OVP: Broadway Hostess (1935)

Film: Broadway Hostess (1935)

Stars: Winifred Shaw, Genevieve Tobin, Lyle Talbot, Allen Jenkins, Phil Regan, Spring Byington

Director: Frank McDonald

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Dance Direction)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I am, if you couldn't tell from the countless articles on this blog, a relatively organized person.  I don't like chaos (though currently my messy kitchen would beg to differ), and I'm someone who is always armed with at least a dozen "bucket/to do/goal" lists that I'm working on.  One of the ones I've been focusing on is trying to finish a certain number of OVP films each month so that I am completely done with the project by the time I reach a specific age (that will remain between myself & my birth certificate, but let's just say it's a long way off so don't worry if you love the series).  This month, because it's a shorter one, I'm kind of cheating my way through it, and only watching the shortest films on my DVR, one of which is Broadway Hostess, a largely forgotten musical from the 1930's that was cited for Dance Direction, but who got its "play button click" on Saturday due to only being 68 minutes long.

(Spoilers Ahead) You know the plot of this movie, or at least you think you do, from pretty much the opening scene when Winnie (Shaw) works her way into a musical act for a failing nightclub & quickly becomes the show's star.  Lucky (Talbot), a Broadway hoodlum who has Park Avenue dreams, sees her & gets her to the top, but while she's madly in love with him, he has his eyes on Iris (Tobin), a beautiful society dame who won't marry a guy from such a low class.  The movie positions their love triangle alongside another love triangle, that involves, Lucky, Winnie, and Tommy (Regan), Winnie's piano player who has an eye for her, even though all she sees is Lucky.

Broadway Hostess is an underwhelming film, and not an interesting one.  Shaw can sing, but has zero chemistry with either of her leading men, and I honestly spent more of the film cheering for Tobin's Iris, even though she's meant to be the "spoiled rich girl who needs to be taken down a peg."  But the weird thing is...the script agrees with me.  Iris does end up with Lucky, though he nearly dies when her brother shoots him in a truly bizarre & unexpected final act moment, and Winnie does with Tommy, so the cardinal rule of romantic comedies (that you cheer for the leads to get married) is upended here.  That's not enough to save the movie, and neither is the best part of the film (Spring Byington's randy society lady who also marries a Broadway commoner in Allen Jenkins' Fishcake), but it is enough so that I'll remember this longer than I normally would such a film.

The movie's Oscar nomination feels something of a cheat.  In 1935 the Dance Direction category was more for the choreographer himself than just for the film, and choreographer Bobby Connolly (who would be nominated all three years the category existed) was cited both for this and for Go Into Your Dance with Al Jolson & Ruby Keeler.  Broadway Hostess has exactly one dance number, and it's not that impressive though it is bizarre.  During one of Winnie's final torch songs, we zoom in on a champagne glass that is filled with a number of beautiful women decked in veiled swimsuits, who are doing a coordinated "seduction-style" dance, though it's hardly worth of Salome.  We literally have at one point young women's heads floating out of the glass and popping like bubbles...it's not impressive, but it is trippy, and one of the weirder nominations so far I've found in the Dance Direction category.