Rainbow Over Broadway

You just have to keep watching to find out what the hell this is about..... Well, it's an hour later and I'm still none the wiser but loved the trip. It's a pretty poor picture: lousy acting, lousy production but illogically I think I enjoyed it.

Get the feeling most of the cast were established comedians with whatever their characters were, shoehorned into the story. There was a trend in the 70s where seemingly every tv sitcom was transformed into a cinema film. This feels like an early prototype of a tv movie and Don Hope a 1930s equivalent to an actor-comedian-game show host might get a part in a big movie.

The two leads were big hopefuls of Chesterfield Pictures. Don Hope (tries too hard) and Joan Marsh (cut price Jean Harlow...but prettier in my opinion) made reasonable careers for themselves but the real winner from Chesterfield was director Richard Thorpe who must have impressed Mr Thalberg with this because he subsequently got the MGM gig where he stayed for decades.

This picture is more entertaining than in reality it should be. Like BIP's quota quickies, there's often a peal, albeit a misshapen, cloudy plastic one amongst all the rubbish with these 'poverty row' pictures as well and this might just be one of them?

Former chorus girl Grace Hayes is living with her husband, Lucien Littlefield and his children in Kansas City when Frank Albertson calls from New York. He's talked club-owner Nat Carr into doing a Gay Nineties review with her as the star. The family packs up and moves to the Big Apple, but Miss Hayes soon develops temperament.

It's a fun little musical, with Albertson and Joan Marsh trying to get the jealous Miss Hayes to sing their songs. There's also a nice catty conversation between Miss Hayes and former showgirl Gladys Blake. Director Richard Thorpe does his usual good job of directing on the sort of budget Poverty Row production company Chesterfield afforded. Although the music, written by Albert von Tilzer, is orchestrated as much of a muchness throughout, there are enough interesting bits throughout to keep this one entertaining.

This poverty row musical from the early 1930's headlines Joan Marsh, a starlet who often stunningly resembled Jean Harlow in publicity photos (though not so much here or in other movies) but actually her part is fairly secondary.

Don (Frank Albertson), a local boy who has made good in show business as a pianist at a lavish New York nightclub, is back in town and run into an old flame Judy Chibbins (Joan Marsh) who invites him to her home where she and her brother Bob (a curiously unbilled George Grandee) hope to interest him in some songs they have written. The Chibbins family is broke in part due to their widowed father (Lucien Littlefield) having married erstwhile Broadway star Trixie Valleron (Gladys Blake) whose expensive tastes have gone through the family fortune. The Chibbins kids openly despise Trixie and when she steals Don's focus during their song-plugging, singing their songs in a sentimental, "old" fashion rather than the jazzy melody the kids envisioned they blow up and Don skedaddles pdq rather than listen to more of Judy's wrath.

Back in New York the singing star of the club walks out in a snit with the owner, leading Don to recall Trixie and suggest her for the gig. He telephones Judy who is at first reluctant to given her dreaded stepmother the break but agrees when Bob wires funds for the whole family to come and promises to put her and Bob's songs into the act until a false name so Trixie won't reject them. Trouble continues in New York though when Trixie seems as much interested in socializing with old friends as with resuming her career and one predatory old pal in particular (May Beatty) may talk her out even attempting the comeback.

Although IMDb states the movie runs 72 minutes the film (available on DVD from Alpha) actually barely runs an hour and the American Film Institute confirms a 62 minute release although 72 minutes had also been alleged (one suspects the movie was cut pre-release to fit more easily into double bills; an introductory scene of Judy and Don running into each other in town is not in the movie but is mentioned in the synopsis quoted by AFI). This movie has an incredibly rushed feel like most short poverty row titles from the 1930's, the film's ending is so quick and unexpected it almost appears a final scene was cut as well but most likely this is just a typical super-fast poverty row wrap up.

Lead Grace Hayes was a vaudeville star of the 1920's who made occasional minor appearances in films during the 1930's. She generally plays her role as a haughty Hedda Hopperesque matron although curiously as a performer she is a brazen Mae West impersonator, singing one number in an exact replica of one of West's costumes from She Done Him Wrong with mannerisms, blonde wig, and decked in rhinestones, even brazenly quoting one of West's trademark lines "How 'm Doin'?" after the song. Snob she may be she is more appealing than her stepchildren whom the movie seems to side with yet they are remarkable obnoxious, rude adult brats who would be right at home in a 21st century reality show. Glenn Boles plays the baby brother of the family (twentyish); he's best known by buffs by being one of Moss Hart's real life boy toys in the 1930's (he went on to a distinguished career as a psychologist).

