Important Movies

I'd argue The Love Parade and Hallelujah! are both more important musicals in terms of technological advancement and social relevance, respectively. Also, my resistance toward The Broadway Melody has little to do with my own disdain for it (I've fought for plenty of films I dislike and outright hate). Rather, because it's a film which is entirely dated and that no one cares about any more.

But it was a huge deal then: 12th top grossing picture that year AND it won the Best Picture Oscar.


"The Broadway Melody is released by MGM and becomes the first major musical film of the sound era, sparking a host of imitators as well as a series of Broadway Melody films that will run until 1940."

1929-1940 that's eleven straight years.

That's a little misleading. Yes, there were sequels in that time span, but only three. It's not like the series dominated the 1930s. By that logic we could say they've made Tron films from 1982 to 2010, 28 years straight. On top of that, the other films aren't really sequels. None of the actors or the director from the original returned and there are no reoccurring characters, they just all have the same basic premise of people putting on a show.



Did it? The most popular and well-remembered musicals of the 1930s are generally the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers collaborations, which generally focused more on individuals and pairs dancing rather than the large ensembles depicting in Broadway. And I still am questioning how important The Broadway Melody was in terms of creating and influencing these other films. The same year as Broadway Melody also gave us Syncopation, Close Harmony, Fox Movietone Follies of 1929, Broadway, One With the Show, Dance of Life, Applause, and Broadway Scandals. All musicals which deal with young and aspiring singers trying to make it on the stage. Some of these films were released just a month or two after The Broadway Melody and were surely in production before that film was released. So, I wonder, was Broadway Melody really the influence, or did it just beat these films to the punch?

On top of that, what about Al Jolson's The Singing Fool (1928) and The Jazz Singer (1927), also musicals which depicted the spectacle and drama of stage performance and did it before Broadway Melody?

In any event, we could probably go in circles about this forever. The Broadway Melody is an important film and if people really want it here I want actively oppose it. Frankly, I'm more interested in making sure Un Chien Andalou, Man with a Movie Camera, and Pandora's Box make it than I am that Broadway Melody doesn't.

Alright, I'll concede.

Vampyr

Trouble in Paradise

Scarface

Blood of a Poet, The

Boudu Saved From Drowning

Grand Hotel - a massive upgrade in art direction by Cedric Gibbons that raised  the bar for future films.

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang - made the American public start to question the state of the Justice system and resulted in the release of many prisoners.

Freaks - derailed the career of Director Todd Browning (director of the classic Dracula starring Bela Lugosi). Pre-code movie that Had to be heavily cut to appeal to the sensibilities of the public, and still disturbed audiences so much that it was banned in several places with one woman threatening to sue for her miscarriage. It has since become a cult classic.

This is the Night - debut of Carey Grant

A Bill of Divorcement - debut of Katherine Hepburn

Not to forget Tarzan the Ape-man -- debut of champion swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, first Cheetah, and origin of the famous Tarzan yell.

The Red-Haired Alibi - Shirley Temple's feature debut, I really should put this on my list because she was the most popular child star of her time and an icon ever since.

Vampyr
Freaks
Boudu Saved from Drowning
Trouble in Paradise
Scarface

Boudu was an inovative comedy from Renoir.  I probably won't fight to hard for it though.


As for Blood of a Poet... take a look at this video at the 26 minute mark:

Ah, so they stretched the boundaries of imagination in the sound generation of movies.

I can get behind that one. Replace the Katherine Hepburn movie with The Blood of a Poet on my list then. I still think Shirley Temple was a huge discovery though.

What Ian said.

My argument for Shirley Temple is that she was the biggest child phenomenon of the depression era.
The top box office draw from 1935-1938, her likeness was on all kinds of products - Shirley Temple dolls alone made $45 million by 1941. Those are Great Depression years, which in my mind, make it more impressive.

Ikiru

High Noon

Umberto D

Singin' in the Rain

Park Row