Stars Over Broadway

Hoary old chestnut about the rush to stardom, losing control when you're at the top and setting things right. If you're a fan of light opera than you'll enjoy Melton's singing but his acting is strictly dinner theatre quality and he photographs like a cross between Dagwood Bumstead and a shiny lemon.

Fortunately the film has Pat O'Brien, Frank McHugh and Marie Wilson to inject some life into the proceedings but even with them it's an average affair.

The real reason to catch this is the presence of Jane Froman in the cast. The singer famed for her war work and catastrophic accident immortalized in With a Song in My Heart didn't make many films and while this one isn't much she sings beautifully.

Floundering music producer Al McGillevray (Pat O'Brien) is considering suicide when he hears the beautiful voice of bell boy Jan King/Kiskwski (James Melton). He takes on the amateur. At a competition, they encounter driven singer Nora Wyman (Jean Muir). As Jan gains success, he loses his way.

This is not my kind of music. I don't want that to influence my review, but it does not help. I can do without this Pat O'Brien character and I don't find Melton that good as an actor. He's obviously a better singer. I actually like the comedic side characters. They save little moments within a rather bland movie.

This begins with failed agent Pat O'Brien planning his suicide. A porter in his building catches his ear with his cowboy song. Could this be the new star to make his name and fortune? The porter is James Melton, who soon is taken to an operatic vocal coach presciently named Menotti. Menotti sees him as someone who could be a star at the Met with five years of training and Melton's "Celeste Aida" is sung in a fine tenor.

O'Brien wants quick results, though, and betrays him, making him a more popular-style singer who can rake in the bucks. He does and stardom goes to his head but he takes to the sauce, betraying O'Brien in return.

This is not the first time I've seen O'Brien in a role that suggests gay or closeted gay feelings. The reconciliation between these two is strange indeed for a scene between two men in a mid-thirties movie.

O'Brien wants to make a star of Jean Muir, too, but Menotti hears her "Ave Marie" sung in church and doesn't think she has the goods. She and O'Brien end up together but the movie is really about his and Melton's characters.

It is dark and quite elegant, a touching movie whose title has little to do with it and is misleading. Perhaps O'Brien smiles once but if so, it is the exception rather than the rule. His performance is subdued and he seems beaten down.

"Stars Over Broadway" is a good musical review film and light drama set in New York. Pat O'Brien stars as Al McGillevray, an entertainment promoter and manager. His is a typical role of a sour puss, and this is not a very good role for him. But, what is good about this film is the singing by James Melton and Jane Froman. Melton was an opera tenor who also sang popular music, as he does both in this film, and very well in a few songs. And, this is the only feature film that has Jane Froman with a supporting role as Joan Garrett, and singing three songs. She was a highly regarded singer and has second billing to O'Brien here.

Froman was an attractive singer with a distinct, wonderful voice who entertained on stage, radio and the nightclub circuit in the 1930s through 1950s. She sang in the Ziegfeld Follies and had her own TV show on CBS. She was one of the earliest entertainers to sign on for the USO program to entertain GIs during WW II. But on her February 1943 plane flight to Europe, she was seriously injured when the plane crashed in the river bay before landing in Lisbon. Froman spent a long time in recovery, and had many operations during her lifetime for injuries to both legs and one arm.

After recovering in a Spanish hospital, she returned to the States for many more months of recovery. She was able to sing again, but had to sit in a wheelchair or be supported standing. She then flew back to Europe to entertain the troops during the last year of the war. After that she sang a few more years in the States and then settled down in her hometown of Columbia, Missouri. She has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for radio, recording and television.

It's too bad Froman didn't appear in any of the many musicals that were being made in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her voice was distinctly remarkable and she had a very good stage persona. Those who enjoy her singing and would like to hear more might watch the biopic musical that was made about her life. It's an interesting and entertaining film, and Froman sings all the numbers that are then dubbed for Susan Hayward who plays her part. The film is "With a Song in My Heart" of 1952, by 20th Century Fox.

This opens with a Jack Dempsey cameo at his restaurant near Madison Square Garden where dramatic heavyweights O'Brien and McHugh make the scene. From this promising start the music takes over. Muir and Miller are added as love interests to support the acting side of the equation. Keighley keeps the plot flowing around the musical obstructions. McHugh's considerable talent is jammed into the comic role. The star O'Brien is boxed in as a dour talent manager. But given there exists only a finite number of these appearances of the two together, we'll take it. Muir and Miller provide the softer side of Depression hardship. In the Orry-Kelly fashions, Froman is the most impressive.