Broadway Bill

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Movie
German title Broadway Bill
Original title Broadway Bill
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1934
length 104 minutes
Rod
Director Frank Capra
script Robert Riskin
production Frank Capra
Harry Cohn
music Howard Jackson
camera Joseph Walker
cut Gene Havlick
occupation

Broadway Bill (rarely also The Battle for the Blue Ribbon ) is an American feature film from 1934. Directed by Frank Capra . The screenplay was written by Robert Riskin based on the short story Strictly Confidental by Mark Hellinger . Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy were in the lead roles . Broadway Bill was so overshadowed by two other Capra films that it was barely received: first by its direct predecessor It Happened in One Night and later by his remake Laugh and Cry with Me .

action

Dan Brooks, son-in-law of JL Higgins, the Patriarch of Higginsville, and therefore director of one of his companies, has long been fed up with his job. So he bought the racehorse Broadway Bill. Together with the trainer Whitey and his sister-in-law Alice, whom he calls "Princess", he takes care of Broadway Bill almost exclusively. At a family dinner, which is primarily a business meeting, JL criticizes the company's lack of success and sees the reason for this in Dan's lack of commitment. He therefore asks him to devote himself to the company with all his might and to sell Broadway Bill. Dan refuses, quits and leaves the meal. He asks his wife Margaret to come with him, but she refuses.

Dan leaves Higginsville with Whitey and Broadway Bill and travels to the $ 25,000 Imperial Derby, where he wants to have the previously completely unknown Broadway Bill compete. But his financial resources are already exhausted when registering in advance, so that he has to fall back on Whitey's savings. He places Broadway Bill in Pop Jones' stable, whom he promises to pay for later. He and Whitey will also live in the stable. Because of the registration fee, he teams up with his old friend Colonel Pettigrew and his roommate Oscar McGuire. They try to get the money with various tricks. Broadway Bill is also supposed to earn some money in a smaller race, but refuses the start box. Dan then remembers a rooster that always calmed Bill and asks Margaret by mail to bring it to him. Margaret still refuses, and so Alice steps in. Further attempts to trick the money follow, but they all fail. Finally Alice gets the missing money from the pawnbroker , but hides it from Dan and asks Whitey to say he won it by rolling the dice. After Broadway Bill's serious illness is halfway cured, he is finally registered for the race. When Dan and Alice come back to the stable afterwards, Broadway Bill is gone. Pop Jones wants his money and has had the horse confiscated. Dan gets Broadway Bill back in preparation for the race but has to go to jail himself.

The odds on Broadway Bill are 100: 1. A nurse reads about it in the newspaper and decides to put two dollars on him to relax. She also tells this to her bored patient JL, who had sprained his ankle. He's also betting two dollars on Broadway bill. First as an anecdote, later as a rumor, in which there is talk of a stake of 200,000 dollars, his bet is known and leads to many other small-line bets on Broadway Bill, mostly for two dollars. The quota falls sharply as a result, but that of the competitors increases. The gangster Eddie Morgan, who bet a lot of money on the fellow favorite Sun up, is now hoping for bigger profits. When he learns that Broadway Bill's start is in jeopardy, he gets Dan out of jail, pays Dan's debts and arranges for him the well-known jockey Ted Williams. He pays this for not letting Broadway Bill win.

During the race, Broadway Bill dashes off and can even pull away a little, but is soon held back so much by his jockey that he falls significantly behind. But then he overcomes the resistance, keeps catching up and just wins the race. Out of delight, Dan doesn't notice at first that Broadway Bill has crashed at the finish. But it quickly becomes clear that he died of a heart attack while crossing the finish line. Broadway Bill is ceremonially buried at the racetrack. Everyone is there, even JL Higgins. Dan wonders whether he has to go back to Higginsville, but knows that he would disappoint Alice very much and declines an offer from JL. But he asks him to take Alice home with him.

Two years later, another Higgins family business lunch. JL announces that it will sell its remaining companies and the bank. Dan, who is now divorced from Margaret, interrupts this when he drives into the courtyard and announces that he wants to free the princess from the dark tower. Encouraged by her father, Alice rushes to him. He proudly presents his two new racehorses, Broadway Bill II and Princess. After a look at the remaining bourgeois family, JL also wants to go.

background

The entire production, including the release of Broadway Bill , coincided with the release of It Happened In One Night on February 22, 1934, and the Academy Awards on February 27, 1935, at which the great success of It Happened in One Night Frank Capra brought the first Oscar and made him a star. In addition, Capra's next film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, was almost as successful and earned him a second Oscar.

