The Age of Commercialism

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The first must-see film of the year.

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.

Lana Turner gets to show off her dance skills with George Murphy and Joan Blondell in 1940's "Two Girls on Broadway." Mostly lighthearted fun as George Murphy plays dancer Eddie Kerns, who resorts to trickery to catch his big break in New York and smoothtalks his producers into bringing over his fiance (Joan Blondell) and her kid sister (Turner), who are also dancers. Turner plays the fresh faced ingenue who attracts attention for her looks and talent while Blondell has to face the harsh realities of show business when you are past your prime. Murphy plays the aw shucks hoofer torn between Blondell and Turner (guess who he wants the most? Gee I wonder?) Blondell gets a chance to play more than the usual wise-cracking sidekick. Turner shows she wasn't just a pretty face back then and has some real talent. Look for a cute scene where she comes home drunk late at night and tries to keep her sister from waking up. The movie runs a tight 73 minutes, so enjoy as much as you can before it's over.

"Two Girls on Broadway," made in 1940, is a remake of "Broadway Melody of 1929" and not as much fun. It stars George Murphy, Joan Blondell, Lana Turner, Kent Taylor and Wallace Ford. Murphy is Eddie Kerns, who sells a song, himself, his fiancé and her sister to a Broadway producer. The sisters rush out from the midwest to audition, but the show only wants Pat (Turner) while Molly (Blondell) is given the job of cigarette girl. Molly swallows her pride and watches her sister replace her in a number she used to do with Eddie. Then Eddie realizes that he's also interested in Pat, and she with him.Nurphy is charming, energetic, and fine dancer, and Blondell is her usual excellent self. But it's hard to keep your eyes off of young, gorgeous, fresh-faced Lana with her gorgeous figure and vivacious personality. She dances with Murphy, and despite being a little stiff in her upper body, she's surprisingly good. Lana really had something in those days. It's no surprise she became a huge star.The musical numbers are enjoyable. This movie is nothing to write home about, but if you've never experienced the young Lana, this is a great film to see her in.

This film is a production code era remake of "The Broadway Melody of 1929", and quite ironically one of several titular successors to that film - "The Broadway Melody of 1940" - was a great film made this same year of 1940 that shared not a trace of the original's storyline. "Two Girls on Broadway" doesn't share the franchise title, but has the same storyline as the original Broadway Melody. The problem is, the first Broadway Melody was made before the production code and at the dawn of sound and its quirks and brashness made it special. This successor therefore looks tired and drab next to it, in spite of the vast improvement in the writing of dialogue and production values over the intervening eleven year period. The scrubbing the censors gave to the original's hard edges worsens matters even more.Here, we still have the Mahoney sisters being recruited for a new Broadway musical involving song and dance man Eddie Kerns, with Eddie originally engaged to the older sister but finding he is attracted to the younger sister once he meets her. However, now our sisters are named Molly and Patricia, rather than Hank and Queenie, maybe to please the censors and make them seem more lady-like? Gone are the jokes about undressed chorus girls, gone is the hard-edged dialogue - although they gave it a decent try with the ever wonderfully brassy Joan Blondell as the older Mahoney sister, and gone is the colorful and temperamental backstage crew, some with ambiguous sexual orientation and all with attitude and mouth to spare.Our now thoroughly sanitized plot even paints the lecherous playboy that pants after the younger sister - here 'Chat' Chatsworth versus 29's Jock Warriner - as a serial groom. In the original, he was sleeping with chorus girls and tossing them aside. Here, of course, he's had five wives and plans to make Pat his sixth for six months or so. Apparently, all this sleeping around is fine with head censor Joe Breen as long as there is a marriage license involved in every case.In the end, like in the original, the noble older sister steps out of the way so that Eddie and her younger sister can be married with no feelings of betrayal by either. However, here Eddie rescues younger sister Pat from a mob scene of a wedding at city hall, not a near rape at a prohibition party as in the 29 film. Afterwards, older sister Molly decides to go back to Nebraska, to the simple pleasures of farm and county fair, rather than continue on hoofing with a new partner as predecessor Hank did. I guess in 1940 Broadway was no place for a nice girl, or at least that seems to be the lesson of this film.I give this one a 5 because, although I thoroughly disliked the plot, I really liked the performances. I've already mentioned the wonderful Joan Blondell, but there's also Lana Turner who is just perfect as the wide-eyed innocent Pat who knows the score of what she's letting herself in for with Chatworth but is willing to do just about anything so that older sister Molly can have her happiness. George Murphy does a good job of recreating the same energy and enthusiasm that Charles King brought to the part of Eddie Kerns in the original.My recommendation is that if you've seen the Broadway Melody of 1929 you'll likely be disappointed in this obvious remake, but if you haven't or you're not into the earliest sound films you just might like it.

Evidently MGM was grooming Lana Turner to be featured in musicals at this stage of her career. Unfortunately that effort was abandoned, with mixed results. In this conventional backstage romantic triangle, she is a very winning performer, and a surprisingly effective dancer in her three musical numbers (partnered in two by George Murphy and in one by Joan Blondell). Her spirited youthfulness and fresh beauty are put to good use in her role as an innocent small-town girl who (almost) is spoiled by some wily denizens of big, bad Broadway. Joan Blondell plays the protective older sister convincingly, willing to sacrifice her own happiness for that of "the kid." Not many viewers would associate Lana Turner with this type of picture, but, as indicated, she more than holds her own. Too bad that in her pictures, as in her life, she became an "experienced" woman too soon.