I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Did anyone realize that the Busby Berkeley number at the end was a tie in for the Lew Ayres character telling Jeanette MacDonald to take off her mask in the scene where she was crying? I believe that to be a direct tie in to the musical finale with all the masks. Although it was not the best of Jeanette MacDonald films It does show a side of her that is in direct juxtiposition for the films with Nelson Eddy. How many Canadian Mounty movies can she do. Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy were a tour de force that even had fans expecting or anticipating that the two were married. This movie is a relief for Jeanette MacDonald not to be type cast. I for one really enjoyed the final acte.

From 1939, Broadway Serenade is an odd movie, containing all kinds of music. Lew Ayres is a composer/pianist who apparently wrote or ripped off None but the Lonely Heart, I couldn't decide; the Macdonald-less Jeanette is his lovely singer wife. During his audition of a new song for a big Broadway producer (Frank Morgan) and his investor (Ian Hunter), it's Jeanette who gets the job and Hunter's heart. She has to go on the road with the show; she comes back a star, and her husband, hearing rumors of a romance with Hunter and not doing too well himself, rejects her, though the rumors aren't true. He becomes drunk and disorderly while her star ascends.I guess the big, lirico-spinto/dramatic soprano arias were the popular ones, because in movies where she sang opera, Jeanette MacDonald was always doing something like Tosca or Madama Butterfly, which she does here - so totally out of her vocal type, which was way too light for that sort of music. Her repertoire was operetta and roles like those in the French repertoire: Delibes, Gounod, or Bellini and Donizetti. She had a nice middle voice and beautiful, lyrical pianissimos, but her very high notes had a whitish, straight sound - basically that's how female singers were taught back then. I always loved her acting. She and Ayres are both good although an unlikely couple, he being boyish and she being diva-ish.Some bizarre musical numbers, such as the one at the end. A mixed bag. There are better musicals - an understatement.

Conventional musical with some odd touches in the musical numbers. Jeanette MacDonald is in good voice and her numbers are a bit more varied than her usual sets with Nelson Eddy. As someone who has a limited tolerance for both operetta and MacDonald/Eddy musicals I enjoyed the substitution of Lew Ayers for Nelson. Unfortunately his character makes little sense, he initially pushes his wife to grab the chance she's given than when she starts to succeed acts like a churlish jerk almost instantly and yet still she pines for him. So the story is wanting but at least the cast is full of good actors, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Rita Johnson, Virginia Grey, Esther Dale etc., all adding nice touches to the film making it much more pleasant than it would be.Shot for some unknown reason in inconsistent sepia tones which both add and distract from the flow of the film where this goes off the rails a bit is in a couple of musical numbers. The Madame Butterfly riff is interesting on an enormous stage that no theatre could possibly hold but with some beautiful almost surreal images. However the finale is like some crazy fever dream with a majority of the participants in creepy immobile masks. Not a major musical or even a major picture in any of the stars filmographies this is still an decent musical from the king of studios in the dream factory.

Through no fault of the players, this must be one of the worst major studio films of a great year for cinema--1939. Jeanette is charming as always, although I'd like to see her try Butterfly on stage without amplification. I'm afraid the orchestra would win that round! That said, she warbles beautifully and is great fun to watch.Lew Ayres plays a nearly saintly husband (albeit with a temper) and the supporting cast is just fine. The problems: a hackneyed script, and an incredibly tasteless and vulgar Busby Berkeley number to end the affair. Of course we expect BB's numbers to be over the top, we just don't expect them to be so poorly designed. Without this final extravaganza, I'd have given this a 5 at least, but after seeing that debacle, I'm giving it a 3.