Broadway Rhythm

Of course some folks want everything in a musical, and there are very few musicals that offer everything. What this one has in profusion is brilliant color, the MGM Technicolor that infuses almost every frame and dazzles in a nice variety of musical numbers.

While the viewer is stuck with the singularly charmless George Murphy, he is surrounded with folks that offer everything from a strange, unforgettable contortionist act, the Ross Sisters in polka dots to a double dose of Lena Horne at her best, singing some Gershwin with her usual sophisticated aplomb.

Character actor Charles Winninger is at his best here, and turns on an authentic folksiness, even getting to do some vaudeville dancing with a knowledge born of past triumphs. One of the musical highlights, and good fun it is, is watching Winninger and orchestra leader Tommy Dorsey in a friendly trombone duet, instruments gleaming as gold as MGM could make it!

The plot really doesn't matter much, as it's the old saw "Hey Kids--Let's Put On A Show," but if you just want some dazzling escapism and can immerse yourself in some MGM musical cotten candy, this fills the bill.

Talented Eddie "Rochester" Anderson stars in another fine example of racism at work in America, namely the unwritten rule of black actors not being allowed to perform with their white counterparts unless they are domestic servants. The exception here is the George and Ira Gershwin number "Somebody Loves Me," performed by Lena Horne. Many scenes with black performers, including the Hazel Scott piono swing version of "Minute Waltz," are positioned in such a way that theaters in the South could cut them without losing the storyline.Archie Savage is Horne's dance partnet in "Brazilian Boogie-Woogie," another noteworthy number, and leading lady Ginny Simms does a good job with "All the Things You Are." Nancy Walker and Ben Blue are hilarious in the "Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet" number with Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra.

I can hardly believe that Broadway Rhythm started out as Very Warm For May on Broadway, one of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, II's flop musicals. A look at the biography of Jerome Kern by Gerald Bordman tells me that other than it being a backstage story, the plot of Very Warm For May and Broadway Rhythm is completely different. The character names have been changed and almost an entire new score was written for the film.

The one song retained from Kern's score is one of the best he ever wrote, All The Things You Are. It happens that way sometimes, a flop musical can yield a gem of a hit. Ginny Simms sings it beautifully.

Don Raye and Gene DePaul wrote the original songs, nothing terribly memorable. Some other material was interpolated among them my favorite George Gershwin song, Somebody Loves Me which guest star Lena Horne sings to perfection. Oddly enough the song Broadway Rhythm isn't heard here or may have wound up on the cutting room floor.

George Murphy plays a Broadway producer and son of an old time vaudeville performer Charles Winninger. Winninger thinks Murphy has gone too high hat and feels that sentimentality and schmaltz will always sell on Broadway. To prove it he and movie star Ginny Simms who Murphy is trying to get to star in a new show he's producing go out and invest their money and produce an old show that Murphy had discarded years ago.

Broadway Rhythm has a lot of good talent in the cast like Nancy Walker, Ben Blue, Hazel Scott, and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Sad that it was all wasted on a very trite backstage story.

Just before Murphy and Simms go to see the Palm Reader, the man at the visual machine, with his back to us, when responding to Murphys comment looks quickly back. He looks life Paul Ford of the Music Man and You'll Never Get Rich (Bilko). He looks very young too. The color is fantastic and the opening number is first rate. It is great to see Nancy Walker in her youth. The dancers are superb and the music is great. Ginny Simms looks great coming out of Kay Keysers band. She was also with Abbott and Costello in a movie called "Hit the Ice." Her voice is great and the band compliments her voice. Lorne looks great but the Brazilian number was a little dull. They could have used her better in another dance scene.I give the movie a strong seven.

Whomever took a look at the final script for "Broadway Rhythm" must have realized that the only thing that might put this one over would be an abundance of talented performers, since the plot was a mere trifle.

As a result, the film is full of gifted performers unable to bring much life to this routine musical about a producer quarreling with his father over how to produce their next show and walking out on him. Of course, everything is straightened out by the final reel and the show is a smash hit.

MGM produced this in velvety Technicolor with all the trimmings but there's no disguising the fact that the witless script is full of flat lines and only occasionally does a song get that MGM treatment.

George Murphy and Ginny Simms get top billing with Gloria DeHaven, Charles Winninger, Nancy Walker and Ben Blue in good support. Guest star Lena Horne gives the film its most solid moments with two specialty numbers and Hazel Scott does magic with her finger work at the piano. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson provides some comic relief.

But Murphy gets only one dance routine at the finale and Ginny Simms only gets one memorable song ("All The Things You Are") to warble before the show is over. It all has a slap-dash kind of organization, the story flow stopping every few moments to accommodate another frenzied number.

The tiresome script is the problem, lacking wit and originality. Six years later, "Summer Stock" with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly (and Gloria DeHaven) did a much better job with similar material and better songs.