Best Picture 101 Update

Last night I watched the oldest Best Picture winner that I had on my Netflix list:

Broadway Melody of 1929
1929
Starring Charles King, Anita Page and Bessie Love

This was an okay movie - the first musical to win Best Picture, and at a time when talkies were still pretty new. The movie opened with a song, which was nice, but I was sitting there wondering if I was going to get any story during this movie, or if the people of 1929 thought singing and dancing were enough. Well, I did finally get a story, I'm happy to say.

The movie turns out to be about two sisters who move to New York City to pursue a career as song and dance girls on Broadway. They moved into a hotel suite, which I'm sure any aspiring actor/singer/dancer moving to New York today would die to live in, but it was the movies, and who knows - maybe NYC was easier to live in back then.

Anyway, it turns out that the boyfriend of one of the girls (Eddie was the boyfriend, Hank was the girl - weird, but yes, she was named Hank) was already in the city, and had a job as a song writer, and was doing really well for himself. So he got the girls an audition for a show. The "pretty" sister (Queenie) got in, but the "manager" sister (Hank) didn't, but Queenie talked to the producer and managed to convince him to take both girls.

Okay, long story short. Eddie falls for Queenie, but Queenie doesn't want to hurt Hank, so she starts seeing some rich guy who wants to make her a kept woman - you know, give her an aparment in the city, keep her in furs and jewels, and get some nookie anytime he wants. Hank is devastated at what Queenie is doing, but has no idea she's doing it for her sake. Finally, after witnessing a scene between Eddie and Queenie, Hank realizes what's happening, and is hurt, but she turns self-sacrificing and tells Eddie that she never loved him anyway (lie), and tells him to go save Queenie from this rich guy. Which he does. Eddie and Queenie get married, and Hank goes back to the vaudeville circuit that the girls came from, playing a tour of 30 cities. And for some reason everyone is happy.

Personally, I think Hank got the shaft.

Also, as soon as Queenie and Eddie got married, Queenie quit trying to be a star to be a wife. Which is to be expected from a movie made in 1929, I guess. Women weren't supposed to be anything other than housewives and mothers back then anyway.

So, one more Best Picture winner done, and I gave it 3 stars out of 5 on Netflix. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't suppose I'll ever want to see it again. Once was enough.