Broadway Gondolier

"Broadway Gondolier" (Warner Brothers, 1935), directed by Lloyd Bacon, is a musical set in a radio station that could easily be a rehash to the studio's previous effort of "Twenty Million Sweethearts" (1934), starring Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers with a few new twists and turns this time around. Powell plays Richard Purcell (affectionally called Dick by his friends), a Bronx taxi cab driver with a good singing voice. After picking up Hayward (George Barbier) and Gilmore (Hobart Cavanaugh), a couple of theater critics just leaving the opera, they hear Dick singing and encourage him to pursue a career and to stop wasting his time driving cabs. Dick is also encouraged by Professor Eduardo DiVinci (Adolphe Menjou), his music teacher and closest friend. He decides to try his luck landing an audition at a radio station. After a couple of misfortunes, he is given a break by Alice Hughes (Joan Blondell), a no-nonsense secretary who finally cracks a smile, and arranges an appointment for him to audition for Mr. Richards (Grant Mitchell), the station manager, and Mrs. Flagenheim (Louise Fazenda), a romantic widow and sponsor of Flagenheim Cheese. Because Dick is unable to arrive on time for his audition, DiVinci offers to take his place. This gesture loses Dick his opportunity to sell himself. Dick is later offered a second chance appearing on a kiddie program where he sings children's songs and making animal noises. Doing this proves too much for him, causing him to insult his listeners over a live microphone before walking out, causing the red lights at the switch board to flair up. Since the radio station has no real talented singer, Mrs. Flagenheim suggests finding undiscovered talent overseas. She chooses to go to Venice, Italy with Miss Hughes assisting her. Dick learns about the talent search and stows away on the same ship bound for Italy as Alice and Flagenheim. While in Venice, Dick is reunited with DiVinci, who earlier returned to his native homeland. He not only teaches Dick the Italian language, but convinces him to grow a mustache and become a singing gondolier. By coincidence, of course, Dick, now known as Ricardo Purcelli, is discovered by Mrs. Flagenheim, who takes him back with her to New York City as her latest discovery, with Alice, at the risk of her job, keeping Purcell's disguise a secret.

The supporting cast consists of William Gargan as Cliff Stanley, Alice's jealous fiancé; Joseph Sawyer as Red, a cab driver; Bob Murphy as the singing policeman of classical music; James Burke as "Uncle Andy," the kiddie show host; and familiar stock company faces of Mary Treen, George Chandler and Paul Porcasi in smaller roles.

"Broadway Gondolier" is just another excuse of exercising Dick Powell's vocal chords and exploiting the movie with a handful of lively Harry Warren and Al Dubin tunes. The soundtrack includes: "Sweet and Low" (sung by the Canova family, one of them being the famous Judy); "Flagenheim Cheese" (sung by Sam Ash); "Outside of You" (sung by Dick Powell); Guiseppi Verdi's RIGOLETTO (sung by Adolphe Menjou); "The Pig and the Cow" (sung by Joan Blondell and Powell); "The Lonely Gondolier is Singing" (sung in Italian by Powell); "The Rose in Her Hair" (sung by Powell/ gondoliers and Italian citizens); "Flagenheim Cheese" (sung by Sam Ash); "Outside of You" (instrumental, conducted by Ted Fio Rito and his orchestra/sung by band members); "The Rose in Her Hair" (sung by Powell); "Lulu's Back in Town" (sung by Powell and The Mills Brothers); "You Could Be Kissed" (sung by Powell, band members/ reprized by the trick voice antics of Candy Candido); "The Lonely Gondolier is Singing" (Powell); "Flagenheim Cheese" (Sam Ash); "Outside of You" (Powell); "Flagenheim Cheese" (reprise by Powell, Blondell and Ash). There are also Italian lyrics to "Il Gondoliere" and "Rosa D'Amour."

Of the handful of songs, many pleasing to the ear, "The Rose in Her Hair" is the best while "Lulu's Back in Town" is the most memorable. "Lulu" could have easily been a production number with Blondell in the title role and Powell the lead singer, but "Broadway Gondolier" consists of no dance numbers, only vocalists singing into a microphone. This is one way of saving the studio the added expense of a lavish scale production number or two.

As for the plot, it lacks logic, especially when Powell's character is discovered as an Italian-born gondolier in Venice, speaking NO English whatsoever, but able to sing his songs in English. Then when he returns to New York in the guise of an Italian, he supports no Italian accent, even when singing over the radio. One can gather that the listeners in the story, along with its viewing audience, overlooking this, just sitting back and listen to Powell sing, sing, sing.