The movie's best scene is the encounter with Trixie's old "pal", the obviously much older "Queenie" played by character actress May Beatty who is supposed to be a contemporary of hers but looks almost old enough to be her grandmother. This is the largest part I've ever seen May Beatty in (she usually played bits) and she's a lot of fun if a most improbable ex-showgirl from just a generation ago. The songs are remarkably pleasant for such a cheapie and the cast does well but it appears the screenwriter ever heard of the concept of a second draft.

"Rainbow Over Broadway" is a cheap musical from tiny Chesterfield Pictures. However, despite this very humble pedigree, the film is worth watching and the songs are far better than you'd expect from a grade-z outfit like Chesterfield. This is, clearly, a B-movie which aged fairly well.

The story is about two siblings, Bob and Judy, who want to write songs. However, the producer who wants to use their songs also, inexplicably, wants to have their step-mother, Trixie, sing them. The problem is that Trixie is a god-awful person. It seems that long ago she was a star on stage but the prima donna hasn't vanished despite being gone for some time...and Trixie's obnoxious demands threaten to derail her step-kids' careers. Will this old battleaxe relent or will her antics threaten all they've worked for so far?

The best thing about this film is the music--something I rarely notice nor care about usually. But the songs are catchy and the story keeps your interest.

For those of us who peruse the Internet for free movies here is what I thought was a real public domain delight. Yes it is ultra low-budget but it is surprisingly full of wonderful things. Grace Hayes, the mother of that fast-talking ubiquitous comedy actor Peter Lind Hayes and mother in law of Mary Healy (does anyone remember their big hit Crazy Mixed-Up Song?), actually dominates the film with a performance as a former diva who is eager for a comeback and forced to marry into a family of commoners who are up against the dark side of the Great Depression (it was filmed in 1933, a rock bottom period for America). For some unknown reason record plugger and highly influential entertainment spotter Frank Richardson hears her perform and thinks she's fabulous and brings her and her entire new family out to Manhattan where she achieves her comeback in grand style and where she can become even more of a personal horror than ever! Others have described the plot so I won't rehash that here, but I would call attention to the fact that this film has the greatest musical score in a movie musical that you've never heard of! Each song is a real gem and deserves to be considered for the Great American Songbook of classic hits. Look Up Not down was my favorite but later in the film Grace Hayes belts out some more winners one after another in Mae West style! Her blues readings really steal the show! Behind her in her final number one gets the chance to see chorus girls dancing with fans and giving us a taste of what Fanchon and Marco, those famous choreographers and movie prologue stagers, could put together on a low budget. Prologues were mini-vaudeville shows which toured around the country, usually in major cities, preceding the movie with a live packaged show that might be purchased by theater chains. The score is composed by Albert Von Tilzer, I discovered, whose glory days were a bit behind him (he had composed Take Me Out to the Ball Game, among many other hits mainly in the 1910s, and was the brother of famed composer Harry Von Tilzer of the Von Tilzer sheet music publishing empire). I particularly liked the beautiful Joan Marsh who got to sing a peppy version of Look Up Not Down early on and who showed a fine flare for ensemble comedy. In her final sequence she is almost wearing a stunning dress that seems about ready to fall to the ground, reminding us that this is from the end of the pre-code period. When Grace Hayes ducks out on rehearsal to visit with an old friend/nemesis from the stage, the sparks really fly and the ensuing catfight between two aging battle-axes of the theater is a hoot. Frank Albertson is fine as the young man and potential love interest for Joan Marsh. He was known for playing what were then called juveniles and he was largely unable to make the transition to leading man roles, hence his appearance in lower level films and his subsequent smaller character parts. He died of a heart attack at just 56 while the lovely Joan Marsh just faded away from minor films into marriage to a semi-successful screenwriter. She ended her long life managing a stationery shop and it's a shame she's not better remembered except as a late night goddess to those of us who love Joan Woodbury, Gale Storm, Wanda McKay, Irene Hervey and the others who worked for little money on Poverty Row films and still manage to bring us a great big helping of late-night joy.