Battle of Broadway

Dazzling! There are some killjoys who say they never watch any Wurtzel product, but this one is far superior to the "B" features produced by rival studios such as Columbia and Universal, and even Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the first place, it features a top cast with some of the best farceurs in the business. Secondly, it has a script by Lou Breslow, John Patrick (!) and Norman Houston(!) that keeps the wit humming like a buzzsaw while ringing up delightfully devious plot changes faster than the cash register at a burlesque box office. Thirdly, it has a director who keeps things popping at a terrific bat. Fourthly, it features remarkably lavish production values. And fifth – but by no means least – it features a really outstanding cast of starring and featured players. Of course, McLaglen can always be relied upon for a rousing performance while Gypsy Rose Lee not unexpectedly sweeps into her scenes like the society queen at a fancy-dress ball. With great aplomb, she even handles a song that turns into an elaborate production number with a large chorus of skimpy-costumed cuties.

The real surprise of the movie, however, is Brian Donlevy – he of the normally expressionless features, stiff posture and idiot-board delivery. Here he actually gives a performance – and such a performance! He's genuinely funny, revealing an unexpected flair for farcical posturing and double takes.

Among the supporting faces, watch for Sammy Cohen (who can fall off a chair with comic ease), Eddie Holden as a one-man band, Hattie McDaniel weaving her plump figure into a series of hilarious postures, and gravel-voiced Frank Moran as the moronic masseur. Paul Irving is right in the comic stream too as a nutty professor. And there's Lynn Bari, looking youthful and most entrancing as our hero's real fiancée.

Steel mill owner Raymond Walburn pays for the members of his old unit to go to the American Legion convention in New York. He asks Brian Donleavy and Victor McLaglen to do him a favor while there. His son, Robert Kellard, has fallen in love with a showgirl, and he wants them to stop. When they check in, they both put the moves on the hotel's singer, Gypsy Rose Lee (singing voice by Mary Martin) and decide to ask her to break up the romance by seducing Kellard. Meanwhile, Kellard asks her to pretend to be the girl he's in love with, and to present the actual girl, Lynn Bari, as an attractive alternative. Miss Lee agrees to Kellard's request, whereupon Donleavy and McLaglen try to woo her away by showering her with gifts paid for by Walburn. Confronted with the bills, Walburn flies out to New York, and the movie becomes confusing.

Director George Marshall -- with uncredited assistance by Allan Dwan -- has issues with this chaotic comedy. Donleavy and McLaglen are supposed to have a Quirt and Flagg relationship, but it just comes off as ill-willed. Miss Lee is stiff in her role, and while Walburn puts a lot of comic energy into his bits, particularly with secretary Jane Darwell, this one comes off as rather bloated. With Esther Muir, Hattie McDaniel, and Frank Moran.

"The Battle of Broadway" is one wacky movie. It's not a screwball comedy, although it has a rather concocted triangle - or, more like two or three triangles that crisscross or overlap. One would have to search hard to find a single line of clever or funny dialog. The humor is provided mostly by the three male leads who probably had more fun than any other cast making a movie in Hollywood in 1938.

Brian Donlevy and Victor McLaglen make a good team for this kind of farce. They're not like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello. Their mayhem and mishaps would fit more closely with the Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers. When Raymond Walburn gets in the act, it gets even more silly.

These three are old pals from World War I, with Walburn playing the private doughboy who made a fortune and became the steel king in private life. He usually plays similar roles to his Homer C. Bundy in comedies. Donlevy is Chesty Webb and McLaglen is Big Ben Wheeler. In the Army they were over Homer but now they work for him. But they're all buddies, along with many of Homer's steel workers, and they all belong to the Bundy Post of the Legionnaires.

The film doesn't actually identify their group as being the American Legion, but that's the logical conclusion. And, this is a rare film that shows large numbers of legionnaires marching in parade toward the end. It's even more interesting when one considers that this was a good distance form WW I in 1938. But the outbreak of WW II was imminent with Hitler's rise and actions in Europe, and Japan having already invaded China in 1937.

This also is a look at Gypsy Rose Lee in just her fourth of a couple dozen movies she made. She wasn't much of an actress, but was well-known in burlesque for her strip-tease performances. Here she is fairly good as Linda Lee without the burlesque. Twentieth Century Fox put a good cast together for this raucous display, including a couple of highly regarded supporting actresses of the period who would go on to win Oscars.

Hattie McDaniel plays Linda Lee's maid, Agatha. She would win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance the next year as Mammy in the epoch film of Margaret Mitchell's Civil War novel, "Gone with the Wind." Jane Darwell plays Homer Bundy's private secretary, Mrs. Rogers. Three years later, she would give her Oscar-winning performance as Ma Joad in the film version of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

Some of the rest of the cast will be familiar to old-time film buffs. This isn't in the league of great comedies for witty dialog and antics, but most modern folks should enjoy it for the bedlam with the male leads.

Homer Bundy (Raymond Walburn) is a rich man who volunteers to send his local chapter of the American Legion to the upcoming convention and he's bankrolling all of it. His generosity is due, at least in part, to his wanting two of his old war buddies, Big Ben (Victor McLaglen) and Chesty (Brian Donlevy), to do what they can to disrupt a love affair between Bundy's son and a show girl, Miss Lee (Gypsy Rose Lee). The problem is that the son is NOT romancing Miss Lee but another girl. What's to become of all this?

During the course of the story, Big Ben and Chesty try to outwit the other...but mostly they just turn out to be a couple of idiots. So, it's up to Bundy himself to come to the rescue...but who will rescue him?!

This is a clever and undemanding comedy...not exactly deep stuff but fun throughout. I do find it unusual seeing a Gypsy Rose Lee in this and other films of the day considering how tough the new Production Code was...and she did become famous as a stripper back in the day. Regardless, it's all good fun.