"Broadway Gondolier" occasionally strains for laughs, with much of the comedy handled by Louise Fazenda in a role that could have been enacted by Alice Brady. Interestingly, both Fazenda and Brady, who really weren't that old, were usually type-cast as middle-aged matrons. As for Adolphe Menjou, he's makes a convincing Italian with dialect intact, never stepping out of character. At 98 minutes, "Broadway Gondolier" has that overlong feel at times. Overall, it's an acceptable radio musical satire with Powell at his prime.

Out of circulation on the local TV markets since the 1970s or 80s, "Broadway Gondolier" can still be seen and enjoyed whenever shown on Turner Classic Movies. (***)

Dick Powell is at the top of his game as both a crooner and a comedic star. And it's fantastic to see Joan Blondell in a lead role. And Adolphe Menjou in a campy role, singing? It's light, fluffy, charming fun that also provides a terrific glimpse into life in 1934 and 1935 (watch how the window on the cruise ship is opened). It's hilarious that everyone on the street seems to know Opera tunes. Also, for anyone who thinks singers and actors today are selling out by appearing in commercials - singers and actors have ALWAYS sold products via or adjacent to their "art," as this film shows. Yet another film that makes me wish there were still nightclubs and live radio shows (not just Wait Wait Don't Tell Me).

I saw this film in 1959 on late night Television at age 14. It left a very favorable and lasting impression with me. I only discovered today day via the Internet, the actual title was "BROADWAY GONDOLIER". I can remember seeing Dick Powell as a gondolier, singing pleasant music and what did I know of the movies at the age of 14 years? Virtually zero at that age! I remember my laughing a lot through this film, if you folks reading this posting have recently seen this very enjoyable Musical Comedy entertainment count yourselves very lucky indeed. As far as I am concerned, I indeed envy your good fortune. It is currently Un-Available on DVD, I suspect it has never been released to Home-Video. We are lucky that the Warner Brothers made such a generally enjoyable entertainment for us at the time of the "Mid-Point of the Great Depression" in 1935. I am sure audiences were wanting to escape their financial woes during the time of this film's release, and that Movie Stars in general would have been living the "High-Life" in comparison to the average person in the street. Irrespective whether Dick Powell was pleading for stronger movie roles, only passing time and film Historians have revealed these facts to us... I have been wanting to get a copy of this film, and I am hoping the Warner Archive will release it on DVD before much longer. I disagree with all the "Negative" reviews posted here on IMDb about this film and many other films. Going to the Movies is like taking a ride in a car, you either want to be on the journey or you do not. A lot of present day audiences are prejudiced against seeing "Black-and-White" movies and many have told me so. Dear reader, if you get the opportunity to view this Black-and-White Film, you need to realize one finer point of movie production in the 1930's and through to the 1950's... And that is that Black-and-White films were made on Nitrate Film Stock using Fine-Grain Silver-Salts to produce real intense Blacks and many Shades of Grey through to Zero-Silver-Salts giving Dazzling White Light from the Carbon-Arc Projector-Lamp-Houses on the Cinema Screens of that time. And unless you are seeing an original 35mm Black-and-White "Original" Nitrate Print struck from the original Camera Negative being projected from a Carbon-Arc Lamp-House, you will usually be seeing the Movie from an Old-16mm-Print (from a Television Station ) using Low-Contrast copies, and you are not seeing the film that audiences were viewing at the time of the Original Release, even during the Great Depression. Later in my life, I was employed as Cinema Projectionist ( for over 30 years ) and I recall my mentor revealing to me that in his youth, he was employed as a junior to soak the Nitrate 35mm Movie prints in a bath tub, and his job was to recover the SILVER-SALTS from the Film-Stock, and the Film Exchanges recovered the actual SILVER from the prints, bringing in a great deal of money as a consequence. This was revealed to me by a Chief Projectionist who had worked in Cinemas and Overseas in the Armed Services as Projectionist during World War 2. Dear reader, I hope you are now, a little better informed, that you are not seeing "Black-and-White" films these days ( in the year 2017 ) as they were Originally presented to audiences during the Golden Years of Cinema in the 1930's and the 1940's, but you are seeing a mere facsimile of what was Originally presented during those Golden years. And back then, and in my time in Cinemas, we took care and were proud of the way we presented each and every motion picture to the Cinema-going public, I am proud to claim to you dear reader I was a "Show-Man"...Please to all fellow reviewers, please no more nasty comments... and to you dear reader, Thank You...

