Broadway Melody of 1940
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| Broadway Melody of 1940 | |
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 Broadway Melody of 1940 DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Norman Taurog |
| Produced by | Jack Cummings |
| Starring | Fred Astaire Eleanor Powell George Murphy Frank Morgan |
| Distributed by | MGM |
| Release date(s) | February 9, 1940 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 102 min |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) |
| IMDb profile | |
Broadway Melody of 1940 is a 1940 American movie musical starring Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell and George Murphy. It was directed by Norman Taurog and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
In the film, the three stars play dancers in New York. Astaire and Murphy dance in nightclubs (and take part in faux marriage ceremonies therein), while Powell plays a major Broadway star. A love triangle emerges when the three find themselves working in the same production and a case of mistaken identity complicates matters further.
The film is best remembered for the only on-screen pairing of Astaire and Powell, who were considered the finest movie musical dancers of their time. Astaire was reportedly slightly intimidated by Powell, as she was considered one of the few female dancers capable of out-performing Astaire. According to Powell in her introduction to the book The MGM Story, the feeling was somewhat mutual, and it took several days of rehearsal before the two dancers felt comfortable enough to refer to each other by their first names.
The highlight of the film is the duo's dance performance to Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine", which included a lengthy passage in which the two tap danced with no musical backing. This segment was later a highlight of the 1974 documentary That's Entertainment!.
Other musical numbers in the film included: "I Concentrate On You", "Please Don't Monkey with Broadway", "Between You and Me", and "I've Got My Eyes on You" by Porter, as well as "All Ashore" by Roger Edens and the "Jukebox Dance" by Walter Ruick. Jukebox Dance occurs relatively early in the film and is actually the first dance duet between Astaire and Powell. "All Ashore", Powell's first number in the film, is notable as one of the few times she was ever shown singing with her own voice rather than being overdubbed.
This was the fourth and final film in MGM's loosely-connected Broadway Melody series which began with the original The Broadway Melody released in 1929, and was followed by Broadway Melody of 1936 and Broadway Melody of 1938. The films were unconnected except for the use of the song "Broadway Melody" (the 1940 entry did not feature the number, although a bit of it can be heard over the film's opening credits), and the fact that Powell starred in the 1936, 1938 and 1940 entries (playing different roles in each). A fifth Broadway Melody film was planned for release in the early 1940s, pairing Eleanor Powell with Gene Kelly, but production was canceled at the rehearsal stage. Another production was to have been called Broadway Melody of 1944 but was instead renamed Broadway Rhythm. The 1940 entry is considered Powell's last major successful film, as she would go on to appear in a succession of only moderate hits before retiring from the screen several years later. It has the distinction of being the first non-documentary film featuring Powell to be released on DVD.
The movie is alluded to in satirist Tom Lehrer 's "George Murphy", a song about the dancer becoming a United States Senator, saying: "Think of all the musicals we have in store. / Imagine: Broadway Melody of Nineteen Eighty-Four".
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