Tag: Charles King

The Hollywood Revue of 1929

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Holywood Revue of 1929

The Hollywood Revue of 1929. 118 minutes. Directed by Charles Reisner. Featuring performances by the Albertina Rasch Dancers, George K. Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, The Brox Sisters, Joan Crawford, Karl Dane, Marion Davies, Marie Dressler, Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards, Gus Edwards, John Gilbert, William Haines, Oliver Hardy, Buster Keaton, Charles King, Stan Laurel, Gwen Lee, Bessie Love, Polly Moran, Anita Page, and Norma Shearer. With Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel as masters of ceremonies.

The success of The Jazz Singer (1927) was the catalyst for the widespread use of synchronized sound in feature films, and as the studios began to manufacture sound productions en masse, they gravitated towards the format of the plotless musical revue. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is a glitzy entry in the genre that, like its contemporaries King of Jazz (1930) and Elstree Calling (1930), offers plentiful sights and sounds to exhibit the new technology. A modern audience will likely take diminished … Read the rest

The Broadway Melody (1929)

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The Broadway Melody (1929)

The Broadway Melody (1929). 100 minutes. Directed by Harry Beaumont. Starring Anita Page (as Queenie Mahoney), Bessie Love (as Harriet “Hank” Mahoney), Charles King (as Eddie Kearns), Jed Prouty (as Uncle Jed), Kenneth Thomson (as Jacques Warriner), Edward Dillon (as stage manager), Marry Doran (as Flo), and Eddie Kane (as Zanfield). Music by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown.

The Broadway Melody is one of the first films in the sound era to use an almost completely synchronized soundtrack. The top-grossing picture in its year of release, it was widely praised by critics and was the first sound movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. However, the reviews of some in the industry, such as Charlie Chaplin, were not so favorable (he calls it “a cheap dull affair” in his memoir). Chaplin admittedly had much to fear with the arrival of The Broadway Melody, whose success helped to spell the end of the silent era … Read the rest