Two Girls on Broadway (1940)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Fantastic!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Joan Blondell and Lana Turner co-star with future US Senator George Murphy in Two Girls On Broadway. The three are from Rome City, Nebraska and Murphy is in New York to try and hit it big again as he's been somewhat at liberty since vaudeville declined. The women who are sisters operate a dance studio in Nebraska and Blondell was once Murphy's dance partner.Murphy pulls off quite a con game but gets a big break with an appearance Richard Lane's nightclub and he parlays it for Blondell and Turner to come east. Now it's Turner who is Murphy's partner and Blondell gets work as a cigarette girl.It's all looking good, but there's a Broadway wolf in the picture. Kent Taylor is a Tommy Manville type who's already been to the altar 8 times. He zeroes in on Turner who goes along because while she likes Murphy she doesn't want to hurt her sister. It all gets straightened out in the end as it always does.I think a lot of you will recognize some sets from The Great Ziegfeld which makes it look like this film is more expensive and lush than it is. Wallace Ford has an interesting role as a Broadway Winchell like columnist which would be true to life since Winchell was a performer before he took up journalism. He knew Blondell and Murphy from vaudeville days.Nacio Herb Brown, Arthur Freed and Roger Edens wrote My Wonderful One Let's Dance as part of the score and if it sounds familiar you're thinking of Cole Porter's Riding High. Porter really could have sued over that one.Two Girls On Broadway showcases its star's talents well. Murphy was quite a hoofer before he went into Republican politics.

"Two Girls on Broadway" is a remake of "Broadway Melody". Considering that "Broadway Melody" was such an early musical (with rather primitive sound) it's not surprising that the studio would remake the film.The film begins with a young singer/songwriter (George Murphy) getting discovered. However, Eddie's a regular guy and he's sure to not only take this great job but make sure there's a job for his old sweetie, Molly (Joan Blondell), and her kid-sister, Pat (Lana Turner). Unfortunately, when Molly and Pat try out for the show, the producers like Pat but have no use for Molly. Molly, however, insists that Pat take the job and they give Molly a job as a cigarette girl. Now Pat and Eddie are poised for stardom...but what about nice-girl Molly? And what about Pat? The lecherous producer might just have his eyes on her...as does Eddie! So is the film any good? Well, it's pleasant and enjoyable--and with a few amazing sets which hark back to the original "Broadway Melody". As for the story, it is a bit old fashioned but the actors did a nice job and managed to make it work. Also, Blondell's character, Molly, is a HUGE improvement over the original film in which 'Hank' is very unlikable--whereas here, Molly is much more likable and you can understand Pat and Eddie's concerns about her--which makes the plot make more sense. Overall, not a great musical by any stretch but enjoyable if you like the genre and a slight improvement over the original.By the way, I did have to laugh about the subplot in the film where Eddie and Molly are worried that sweet, innocent Pat might get seduced by the playboy producer--a man who's been married several times. Lana Turner (Pat) in real life was married eight times (one of the husbands she married twice), so these concerns seemed a bit silly.

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.

I never realized what a fabulous dancer Lana Turner was until I saw this movie. She was only 19 years old and gorgeous. What a pleasure to watch her dance with George Murphy. The story line was typical for its day but the dancing was really special. I never tire of watching Fred and Ginger but Lana Turner in this movie was just as terrific. I always thought of Lana as a so-so actress who tended to over act. She should have done more dancing and less of the Maddam X and Peyton Place roles. I had a new appreciation for her after seeing this movie and her wonderful dancing. Too bad the "Academy" doesn't give an "Oscar" for dancing.