Broadway to Hollywood

I'm glad I read a previous review entitled "The back story is more interesting than the movie" because the background greatly enhanced the viewing experience. Speaking for myself, I love knowing facts of lives of actors and others surrounding any older film. And I think many of us watching these films have a bit of film historian in us.

There is a bit of obvious pre-code Hollywood at times, which time stamps the movie, and so many cast members became Hollywood legends. And offense taken by Buster Keaton is notable off-screen insight.

So, it depends on the lens you look through. The long-shot lens of this time capsule shows some tragedy, closeups show some comedy, as Chaplin once said about film making.

I enjoyed this. Frank Morgan, Mickey Rooney, Alice Brady, Jimmie Durante, Curly and Moe Howard, Jackie Cooper... footage from an unreleased musical that otherwise wouldn't have any use... so many careers and so much information floated the boat for what otherwise may have been a creaky ship of viewing.

I was entertained on several levels.

This film is a wonderful example of a through-the-years show business family with all the sentiment and comforting clichés of the genre. The relationship of the main characters played by Frank Morgan and Alice Brady is just complicated enough to ring true. The movie also offers the added treats of Jackie Cooper and the very young and spectacular Mickey Rooney who may have had as much raw talent as anyone who ever grew up in front of a camera. Madge Evans supplies erotic appeal as a doomed dancer and there is a very strange scene with Moe and Curly Howard as two rather frightening clowns in bizarre white make-up. Eddie Quillan plays Rooney grown-up and suggests in one scene that his character might just be gay. This is a pre-coder. Jimmy Durante plays himself and Nelson Eddy sings a forgettable tune. And isn't that Una Merkel winking at Morgan from the audience? If you like movies about show business, this one's for you.

Broadway to Hollywood follows a vaudeville family as the mother vows her son won't be forced into show business and the father wants the legacy to continue. Frank Morgan and Alice Brady have their marital troubles, with Frank's womanizing and the instability of their profession, and when their son Jackie Cooper enters the scene, he manages to steal the audience's attention with his cuteness. Jackie's only in the movie for about ten minutes, until his character grows up,

Amazingly enough, in a movie set in vaudeville, none of the lead actors can dance. They're either filmed from very far away with obvious dance doubles, or in tight closeups that show them moving only their shoulders with huge grins. The exceptions are the kids, Jackie Cooper and Mickey Rooney, who ironically plays Jackie's son. You have to wait an hour to see him, and once again, he's only on the screen for a few minutes. This is a generational saga, with Frank and Alice aging decades in the ninety minutes. They start off as a young couple, then wind up with a grown-up grandson in their midst. If you're renting this movie to see the kiddies, you'll be disappointed. You'd better be watching it for Frank and Alice, who age very gracefully. With their white hair, Alice's dowager hump, and Frank's dark circles that show the hard life they've lived, it really feels as if you've known them their entire lives.

In the start of the movie, their gag at the end of their song and dance is for Alice to pick up a bouquet of roses thrown on the stage. Frank says to the audience, "I'll find the fellow who sent her those and break his neck!" to a strong laugh. As the decades pass, the laughter dwindles, and even though Frank's tone gives the same delivery, his eyes show he's humiliated and disappointed that he's never achieved more. Finally, as an old man, he uses a monocle, has a slack jaw, and wobbles his legs when he rises from his chair, all while preserving the dignity of a man who used to entertain audiences with his legs and the ladies with his good looks. If you're a Frank Morgan fan, rent it; he truly embodies the old hoofer who's tried and failed his whole life. If you're not, you probably won't enjoy it.

There are basically two tales of interest behind this unremarkable maudlin melodrama about three generations of vaudevillians, the second of which succumbs to drink and the third of which succumbs to sloth as well.

The first tale is why this film was made in the first place. In late 1930 MGM producer Harry Rapf was making a sequel to the Hollywood Revue of 1929. Unfortunately, musicals went out of fashion before the movie was finished and MGM had to shelve the project. Thus MGM was saddled with some very expensive musical footage and no movie. This film was an attempt to try to fit a story around some of that footage and recoup some of the losses. That is why you'll find long and often elaborate production numbers that don't really fit the plot placed awkwardly at points along the movie.

The second tale of interest is how this movie was considered by Buster Keaton to be "the final insult" hurled at him by MGM after they unceremoniously fired him this same year - 1933. He thought that the story of the third generation of Hacketts - Ted Hackett III - looked just a little too autobiographical to be a coincidence. Ted the 3rd is the member of a famed vaudeville family who gets recruited to go into motion pictures. Once he gets to Hollywood he begins to drink heavily - a vice that his father also had - and his drinking causes him to be late to the movie set if he even bothers to show up at all. Buster was furious about this movie, and nobody could convince him his own problems with MGM were not at the foundation of the plot and that it was simply an attempt to salvage "The March of Time" alias The Hollywood Revue of 1930.

Take these points of interest away from the film and there really is not much to see here other than Morgan and Brady's excellent performance as the senior generation of Hacketts who see "the march of time" from the height of vaudeville's popularity through the arrival of talking pictures which renders their profession obsolete.

It's the 80's at Tony Pastor's Theatre. Ted (Frank Morgan) and Lulu Hackett (Alice Brady) are The Hacketts, a semi-successful married couple vaudevillian song and dance team. They have their baby in their dressing room. They bring up their child Ted Jr. (Jackie Cooper) in the business. As an adult, Junior (Russell Hardie) exceeds his parents and follows his girl Anne Ainsley (Madge Evans) to another show. Ted quits the new show and the spotlight on his son out of pride. He finds that their old standards are out of date. Junior suffers from the drink after Anne's tragic death. It's the grandson Ted Hackett III (Mickey Rooney)'s turn to join The Three Hacketts. As an adult, he moves away to Hollywood by himself and gets into the movies but history seems to be repeating itself.

I like the premise of a multi-generational performing family. It promises to follow the family thru the entertainment business during some great changes. This has some interesting actors including a couple of famous child stars like pre-teen Mickey Rooney. The execution leaves something to be desired. It's a bit disjointed as the story keeps jumping forward in time. The idea is there, but it's not really fulfilled. I want Ted to stay with his younger generations and become their manager. There is plenty of potential conflicts as an overbearing stage father. Separating the family and the disjointedness of time jumping leave me a bit cold.