Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

JLRMovieReviews Joan Blondell runs a dance academy for children, with young sister, Lana Turner, in this remake of the Oscar-winning Best Picture, The Broadway Melody. Joan is engaged to George Murphy, who went off to New York for his big break into show business, but with a gimmick of singing canaries. But guess what. They're only a means of showing off what he can do, sing and dance. In fact, the songs and the musical talents of the stars make up most of the movie's appeal. This movie is an good example of what you might call a movie doomed from the start, because of a no-win situation. Let me explain: When George meets young Lana for the first time, he obviously takes a liking to her, and her vice versa. (Why they never met before, is confusing to me.) All this happens, despite the fact we know that Joan is madly in love with George. And, there is no other suitor for Joan. **SPOILER** Joan in turn sacrifices her love for George to go back home, their small town, and lets George and Lana live happily ever after. What a totally downbeat ending for Joan! No matter how noble it may appear, you can tell she hates it, really. But, because Lana is young and sexier, is she supposed to get her man, even if it's her sister's man first? The first 45 minutes or so of this short film is upbeat with good musical numbers, but the explosion of the love triangle blows up in their faces and we are left holding the bag and Joan has a one-way ticket home. You've been warned.

blanche-2 "Two Girls on Broadway," made in 1940, is a remake of "Broadway Melody of 1929" and not as much fun. It stars George Murphy, Joan Blondell, Lana Turner, Kent Taylor and Wallace Ford. Murphy is Eddie Kerns, who sells a song, himself, his fiancé and her sister to a Broadway producer. The sisters rush out from the midwest to audition, but the show only wants Pat (Turner) while Molly (Blondell) is given the job of cigarette girl. Molly swallows her pride and watches her sister replace her in a number she used to do with Eddie. Then Eddie realizes that he's also interested in Pat, and she with him.Nurphy is charming, energetic, and fine dancer, and Blondell is her usual excellent self. But it's hard to keep your eyes off of young, gorgeous, fresh-faced Lana with her gorgeous figure and vivacious personality. She dances with Murphy, and despite being a little stiff in her upper body, she's surprisingly good. Lana really had something in those days. It's no surprise she became a huge star.The musical numbers are enjoyable. This movie is nothing to write home about, but if you've never experienced the young Lana, this is a great film to see her in.

calvinnme This film is a production code era remake of "The Broadway Melody of 1929", and quite ironically one of several titular successors to that film - "The Broadway Melody of 1940" - was a great film made this same year of 1940 that shared not a trace of the original's storyline. "Two Girls on Broadway" doesn't share the franchise title, but has the same storyline as the original Broadway Melody. The problem is, the first Broadway Melody was made before the production code and at the dawn of sound and its quirks and brashness made it special. This successor therefore looks tired and drab next to it, in spite of the vast improvement in the writing of dialogue and production values over the intervening eleven year period. The scrubbing the censors gave to the original's hard edges worsens matters even more.Here, we still have the Mahoney sisters being recruited for a new Broadway musical involving song and dance man Eddie Kerns, with Eddie originally engaged to the older sister but finding he is attracted to the younger sister once he meets her. However, now our sisters are named Molly and Patricia, rather than Hank and Queenie, maybe to please the censors and make them seem more lady-like? Gone are the jokes about undressed chorus girls, gone is the hard-edged dialogue - although they gave it a decent try with the ever wonderfully brassy Joan Blondell as the older Mahoney sister, and gone is the colorful and temperamental backstage crew, some with ambiguous sexual orientation and all with attitude and mouth to spare.Our now thoroughly sanitized plot even paints the lecherous playboy that pants after the younger sister - here 'Chat' Chatsworth versus 29's Jock Warriner - as a serial groom. In the original, he was sleeping with chorus girls and tossing them aside. Here, of course, he's had five wives and plans to make Pat his sixth for six months or so. Apparently, all this sleeping around is fine with head censor Joe Breen as long as there is a marriage license involved in every case.In the end, like in the original, the noble older sister steps out of the way so that Eddie and her younger sister can be married with no feelings of betrayal by either. However, here Eddie rescues younger sister Pat from a mob scene of a wedding at city hall, not a near rape at a prohibition party as in the 29 film. Afterwards, older sister Molly decides to go back to Nebraska, to the simple pleasures of farm and county fair, rather than continue on hoofing with a new partner as predecessor Hank did. I guess in 1940 Broadway was no place for a nice girl, or at least that seems to be the lesson of this film.I give this one a 5 because, although I thoroughly disliked the plot, I really liked the performances. I've already mentioned the wonderful Joan Blondell, but there's also Lana Turner who is just perfect as the wide-eyed innocent Pat who knows the score of what she's letting herself in for with Chatworth but is willing to do just about anything so that older sister Molly can have her happiness. George Murphy does a good job of recreating the same energy and enthusiasm that Charles King brought to the part of Eddie Kerns in the original.My recommendation is that if you've seen the Broadway Melody of 1929 you'll likely be disappointed in this obvious remake, but if you haven't or you're not into the earliest sound films you just might like it.

BrentCarleton The revelation here is Lana Turner's dancing ability. Though she was known privately to be an excellent nightclub and ballroom dancer, Miss Turner rarely got the opportunity to demonstrate this ability on film.So, viewers take notice! Here, MGM were clearly still trying to determine in what direction they would develop the still young starlet, and were, therefore, consigning her to everything from Andy Hardy to Doctor Kildaire.In "Two Girls on Broadway," however, she is given an excellent opportunity to display her native rhythm and ability to shift tempo in the lavish production number, "My Wonderful One, Let's Dance." This number, is conceived and filmed, as a sort of hybrid between a Busby Berkely style extravaganza and the sort of routines Hermes Pan was designing for Astaire and Rogers at RKO.Thus, the number opens with George Murphy and Miss Turner depicted as bar patrons (with full chorus) before a curtain of black lame wherein Mr. Murphy croons the number to Miss Turner. Then the camera, (on a boom) pulls backward in a remarkable crane shot to reveal an enormous stage, and a rotating set equipped with steps, columns, enclosures and sliding walls.From this point on, Murphy and Turner execute a fast stepping variety of moods and attitudes, including lifts, spins, soft shoe, and ending with an electrifying series of conjoined pirouettes that concludes with Murphy both lifting and rotating Turner with thrilling speed to a racing orchestra.All told a dizzying feat that proves Miss Turner was fully capable of more than holding her own as a dancer, though I daresay most of her admirers would balk at relinquishing her from her throne as the queen of melodrama.