While Dick Powell was at Warner Brothers, he would be hat in hand to Jack Warner pleading for him to occasionally be cast in something serious. Of course Warner heard that wonderful tenor and saw nothing else in Powell. And certainly when he wrapped those vocal cords around songs like what Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote for Broadway Gondolier neither could anyone else.

Life does certainly imitate art. The following year the Kraft Cheese Company was in fact looking for a singer to host a rather daring hour long radio variety show, an hour show on radio was quite an innovation back in the day. Unlike Broadway Gondolier the sponsor didn't go to Italy for a crooner. They and NBC found him doing a show for Woodbury Soap, so Bing Crosby got to do in real life what Powell did in the film, host a show selling cheese, as Bob Hope remarked in The Road to Utopia.

Powell himself was not exactly unknown to radio audiences. He appeared on the Hollywood Hotel program, named after one of his other films in Louella Parsons dished out the latest Hollywood gossip. Of course her Hearst connection and his due to the fact he did two films with Marion Davies made Louella and Dick a natural radio team.

In many ways Broadway Gondolier is a continuation of Goldiggers of 1935 which also starred Powell and had Adolphe Menjou with foreign accent. You could never get away with the performance Menjou gave in Broadway Gondolier with that outrageous Italian accent and characterization. The Italian Anti-Defamation League would be picketing the film. But just like in Goldiggers of 1935, Menjou's hammy performance is enjoyable, especially when he tries to fool radio executive Grant Mitchell and sponsor Louise Fazenda, owner of Flagenheimer's Odorless Cheese, and tries to sing like Powell.

Joan Blondell is Mitchell's girl Friday and Fazenda's keeper in the film who falls big time for the cabdriver, would be crooner Powell. Of course she's got another guy knocking on her romantic door, William Gargan who stars on the network as futuristic space hero Buck Gordon. And Fazenda after Powell pretends to be Italian starts getting designs on him. The look in her eye would be grounds enough for a suit for sexual harassment.

Powell recorded for Brunswick records the four songs he sang that Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote for the film, Outside of You, Lonely Gondolier, The Rose in Her Hair and Lulu's Back in Town. The last two enjoyed some enduring popularity and Powell sang Lulu solo and in a nice scat version with the Mills Brothers.

After some hilarious errors when cabdriver Powell and his voice teacher Menjou try to get him a radio audition, they get the idea to go over to Italy where Fazenda is vacationing and have her 'discover' him in Venice. They bill him as the Italian Gondolier and of course they have to keep up the masquerade.

Anyone who's seen a few films like this knows exactly how it will end. Warner Brothers and Hollywood in general did a grand job in packaging a lot of wonderful nonsense like this as grand escapist entertainment from the Depression.

Even after over 70 years Broadway Gondolier is still wonderfully entertaining. Should not be missed the next time TCM runs it.

Dick Powell stars with Adolphe Menjou, Joan Blondell, and the Mills Brothers in "Broadway Gondolier" from 1935.

Powell plays Dick Purcell, a cab driver with an impressive singing voice. So good in fact that the producer in the cab, E.V. Richards (Grant Mitchell) in the cab tells him to come to his office. He gets an audition but shows up too late.

Meanwhile, Purcell is interested in the secretary there, Alice (Blondell). When Purcell sees Alice, Richards, and the sponsor of a radio show, Mrs. Flaggenheim (Louise Fazenda) board a boat for Italy, he jumps on and pays his way by washing dishes.

Once there, he becomes a gondolier and impresses Mrs. Flaggenheim, who hires him for her show. He is given the name Ricardo Purcelli and marketed as an Italian. For this, he grows a mustache and acquires an accent. His voice teacher, Eduardo DaVinci (Menjou) plays along.

I think this film contains Dick Powell's best singing, since he fools around with opera and we are able to experience more of his range. His voice was so smooth, and he was very musical. His number with the Mills Brothers, "Lulu's Back in Town" was spectacular.

Powell and Blondell are adorable in this film. They married a couple of years later. What I love about Blondell is that although she often played the wise-cracking role, she was never the same character. Here she is flirty with a soft spot; other times she's tough, or serious, or snappy.

Adolphe Menjou is hilarious as da Vinci, and Grant Mitchell plays flustered well as Richards. Louise Fazenda is also a riot as the cheese company owner.

Interestingly, the next year, Kraft Cheese hired Bing Crosby for their radio show.

I have one bone to pick. At the beginning of the movie, Lyons is discussing "Rigoletto" with another man, and we hear the last line of the opera, sung by Rigoletto, "la maledizione" as they leave. They're talking about how good the tenor is. He sounds like a tenor, too. One small problem - the role of Rigoletto is for a dramatic baritone.

Other than that, I loved it.