Broadway | |
---|---|
Directed by | William A. Seiter |
Screenplay by | Felix Jackson John Bright adaptation Bruce Manning |
Based on | the Jed Harris stage production by Philip Dunning & George Abbott (play) |
Produced by | Bruce Manning |
Starring | George Raft Pat O'Brien |
Cinematography | George Barnes |
Edited by | Ted J. Kent (as Ted Kent) |
Music by | Frank Skinner |
Production company | Bruce Manning Productions |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 91 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1.1 million [1] |
Broadway is a 1942 crime drama musical film directed by William A. Seiter and starring George Raft as himself and Pat O'Brien as a detective. [2] The supporting cast features Janet Blair and Broderick Crawford. [3]
Another fictionalized biographical movie based on Raft's life, The George Raft Story (1961), featured a different actor (Ray Danton) playing Raft.
George Raft, a Hollywood dancer, returns to Manhattan and recalls working in a nightclub with a bootlegger's girlfriend.
Universal paid $175,000 for the rights [4] to the 1926 play of the same name that had previously been filmed in 1929. On Broadway, Lee Tracy played the dancer, Thomas Jackson played the detective and Paul Porcasi played the nightclub owner. In the 1929 film, Jackson and Porcasi reprised their roles and Glenn Tryon replaced Tracy. Pat O'Brien once played the detective role in a road show. [5]
In February 1941, Universal announced the film for the coming year. Bruce Manning, a writer who had recently been promoted to producer, would produce and George Raft and Broderick Crawford would star. Manning and Felix Young were to write the screenplay. [6]
However, Raft was under contract for three more pictures with Warner Bros., which refused to loan him to Universal. Raft had been refusing roles that he did not like over the course of eight months, [7] [8] but an agreement was reached whereby $27,500 would be taken from Raft's salary to allow Warner Bros. to borrow Robert Cummings from Universal. [7] In December 1941, Raft signed on to make the film. [9]
Manning wanted to change the bootlegger characters from the play into foreign agents. He discussed the story with Raft and recognized the similarities between the story of Roy, the dancer played on stage by Tracy, and that of Raft's early career. He kept the characters as bootleggers but changed the story to focus on Raft. He also added a prologue and epilogue in which Raft returns to New York after establishing himself as a movie star. [10]
In February 1942, O'Brien signed on and filming began. [11]
The film was a success with audiences. [12]
The Los Angeles Times called Broadway a "sock melodrama." [13] Filmink said that the film "... isn’t particularly well remembered but it's a lot of fun, with plenty of gunfire and dancing, and was reasonably popular – Raft was best known for his gangster movies, but he was also a half-decent draw in musicals." [14]
William Broderick Crawford was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Willie Stark in the film All the King's Men (1949), which earned him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Often cast in tough-guy or slob roles, he later achieved recognition for his starring role as Dan Mathews in the crime television series Highway Patrol (1955–1959).
Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937) with Humphrey Bogart, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Bogart, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, City for Conquest (1940) with Cagney and Elia Kazan, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, Kings Row (1942) with Ronald Reagan, Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant.
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembered for his gangster roles in Quick Millions (1931) with Spencer Tracy, Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, Each Dawn I Die (1939) with James Cagney, Invisible Stripes (1939) with Humphrey Bogart, and Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon; and as a dancer in Bolero (1934) with Carole Lombard and a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940) with Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino and Bogart.
George Brent was an Irish-American stage, film, and television actor. He is best remembered for the eleven films he made with Bette Davis, which included Jezebel and Dark Victory.
William Joseph Patrick O'Brien was an American film actor with more than 100 screen credits. Of Irish descent, he often played Irish and Irish-American characters and was referred to as "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence" in the press. One of the best-known screen actors of the 1930s and 1940s, he played priests, cops, military figures, pilots, and reporters. He is especially well-remembered for his roles in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and Some Like It Hot (1959). He was frequently paired onscreen with Hollywood star James Cagney. O'Brien also appeared on stage and television.
Anne Gwynne was an American actress who was known as one of the first scream queens because of her numerous appearances in horror films. Gwynne was also one of the most popular pin-ups of World War II. She is the maternal grandmother of actor Chris Pine.
Norman Krasna was an American screenwriter, playwright, producer, and film director who penned screwball comedies centered on a case of mistaken identity. Krasna directed three films during a forty-year career in Hollywood. He garnered four Academy Award screenwriting nominations, winning once for 1943's Princess O'Rourke, which he also directed.
Bolero is a 1934 American pre-Code musical drama film directed by Wesley Ruggles and starring George Raft and Carole Lombard. The Paramount production was a rare chance for Raft to star and to play a dancer, which had been his profession in New York City, rather than portraying a gangster. The film takes its title from the Maurice Ravel composition Boléro (1928). The supporting cast includes William Frawley, Ray Milland, and Sally Rand.
Marguerite Churchill was an American stage and film actress whose career lasted 30 years, from 1922 to 1952. She was John Wayne's first leading lady, in The Big Trail (1930).
Quick Millions is a 1931 pre-Code crime film directed by Rowland Brown and starring Spencer Tracy, Marguerite Churchill, Sally Eilers, and featuring George Raft as the sidekick with a solo eccentric dance performance.
Under Cover Man is a 1932 American pre-Code crime film directed by James Flood and starring George Raft and Nancy Carroll.
Rumba is a 1935 American musical drama film starring George Raft as a Cuban dancer and Carole Lombard as a Manhattan socialite. The movie was directed by Marion Gering and is considered an unsuccessful follow-up to Raft and Lombard's smash hit Bolero the previous year.
Robert E. Kent was an American film writer and film producer.
A Dangerous Profession is a 1949 American film noir directed by Ted Tetzlaff, written by Warren Duff and Martin Rackin, and starring George Raft, Ella Raines, and Pat O'Brien. The supporting cast features Jim Backus.
Paul Porcasi was an Italian actor. He appeared in more than 140 films from 1917 to 1945.
Footsteps in the Dark is a light-hearted 1941 mystery film, starring Errol Flynn as an amateur detective investigating a murder.
Slightly Honorable is a 1939 American mystery film directed by Tay Garnett and starring Pat O'Brien, Edward Arnold and Broderick Crawford. The film was based on the 1939 novel Send Another Coffin by Frank Gilmore Presnell, Jr. (1906–1967).
River Lady is a 1948 American lumberjack Western film directed by George Sherman and starring Yvonne De Carlo and Dan Duryea. It was filmed on the Universal Studios Backlot.
South of Tahiti is a 1941 American south seas adventure film directed by George Waggner and starring Brian Donlevy. It helped launch Maria Montez as a pin-up star. She played a leading role; response was such that Universal then cast her in Arabian Nights.
Adrian Michael Morris was an American actor of stage and film, and a younger brother of Chester Morris.