Broadway Bad (1933)

This very little known pre-code is quite a find. While it is a bit creaky it also pretty amazing. I stumbled upon it while searching for a decent print of another PD film ( The Hitler Gang 1944). As I am always on a quest to see Warner Brothers material (I estimate I have seen every WB "A" of the Classic Era and 70% of the "B"s still known to exist) I read the cast with growing excitement:Joan Blondell Ricardo Cortez Ginger Rogers Donald CrispHas to be Warners! So I got it and when the credits rolled I was astounded to learn that this 1933 cast of WB contract players was somehow loaned to (William) Fox Pictures! It is going to be another of my quests to find out how this came about. There was certainly no love lost between Jack Warner and William Fox (for that matter between anyone and Fox) Production values at Fox weren't on par with Warners and it shows in this picture. That would change just a few years later when Warners brilliant Production Chief Darryl F. Zanuck, having had JL try to pull a fast one on him defected and partnered with Fox which then became 20th Century-Fox). On to the picture in question. If you are a Joan Blondell fan you will love her here. Instead of a brassy sidekick she gets to be the romantic lead for probably the only time in her career (and to the earlier reviewer who reviles her, you Sir, are an ass). Ricardo Cortez, who had been born Jakob Krantz came to Hollywood in the '20's a Warners poor mans Valentino. He survived well into the sound era and was one of WB early leading men in talkies. He would later play hard and evil men (See Wonderbar 1934 if you can find it). Here he is perfectly cast as a wealthy wooer (and user) of beautiful women, but who turns out to have a heart of gold.Ginger Rogers is also, as usual, good as Joans sidekick just before her own breakout role in "42nd Street" Donald Crisp is seen only briefly in a forgettable role through no fault of his own. The rest of the cast is adequate and for some reason IMDb lists Victor Jory in the cast, which has to be a mistake.Summation? It's the best pre-code sizzler Warner Brothers never made. What I like to call a"Nugget".

A soap opera about chorus girls, Broadway BAD features a strong cast with star Joan Blondell, male lead Ricardo Cortez, and supporting actress Ginger Rogers, who was just about to hit the big-time. The opening shot is rather elaborate, and there's a very nice scene in a dressing room that centers on Joan and Ginger, but that's about it. The rest is a lachrymose story about mother love, not unusual for the times and not particularly well done. Blondell doesn't get to do much, if any, wisecracking, Cortez is not particularly sleazy for a change, and Rogers has only a small role as the best friend, though she's spirited as usual. 3/10.

"Broadway Bad" begins as a distinctly pre-code, "naughty" comedy (there are lots of scenes with chorus girls (including the leads) in their underwear in the opening 15 minutes), then it turns into a more or less straight drama. The story has some unexpected twists, and director Sidney Lanfield devises some ingenious scene transitions, and even a POV camera shot at one point. Joan Blondell gets to play both the good and the bad girl, and she does both well. Ginger Rogers has a relatively small role, but she does get one of the best lines in the film: "One more crack like that, and your neck will probably get tangled up in my fingers!". Adrienne Ames is very good as an embittered chorus girl (she used to be the sponsor's favorite, but now his attentions have turned to Blondell), and she has one of the film's most provocative lines: "Soft lights, soft music, soft pillows". What you should not expect to see in this film, despite the word "Broadway" in the title, are any kind of musical production numbers. **1/2 out of 4.

I saw 'Broadway Bad' in May of this year, at the Cinevent festival in Columbus, Ohio. If I hadn't been attending the festival anyway, I would never have bothered to see this movie, as it stars an actress whom I loathe: Joan Blondell. Always cheap, vulgar, squawk-voiced and unattractive, Blondell is in her usual mode here. She manages to look a bit different this time round, but only because this movie was made at Fox (Blondell's usual studio was Warners) ... so the lighting, costumes, hairstyles and general ambiance are a change of pace for her. The storyline - concerned with morals, reputations and sexual hypocrisy - is something more typical of Warners than of Fox.Blondell plays a chorus girl named Tony. (Is that short for Anthony?) In the 1930s, chorus girls were generally perceived to be of low virtue (and some of them certainly did fit that description), but we're given to understand that Tony is a good girl for all her brassy behaviour. She gets a proposition from playboy Craig, who is wealthy in his own right, but she turns him down to marry Bob, who's even wealthier but only because he's the scion of a prominent family.Apparently, Tony is genuinely in love with Bob (rather than gold-digging his folks' money), yet she remains friendly with Craig. When Bob catches Tony with Craig once too often, he divorces her. In order to obtain the divorce, Bob's father's lawyers ruin Tony's reputation.As she's now been branded as a bad girl, Tony decides to cash in on it. She straight away becomes a Broadway star by trading in on the public perception that she's a slut. (Oh, so that's how it works!)I forgot to tell you about the baby ... I mean, the scriptwriters forgot to tell you about the baby. All through this argle-bargle, Tony has secretly had a baby. Apparently she was with some other man before Craig and Bob. We never do find out who this man was, nor the precise nature of Tony's relationship with him - were they married? is he dead? - nor anything that would enable us to decide how much of our sympathy Tony deserves.Bob's rich parents find out about the baby, and they assume that Bob is the father. They sue Tony to acquire custody of the child. The courtroom scenes degenerate into soap opera. Expect some big revelations that you really won't care about.Ginger Rogers is quite good as Tony's friend, a chorus girl named Flip Daily. (She must be an acrobat.) I would rather have seen this movie with Ginger Rogers in the lead, as she was vastly more talented than Blondell and certainly easier on the eyes and the eardrums than Blondell ever was. I'll rate 'Broadway Bad' 4 out of 10, mostly for its proficient photography and efficient direction by the underrated Sidney Lanfield. There are some good supporting performances. Rogers is excellent, as is Ricardo Cortez as the semi-caddish Craig. (Over the course of his career, Cortez made an interesting and graceful transition from shiekish leading man to cynical hero to amoral cad to outright villain: at this point, he was in his early cad phase.) Joan Blondell, as usual, stinks. The lighting on the Fox sound stages doesn't conceal Blondell's facial moles as well as the lighting at Warners did.