#011: Lord Byron of Broadway

LORD BYRON OF BROADWAY

Release Date

February 28, 1930

History

Lord Byron of Broadway is probably best known for two things-- Technicolor sequences by the Rasch ballet, and introducing two songs, "Should I?" and "A Bundle Full of Love Letters", both big hits in 1930. The Technicolor sequence Woman in the Shoe was well received enough where it was lifted and used in two other short films: a Three Stooges film, Nertsery Rhymes, and Roast Beef and Movies.

Otherwise, this film came and went from the history books of the MGM Musical. It was directed by Harry Beaumont (who also directed Broadway Melody) as well as William Nigh. When a film has two directors, it generally means that one replaced the other, but no indication is given by this in anything available online so it's hard to know if they worked together on this project or if one passed the baton to the other. Charles Kaley, Ethelind Terry, Marion Shilling, and Cliff Edwards, aka "Ukelele Ike", all star. The film was originally intended for William Haines and Bessie Love, but unfortunately the studio deemed their voices too weak and went with Kaley and Terry to replace them. Both stage stars, Kaley was also known for singing on the first popular recording of the Irving Berlin song Blue Skies, whereas Terry was known for being the lead in Rio Rita on Broadway. Shilling was also a stage actress and worked with Bela Lugosi in the West Coast production of Dracula. Her ability to scream gave her the opportunity to dub over screams for actresses in several horror movies. In keeping with MGM production at that time, this film was released in Sound on Film and Sound on Disc versions.

Review

The lackluster reviews for this film are accurate, this film is mostly a doozy. The title is a wink at the scandalous personal life of poet Lord George Byron, who in the early 19th century was known for his affairs with both men and women and being a source of gossip in the British community. Lord Byron of Broadway follows a similar character (minus the bisexuality) in 1930 New York, named Roy. Roy is a piano player, songwriter and serial dater. 

The opening scene shows him reuniting with a woman who confronts him about ignoring her after their fling. He moves on to Bess, a customer at the club he works at who has been eyeing him for some time, and they engage in a very suggestive and flirtatious dialogue encounter. Bess invites him to her apartment to "practice" playing the piano and they engage in some very intense and passionate interaction. She reveals a bundle full of love letters she has and this gives him the idea for a song.

Watching this, it reminded me how much more was allowed to fly in Pre-code cinema. While he plays the piano, she is literally chewing on his shoulder! The next scene shows him bored with Bess (a few weeks afterward) and even though she introduces him to a man who can publish his song, instead of recognizing her kindness he moves on to Nancy, a music store worker. Nancy helps write out his music for the song as a favor. She accompanies him as a date to a show where Joe (Cliff Edwards) is performing, and when Roy and Nancy don't get proper credit for the song, Roy proves to Joe that they did in fact write the piece. Joe and his assistant Phil (Benny Rubin), see that they are telling the truth, and Joe and Roy begin a partner act together, both on stage and in the recording studio. While Nancy loves Roy, his playboy ways do not acknowledge her feelings for him. Things go astray when Roy meets singer Ardis (Ethelind Terry) in a recording studio and falls in love with her. It is soon revealed that Ardis is Joe's ex, and the two are still legally married, causing a huge rift in the group. Ardis is bad news and turns Roy against Joe and Nancy.

After a major confrontation between Roy and Joe, Joe is struck by a car and Nancy confronts Roy, first for not resolving his conflict with Joe over Ardis, and then for wanting to monetize on Joe's death by writing a song about it. He sees the error of his ways, quits show business, and gets sober, going back to trying to find work as a piano player. Broke, he thinks he has lost all hope, and goes back to Bess to catch up. She cheers him up by turning on the radio, and he learns that Nancy (who he thinks has not forgiven her) has sent the song he wrote for her to be published and he's able to get back on his feet from the money it is making. The two reunite and get married. 

Nancy and Roy are a very dysfunctional couple. Nancy loves Roy, Roy knows this and uses her. She enables his behavior by saying she doesn't mind that he does things like leaving the middle of dinner with her and Joe to go to a party with some fans. She is then heartbroken that he leaves even though she told him he could. She even pretends to be Roy's wife (while Joe is pretending to be Roy) so that Roy won't get beaten up for having an affair with a married woman who is a chorus girl, all the while heartbroken that he's having the affair with the woman and is not giving her any attention. Joe is kind to Nancy but doesn't understand why she allows Roy to treat her this way. Even toward the end of the film when Nancy breaks up with Roy, he pleads for her to come back and she says no, but still sells his song and hopes that he'll hear it on the radio, sending mixed messages. At the end of the film, when the two are married, at no point does he make a vow to stay loyal to their marriage, just that he's happy they've reunited, and in the last scene he goes into an old habit of leaving an intimate moment with a woman (this time Nancy) to write a song with an idea he's gotten from the emotional moment. It leaves the audience wondering, is he going back to all old habits? Is this a not so happy ending for Nancy?

