. After overseeing most of the early thirties' greatest films at Warner Brothers then flouncing off to create Twentieth Century Pictures (Fox would join soon) he seemed to have expected that just he, himself was all that was needed to make fantastic films. But he made this! He may have taken his impressive talent, his progressive and campaigning attitude with him but not, by the look of this, any actors who could act (acting in this is uniformly atrocious by everyone), directors who could direct and writers who could write.

Compared with similar musicals from this time: his own classic Busby Berkeleys at Warners or what Victor Saville was doing at Gaumont-British (with Jessie Matthews), this seems like it was made either years earlier or using obsolete ancient equipment that Zanuck managed to stash in the back of his car on his last day at Warners; it looks so cheap.

Watching this gives the impression that the setting up of Twentieth Century hadn't quite been completed by the time they made this. It was just their second ever film and it really shows. Since Zanuck had made the greatest musicals and gangster pictures up to that date, he thought he could combine both his speciality genres and make millions with this. The result however is awful: the blending of a hard-hitting crime drama with an upbeat, cheerful musical doesn't work. We just end up with the worst of both worlds.