1940 - BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940, yet another innocous MGM musical

The biggest studio in 1940's Hollywood MGM was also the biggest at putting out really bland films only made watchable by the talented performers and technicians who worked on them.  Broadway Melody of 1940 has some amazing dancing by two of the best hoofers in Hollywood, Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire.  It also has one of the most tedious plots to sit through.  This is the usual hooey of a story of mistaken identities with at times gratingly low humor.

To be really brief, Astaire and his partner played by future Senator George Murphy end up getting involved with a Broadway star as she auditions for a new stage partner.  There's lots of tiresome confusion as she mixes up the identities of Astaire and his partner which just seems unending.  Throw in Frank Morgan, (the Wizard of Oz) for some really dumb humor about his being pursued by a beautiful woman for some reason.  Because the plot is so paper thin there are also specialty acts throughout the film.  A female juggler show up and, a guy on a unicycle bikes around for some reason.  All this just adds to the running time of the film and drags things out until the final musical number.  But frankly without these stupid specialty acts this film probably would have run less than an hour.  

 

However everything leads up to the splashy Begin the Beguine production number towards the end of the film.  Here is where MGM's production technicians really excel.  The film is expertly staged and photographed in dazzling black and white.  Most impressive in this number is the dancing of Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire at the top of their abilities.  Just watching them execute this number you can't help but think about the amount of time they rehearsed it to get it just perfect.

 

In fact the Begin the Beguine number has been excerpted a few times particularity in the MGM clip compendium That's Entertainment, it's really about the only reason to sit through this film.  You can see them perform this number on YouTube which will save you the time of sitting through this film.

This film was written by Leon Gordon and George Oppenheimer, the running time is 102 minutes.