Where Roy is concerned, it is clear this man is very sleazy and a little more gruff than your average "dandy" character in MGM musicals. There is no attempt to hide that he is having casual sex with the many ladies he meets in this film. When Roy is about to ditch out on dinner and go to a party, Joe warns him that they have to record at the studio the next day, indicating that Roy's dependability has been changing as of late. I hated that when he moved onto Ardis, his pickup line was "Nothing important ever happened to me until today when I met you." It's clear he's one of these men who wants women to think he loves them to make the sex better. Also, Roy loves to play victim, which makes him very unlikeable, though this is intentional. He is angry that his song got stolen, but at the same time uses Nancy to prove that the song was stolen instead of seeing that he actually has stolen the song from her, who helped him write the composition as well as changed it to a better key for him and he gave her none of the credit other than to prove to Joe that it was his tune.

As complicated as the Roy and Nancy characters are though, both actors portraying them are not great. Dialogue is delivered loudly and flatly from both and the emotion is very forced. Ethelind Terry as Ardis is another disaster in her performance and has the opposite problem, where she doesn't seem invested at all in her performance but smiles and clenches her teeth while delivering all her lines. The only saving grace in the performances are the two supporting actors, Cliff Edwards as Joe and Benny Rubin as Phil. Benny Rubin plays his usual Jewish caricature self but is very funny and has great timing in line delivery. Cliff Edwards does a great job with a rare dramatic role here and in his singing and dancing.

The frustrating part of this film was the writing. I know I need to accept that the plots in these musicals will continue to be paper thin as they become more extravagant, but there were key plot issues that had me rolling my eyes. How could Roy not know that Nancy loved him when it was right in front of his face for the whole movie? No one can be that blind. Also, when Joe is hit by a car and gets a brain hemorrhage as a result, it seemed like a pretty far stretch. Additionally, as a rule, I'm not into making jokes about women being ugly in films. This happened twice in Lord Byron of Broadway. Once was a taller, well built woman trying to pick up Roy backstage and he dodges her as he looks on fearfully. The second time was during the number "Should I?"; there are several shots of women fawning over Roy as he sings, including an old woman, and after they cut to her admiring him, Joe laughs at her appearance. 

Still, there were some redeeming qualities to the film. For example, this film had no intertitles like previous MGM musicals. There were, however, a number of short montage shots that were well inserted. For example, to illustrate Joe's gain in fame, there is a montage that starts with a shot of the inside of a piano, overlayed with women surrounding Roy as well as a third overlay of Times Square in the background-- this little nod to German expressionism also got a little nod of approval from me. A similar montage to show time passing happens toward the end of the film. There is a montage where we see Roy's song being sold, a record playing, and music coming out of radio speakers, showing that his song is a success on sheet music, on records, and on the radio. I also enjoyed some of the relics of the time the film was made, such as seeing a recording studio from 1930 and the music store where Terry works (a type of shop that will reappear in In the Good Old Summertime later in this blog). 

I would say that the numbers were all fairly good. I enjoyed the fact that the script shows the process of  "Bundle of Love Letters" being composed, first as Roy tinkers away on the piano, then as he engineers the sheet music with Nancy, and finally when it is done as a big musical number by Joe. Other vaudeville numbers such as "Japanese Sandman" and "Should I?" keep the film's pace going enough to make the film watchable. The highlight of the film has to be the two Technicolor numbers by the Rasch ballet. "Blue Daughter of Heaven" is reminiscent of the Ziegfeld shows of the 1920s, with an elevated stage that rotates, and ramps with dancers that surround a woman on a pedestal who sits on top as she's serenaded. While Busby Berkeley was given credit for innovating the shot of a camera pointed down as dancers form geometric shapes with their bodies, Albertina Rasch's company did it before him in this film, and the proof is in this number! 

The second Technicolor number by Rasch, "Woman in the Show" is also Ziegfeld-esque, and is reminiscent of the "Wedding of the Painted Doll" number in Broadway Melody. It even has similarities in its writing. There is a line "The jumping jack jumped into town" in "Painted Doll" and in "Woman" there is a mirroring one of "Jack and Jill came up the hill", both using the same tune. I loved seeing chefs dancing with plates of pancakes, and a kick line of women with very muscular legs. This number was definitely the highlight of the film and it is worth watching for it and the other Rasch number alone.

Home Video

This was an earlier release by the Warner Archive DVD collection, from May 2010. I'm not sure when this transfer was made. It does look like a digital master, because there isn't analog video overhead like there was on the transfer for Hollywood Revue, but at the same time there is a white line on the edge of the frame, which is common for films transferred on a D1 or D2 video format. Corners of the image are rounded off, which could signify a print source, except for the fact that there are no changeover marks. The image has a little flicker and some scratches, but nothing unforgiving for a film this age. It is definitely a better source than some of the other titles that have been in this blog thus far. The Technicolor sequences are wonderful quality with stable and bright color, making the two-strip Technicolor look how it should from this time frame. 

While there is some noise on the track, the dialogue is crisp, and I will accept a noisy track with crisp dialogue over a track that has been overprocessed where the dialogue sounds muffled as a result. There is an angry clicking pattern that occurs throughout, but what's interesting is it is only in the black and white sections. The color sections seem to not have this issue at all. It makes me wonder if there was a different sound source for the color sequences. The clicking is present in the black and white song sequences as well, so it isn't something as simple as the orchestra drowning the crackle out. Overall, presentation is decent for a 1930 film and people interested in seeing it will be satisfied with its quality.