The Broadway Melody, also known as The Broadway Melody of 1929, is a 1929 American pre-Code musical film and the first sound film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. It was one of the first musicals to feature a Technicolor sequence, which sparked the trend of color being used in a flurry of musicals that would hit the screens in 1929–1930. Today, the Technicolor sequence survives only in black and white. The film was the first musical released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was Hollywood's first all-talking musical.
Louise Dresser was an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the many films in which she played the wife of Will Rogers, including State Fair and David Harum.
Marie Josephine Hull was an American stage and film actress who also was a director of plays. She had a successful 50-year career on stage while taking some of her better known roles to film. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie Harvey (1950), a role she originally played on the Broadway stage. She was sometimes credited as Josephine Sherwood.
Constance Campbell Bennett was an American stage, film, radio and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s and for a time during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Bennett frequently played society women, focusing on melodramas in the early 1930s and then taking more comedic roles in the late 1930s and 1940s. She is best remembered for her leading roles in What Price Hollywood? (1932), Bed of Roses (1933), Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938), and had a prominent supporting role in Greta Garbo's last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941).
Kay Francis was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star and highest-paid actress at Warner Bros. studio. She adopted her mother's maiden name (Francis) as her professional surname.
Mary Brian was an American actress, who made the transition from silent films to sound films.
Glorious Betsy is a 1928 silent film with talking sequences. It is based on the 1908 play of the same name by Rida Johnson Young, and it stars Dolores Costello. It was produced by Warner Bros. and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adaptation in 1929. The film was directed by Alan Crosland with cinematography by Hal Mohr. A mute print of this film survives in the Library of Congress, and while the copy is missing some of the sound reels, it's unknown whether other copies of the sound have been preserved elsewhere. Vitaphone track survive incomplete at UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Louise Fazenda was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.
Belle Bennett, was a stage and screen actress who started her career as a child as a circus performer. She later performed in theater and films.
Lucy Beaumont was an English actress of the stage and screen from Bristol.
Winnie Lightner was an American stage and motion picture actress.
Paris is a 1929 American Pre-Code musical comedy film, featuring Irène Bordoni. It was filmed with Technicolor sequences: four of the film's ten reels were originally photographed in Technicolor.
Beryl Mercer was a Spanish-born American actress of stage and screen who was based in the United States.
My Man is a 1928 black and white part-talkie American comedy-drama musical film directed by Archie Mayo starring Fanny Brice and featuring Guinn "Big Boy" Williams. It was Brice's feature film debut at the age of 37. She was a star in the Ziegfeld Follies before she started acting in motion pictures. At the time Warner Bros. made this film there were still some silent movies in production and being released. My Man used intertitles but included talking sequences, synchronized music, and sound effects using a Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. It was not until 1929 that talking movies would completely take over, but Warner Bros. had completely stopped making silent movies and switched to sound pictures by the end of that year, either part talking or full talking. Warner Bros. also started making movies in color as well as sound movies.
My Bill is a 1938 drama film starring Kay Francis as a poor widow raising four children. It was based on the play Courage by Tom Barry.
Blanche L. Friderici was an American film and stage actress, sometimes credited as Blanche Frederici.
Dearie is a 1927 silent drama film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. and directed by Archie Mayo. It is from a story by Victorian author Carolyn Wells about a woman who sacrifices for her ungrateful son. This film starred Irene Rich and is considered a lost film. It is unknown, but the film might have been released with a Vitaphone soundtrack.
Scarlet Pages is a 1930 all-talking pre-code American crime drama film with songs starring Elsie Ferguson and directed by Ray Enright. It was produced and distributed by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. The film stars Elsie Ferguson, John Halliday, Grant Withers and Marian Nixon. Scarlet Pages is based on a 1929 Broadway play of the same name that Ferguson also starred in. It is similar in theme to the better remembered Five Star Final, also by Warners released a year later. The film simultaneously marked the first time Ferguson appeared in a sound film and the last film she ever made.
Bought is a 1931 American Pre-Code drama film produced and released by Warner Bros. and directed by Archie Mayo. The movie stars Constance Bennett and features Ben Lyon, Richard Bennett and Dorothy Peterson. It is based on the 1930 novel Jackdaw's Strut by Harriet Henry.
Show Girl is a 1928 American comedy-drama film starring Alice White and Donald Reed. It was based on the first of J. P. McEvoy's two Dixie Dugan novels, as was the 1929 musical. It was followed by a sequel, Show Girl in Hollywood (1930). While the film has no audible dialogue, it is accompanied by a Vitaphone sound-on-disc soundtrack with a musical score and sound effects.