Frank Capra bought the rights to the story for $ 8,000 from Mark Hellinger . Robert Riskin , who often wrote screenplays for Caprafilme, adapted the story for the film.

occupation

Actually, Clark Gable provided for the role of Dan Brooks. But Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer did not want to lend its new star again (after it happened in one night ). That's how Warner Baxter got the role. Warner Baxter was afraid of being bitten or kicked by a horse. Frank Capra regretted being able to film so few scenes with Baxter and Broadway Bill together, and the few scenes had become shorter than intended. As a result, Capra is said to have decided to film the material again, with a horse lover in the lead role.

Like many other stars, Myrna Loy had turned down the offer for the female lead in It Happened in One Night . Since she had now recognized this as a mistake, she accepted the role in Broadway Bill enthusiastically.

The sequence in which the odds on Broadway Bill drop from 100: 1 to 6: 1 because many two-dollar bets are placed on him caused quite a stir. This happened because, on the one hand, she excited some critics and, on the other hand, she managed completely without the main and supporting actors of the film. In this context, the young and then still unknown Lucille Ball , who played a blonde operator, should be noted.

Ernie Adams , Robert Allen , Brooks Benedict , Herman Bing , Ward Bond , Heinie Conklin , Inez Courtney , Elinor Fair , Helen Flint , Bess Flowers , Alan Hale , Forrester Harvey , Harry Holman , John Ince , William Irving , Eddie also played small roles Kane , Alice Lake , Charles Lane , Jack Mulhall , Dennis O'Keefe , Pat O'Malley and Emmett Vogan .

Filming

Broadway Bill was shot between June 18 and August 16, 1934. Locations were the Columbia Studios in Hollywood , the racecourse Tanforan in San Bruno , the Pacific Coast Steel Mills and the Warner Ranch in Calabasas .

During filming, Frank Capra was not satisfied with the predictable happy ending of the script. To make the story more interesting, and arguably also concerned about not being able to live up to his reputation, he decided that Broadway Bill would have to die after his victory. Since screenwriter Robert Riskin was not available due to vacation, Sidney Buchman was commissioned to adapt the script accordingly. As was customary at the time, he was not named in the film for this.

publication

Broadway Bill premiered on November 30, 1934 at Radio City Music Hall in New York and was released in US theaters on December 27, 1934. The film was distributed by Columbia Pictures . The film was released in several European countries from 1935, and in May 1937 it had its Austrian premiere under the title Battle for the Blue Ribbon .

So that Paramount Pictures could release the remake Laugh and Cine with me in 1950 , they acquired the rights to Broadway Bill . In order not to endanger the commercial success of the remake, Paramount withdrew Broadway Bill and no longer allowed performances. Broadway Bill was even considered lost for a while . The film was only shown again from the beginning of the 1990s, but in a version that was about 20 minutes shorter than in 1934. These 20 minutes are actually lost. In 1992, Broadway Bill received a new release by Paramount in US theaters. It was during this time that the German first publication on July 21, 1992 on Bavarian television took place .

It was released on DVD on August 31, 2004.

reception

Reviews

Most of the critics think the film is good. The lexicon of international films calls it a "[g] ut played and staged romantic comedy". Paimann's film lists , on the other hand, say that it is "[z] at least a good medium film" because the plot is "hardly new in its basic features". Andre Sennwald attested Capra a rare talent for the cinema. He makes fun of social undesirable developments, but does so in such a way that the film is very entertaining even if you don't understand it. Stuart Galbraith thinks the film is excellent, so much so that he repeats it several times in his review with different formulations. Bruce Eder says that Frank Capra put the film together "better than any director on this side of William Wyler" could have. Still, the film has too many levels of meaning, too many storylines and too many characters. Matthew C. Gunter found Broadway Bill extremely entertaining, and Jon Danziger found it an enjoyable pastime, mainly because the story was a fairy tale. But he also thinks it's not one of Capra's best films.

Some critics highlight individual scenes. Sennwald (like Rosenbaum) liked the sequence around the betting odds, but also the choreography for the Higgins family's meal. Galbraith is particularly enthusiastic about the race, as is Gunter, who says the sequence could be one of the greatest scenes Capra has ever filmed and deserves to be classified among the best in the genre.

The acting performances were almost universally praised. Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy are particularly highlighted. Several critics also explicitly praise other actors. With Galbraith it is Frankie Darro who shows an inspiring spectrum of complex and contradicting emotions and hardly speaks a word, with Eder Walter Connolly and Clarence Muse, who is also called by Lorraine LoBianco, and with Danziger Margaret Hamilton. Sennwald observed in general that the actors under the direction of Capra, as usual, perform at their best.

