Lord Byron of Broadway

This is a movie musical from 1930 so expect very static scenes as the sound equipment in those days greatly limited the actors and director. Second, let me caution that the actor in the lead male role and the two actresses in the top female roles are often blushingly amateurish. The director didn't seem to be much help and in a few years he would be at Monogram doing routine programmers.

So what's worthwhile here? First there is the performance of Cliff Edwards, who gets a chance at a full-bodied role and does well. He shows he could be more than a Disney footnote.

But the biggest surprise to me was the fine, natural performance of Benny Rubin. I was so accustomed to him as an aging ethnic comedian that I almost didn't recognize him. The role was flash-flash "Jewish" as he played an employee of a song publisher and he joked about charging the hero interest for a loan. But he was the most natural presence on the screen and he shined as a real human being. The camera loved him at the same time it gave scant grace to the leads in this film.

Rubin is often mentioned as a talented comedian who was limited in Hollywood by the ethnic prejudice. Here we see the very real evidence of what was lost because of that prejudice.

This film is full of very talented actors and actresses, who I've never seen before, and don't know their names. I think 1930 is getting pretty close to the start of talkies, but the sound is fine in this one. Its full of good songs and good performers, instrumental and vocal, men and women. Dancing extraordinaire! Busby Berkely type routines on stage with Circles of high kicking young ladies. This captures the feeling and the passion of the music of this day. Charles Kaley, (Roy Erskine) is one of the main singers and actors. He is superb in both respects. The ladies opposite him are perfect to a "T" also. Flappers galore. Where are they now? If you would like to be taken back to the 20's in fine style, catch this short film. Dave Danzl

I watched this film expecting it to be quite bad, so I was pleasantly surprised at its quality. The film is about Roy Erskine (Charles Kaley), by night a singer and piano player at a café, and by day a songwriter. He uses women and then discards them, using the experience of breaking their hearts as material for songs. He gets a break after vaudeville singer Joe Lundeen (Cliff Edwards) sings one of his songs in his show and invites Roy to be part of the act. This is followed by some records, and pretty soon Roy has hit the big time. Through it all Roy is loved secretly by the girl who transcribed his first hit song, Nancy Clover, who is also part of the vaudeville act. However, Roy does eventually fall hard for a woman who turns out be more than his match in the user department.

There is some good music in this one including two attractive Technicolor numbers - "Blue Daughter of Heaven" and "The Old Woman in the Shoe". "Should I", featured in "Singin in the Rain" is performed a couple of times including once by Charles Kaley. "The Japanese Sandman" is not sung in its entirety, but it's a quite catchy jazz tune as performed by Cliff Edwards. There are several other good tunes, mainly written by songwriting team Herb Nacio Brown and Arthur Freed. With good direction, a compelling plot, good music, and competent acting what went wrong? Why did this film flop at the box office?

The main problem with this film, and probably the reason that it flopped, is that the biggest star in it is Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike), and he is just a supporting player. William Haines was originally slated as the lead, but he thought playing such a despicable character as Roy Erskine would hurt his film career, so he declined. So, instead, MGM cast a tuneful Haines look-alike, Charles Kaley. Unfortunately, the resemblance ends there. Haines' characters could behave obnoxiously in his films and still get the audience to root for him because you felt that, beneath the facade, there was a good man just waiting to get out, and by the end of the picture that good man never failed to appear. However, in Kaley's depiction of harmonious heel Roy Erskine you feel that what you see is what you get, and never expect him to redeem himself. This was Kaley's only film at MGM. He was only in three other films, all of those at poverty row studios, and as far as I know all three of those films are lost.

If you like the early talking films and musicals, I highly recommend this one. It's been well preserved and both the video and audio are clear on the copy I've seen.

"The Lady in the Shoe" number, filmed in primitive color and sung charmingly by Ethelind Terry, is quite stunning for a 1930s film.

This backstage musical a la THE Broadway MELODY about love and angst behind the footlights was based on a famously nasty novel by Nell Martin. Haines and Love balked at the idea of playing in such a nasty plot so MGM had it re-written (watered down) and brought in stage stars Charles Kaley and Ethelind Terry, and ingenue Marion Shilling. Creaky and a little slow in places but very interesting for the music and the 2-strip Technicolor.

Kaley (who slightly resembles Haines) plays a user. He latches on to anyone or anything that will get him ahead. He uses women (Shilling and Gwen Lee) as well as his partner (Cliff Edwards). But while he meets his match in the grasping Ethelind Terry (the original star of RIO RITA on Broadway), he's not the one who pays.

One good song: "Should I" which one used in SINGIN'IN THE RAIN decades later. Co-stars included Benny Rubin, Drew Demorest, Eddie Kane, Rita Flynn, and the voice of Jack Benny. Ann Dvorak is in the chorus.

Shilling and Edwards, perhaps, come off best.