Metacritic reviews

Zowie! What a picture! Humor, drama, romance, action, thrill! And how!

It’s pretty near a classic in how to take a talker and then cut it to keep it moving.

The film, directed by Harry Beaumont, is considered the first-ever musical, creating a template that is still followed nearly a century later.

Time has marched on for the second ''best-picture'' Oscar winner, but this is still a seamy story about two Midwestern sisters (Bessie Love and Anita Page) singing, hoofing and (in Page's case) teasing their way to success. [24 Feb 1989, p.3D]

The staging is wooden, the story insipid, and the dialogue sequences mostly painful, but the film’s integration of song, dance, and story (“100% All Talking! 100% All Singing! 100% All Dancing!”) was a clear narrative advance over the music pictures being released by Warner Brothers and Fox, and the score is great.

When talkies were new, this was the musical that everyone went to see.

Anyone approaching it today will find it horribly dated, badly produced, and filled with uninspired musical numbers and over-the-top performances. This is the kind of movie that turns off children of today's generation from titles made during the early talkie era.

First musical to win Academy Award reeks of mothballs, but is undeniably the basis of perhaps a hundred others. At least there's an old curiosity shoppe charm and a few classic tunes.

The story was written by Edmund Goulding, and it is one that has not taxed his imagination severely, for it merely concerns the shattered illusions and hopes of two small-time dancing and singing girls who, having been successful in their sphere, decide to give Broadway the benefit of their talents.