Bruce Eder also points out that Broadway Bill has "practically the same cast in supporting and minor roles" as It Happened One Night , "so much so that when you watch the film you get the impression that they have run out of camera and have changed their costumes. "

Matthew C. Gunter saw a problem with the happy ending . He wrote that the death of Broadway Bill was "so emotional and overwhelming that no pasted 'happy ending' could prevail against it."

Jon Danziger says modern viewers may feel a little uncomfortable with African American Whitey being routinely referred to as “the boy” by the rest of the characters. Leonard Rosenbaum also points out this problem.

Economic result

According to Joseph McBride, the Broadway Bill was "an only moderate financial success".

Awards

Broadway Bill was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Venice International Film Festival in 1935.

aftermath

Classification of the film in Capra's work

There is widespread agreement among reviewers that while Broadway Bill is not like It Happened In One Night , it is a remarkable film. This raises the question of why the film is often neglected or even ignored in lists of Capra films. The authors offered various explanations.

  • Broadway Bill lies at a very inconvenient point in the timeline of the Capra films, namely between the release of and the Academy Awards on It Happened in One Night . This would almost completely overshadow the only moderately successful film Broadway Bill . This line of reasoning is also cited by pointing out that the Broadway Bill was released between It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes Into Town .
  • Frank Capra made no mention of Broadway Bill in his autobiography The Name Above the Title .
  • Broadway Bill has not been shown for over 40 years since Laugh and Cry With Me in 1950.
  • Today you can hardly remember Warner Baxter, in contrast to other leading actors in Capra films such as Clark Gable , James Stewart or Gary Cooper . As a consequence, one will be less willing to forgive a certain wrongdoing of the character.
  • In Broadway Bill we see collective rather than individual forces. This is more reminiscent of the Great Depression than Capra's better-known films and is therefore less attractive to the “current audience”.

Christopher Breach sees Broadway Bill as a transition in Capra's filmography. This is the first time that the social criticism typical of Capra films has been worked out. This applies in particular to the subject of the "little man" as a victim of "big business". Joseph McBride also sees a certain transition, which he attaches more to the success of It Happened in One Night , through which Capra was able to fight for more freedom in the design of his films - both in terms of content and finances. But he was driven by a certain fear, both of " leaving the safety of Cohn's little world" and of the increased expectations of his films, not least of his own. McBride also tells of Capra's life-threatening medical problems right after the production of Broadway Bill , which made it impossible for him to attend the premiere of Broadway Bill . Lorraine LoBianco sees this as the reason why Capra's next film was not released until 1936 and that he made fewer films after that.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Lorraine LoBianco: Broadway Bill (1934). In: Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Emily W. Unfortunately: Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood . University of California Press, Oakland 2012, ISBN 978-0-520-27450-1 , pp. 137–140 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 9, 2017]).
  3. ↑ a b c d e Andre Sennwald : 'Broadway Bill,' a New Comedy Directed by Frank Capra, at the Radio City Music Hall. In: The New York Times . November 30, 1934 ( online [accessed September 9, 2017]).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h Jonathan Rosenbaum: Capra's Catastrophe. In: ChicagoReader.com. August 6, 1992, accessed September 9, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b c Broadway Bill. In: AFI. Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Joseph McBride: Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success . University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2011, ISBN 978-1-60473-839-1 , pp. 313–319 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 9, 2017]).
  7. ↑ Broadway Bill (1934) Release Info. In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  8. ↑ a b first performances . In: Paimann's film lists . No. 1100 , May 7, 1937, pp. 53 ( Online in Filmarchiv.at ( memento from October 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) [JPG; accessed October 5, 2017]).
  9. ↑ a b Hal Erickson : Broadway Bill (1934). In: Allmovie . Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Broadway Bill (1934) Company Credits. In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  11. ↑ a b Broadway Bill. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 9, 2017 . Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  12. ↑ Broadway Bill (1934). In: Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  13. ↑ a b c d Stuart Galbraith IV: Broadway Bill. In: DVDTalk. August 31, 2004, accessed September 9, 2017 .
  14. ↑ a b c d Bruce Eder: Broadway Bill (1934). In: Allmovie . Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  15. ↑ a b c d e f Matthew C. Gunter: The Capra Touch . McFarland, Jefferson 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-8828-5 , pp. 28–30 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 9, 2017]).
  16. ↑ a b c d Jon Danziger: Broadway Bill (1934). In: Digitally Obsessed! Com. August 29, 2004, accessed September 9, 2017 .
  17. ↑ lux radio theater (216) broadway bill. In: Old Time Radio Downloads. Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  18. ^ A b c Christopher Beach: Class, Language, and American Film Comedy . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 978-0-521-00209-7 , pp. 74–75 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 9, 2017]).