Musicals hadn't quite come back in fashion but one that certainly helped was "The Big Broadcast". Radio favourites had always been popular in the movies ("Check and Double Check" (1930) featuring Amos and Andy) even if only for the novelty, so Paramount was excited enough about a movie built around current radio stars to finance the short lived Broadway show "Wild Waves" in order to gain screen rights.
The slim story about an unreliable radio star was tailor made for Bing Crosby who actually played himself!! Frank Tuttle directed with a breezy comic style, featuring some visual gimmicks such as a black cat stopping in it's tracks and an opening which has radio acts coming to life from lobby photos and singing a few bars of a song which is associated with them. The surrealistic start combines rhythmic sound and action. Crosby, the station's popular star is late again but that doesn't deter Cab Calloway, who launches into the frenetic "Hot Toddy". When the station manager goes on the warpath the clock puts on an alarmed face, a black cat melts under a door and Cab Calloway's microphone even jumps along with the swinging beat. Bing is mobbed the instant he arrives and the crush carries him up in the lift and leaves him, lip stick smeared, at the microphone where he only has time for the last line of "I Surrender, Dear". This is a terrifically fun movie by the way. He instantly goes to the men's room where he gives a fantastic scat version of "Dinah" with the beat of the song provided by the shoe shine boy and his trusty towel and in another scene Bing gives a casual vocal treatment to "Please", accompanied by Eddie Lang on guitar - for me two of the movie's highlights.
The irate sponsor, Mr. Clapsaddle (George Barbier), gives the order - "Bing must be sacked"!!! Even the switchboard operators (a harmonizing trio called "Major, Sharp and Minor") get into the act with a Boswell inspired blues number - "Have You Heard That Bing is Through". Meanwhile Texas oil millionaire Leslie McWhinney (Stuart Erwin) is crying into his beer because "a dame has taken him for all his dough"!! He is in New York to look up the fiancée that left him for the Big City - it is none other than Mr. Burn's (George Burns) efficient secretary (well efficient compared to Gracie) Anita (Leila Hyams). Bing also finds he is unlucky in love - his girl Mona Lowe (a play on the song "Moanin' Low)(Sharon Lynne) has given him the air and to the strains of street singer Arthur Tracy's rendition of "Here Lies Love" he takes McWhinney back to his place. With the "Crosby Cry" in full force his rendition of "Here Lies Love" soon has McWhinney crying into his pillow and a very weird scene follows when they both decide to end it all but are stopped by the visiting ghost of Arthur Tracy!!!!
McWhinney hasn't lost all his money and buys the radio station to give as a wedding present to Anita and Bing. Yes, there is a muddled love triangle going on - Leslie loves Anita who is star struck about Bing but when Mona returns Bing is once again putty in her hands and it is doubtful if he will make it to the big broadcast that night. The radio stars were interspersed with the funny amblings of Leslie, on a night mission to see if he can secure a recording of "Please" as a backup in case of a Bing no show!! Definitely the highlights for me were the Mills Brothers performing "Hold That Tiger", the Boswell Sisters crazily scatting to "Crazy People" and Cab Calloway's zany drug inspired "Kicking the Gong Around". Not so pleasant was Kate Smith's very fruity interpretation of "It Was So Beautiful". I know she was known as the Songbird of the South but I think Annette Hanshaw's version is so much better. Kate Smith also owed the cameraman no favours and showed why she fared so much better on radio than she did on the movies.
Bing Crosby having just finished a series of two reel Mack Sennett shorts and bringing the same insouciant personality that he seemed to have in real life, fared the best but despite the popularity of the film it was almost five years before a follow up, "The Big Broadcast of 1936" was produced.
The slim story about an unreliable radio star was tailor made for Bing Crosby who actually played himself!! Frank Tuttle directed with a breezy comic style, featuring some visual gimmicks such as a black cat stopping in it's tracks and an opening which has radio acts coming to life from lobby photos and singing a few bars of a song which is associated with them. The surrealistic start combines rhythmic sound and action. Crosby, the station's popular star is late again but that doesn't deter Cab Calloway, who launches into the frenetic "Hot Toddy". When the station manager goes on the warpath the clock puts on an alarmed face, a black cat melts under a door and Cab Calloway's microphone even jumps along with the swinging beat. Bing is mobbed the instant he arrives and the crush carries him up in the lift and leaves him, lip stick smeared, at the microphone where he only has time for the last line of "I Surrender, Dear". This is a terrifically fun movie by the way. He instantly goes to the men's room where he gives a fantastic scat version of "Dinah" with the beat of the song provided by the shoe shine boy and his trusty towel and in another scene Bing gives a casual vocal treatment to "Please", accompanied by Eddie Lang on guitar - for me two of the movie's highlights.
The irate sponsor, Mr. Clapsaddle (George Barbier), gives the order - "Bing must be sacked"!!! Even the switchboard operators (a harmonizing trio called "Major, Sharp and Minor") get into the act with a Boswell inspired blues number - "Have You Heard That Bing is Through". Meanwhile Texas oil millionaire Leslie McWhinney (Stuart Erwin) is crying into his beer because "a dame has taken him for all his dough"!! He is in New York to look up the fiancée that left him for the Big City - it is none other than Mr. Burn's (George Burns) efficient secretary (well efficient compared to Gracie) Anita (Leila Hyams). Bing also finds he is unlucky in love - his girl Mona Lowe (a play on the song "Moanin' Low)(Sharon Lynne) has given him the air and to the strains of street singer Arthur Tracy's rendition of "Here Lies Love" he takes McWhinney back to his place. With the "Crosby Cry" in full force his rendition of "Here Lies Love" soon has McWhinney crying into his pillow and a very weird scene follows when they both decide to end it all but are stopped by the visiting ghost of Arthur Tracy!!!!
McWhinney hasn't lost all his money and buys the radio station to give as a wedding present to Anita and Bing. Yes, there is a muddled love triangle going on - Leslie loves Anita who is star struck about Bing but when Mona returns Bing is once again putty in her hands and it is doubtful if he will make it to the big broadcast that night. The radio stars were interspersed with the funny amblings of Leslie, on a night mission to see if he can secure a recording of "Please" as a backup in case of a Bing no show!! Definitely the highlights for me were the Mills Brothers performing "Hold That Tiger", the Boswell Sisters crazily scatting to "Crazy People" and Cab Calloway's zany drug inspired "Kicking the Gong Around". Not so pleasant was Kate Smith's very fruity interpretation of "It Was So Beautiful". I know she was known as the Songbird of the South but I think Annette Hanshaw's version is so much better. Kate Smith also owed the cameraman no favours and showed why she fared so much better on radio than she did on the movies.
Bing Crosby having just finished a series of two reel Mack Sennett shorts and bringing the same insouciant personality that he seemed to have in real life, fared the best but despite the popularity of the film it was almost five years before a follow up, "The Big Broadcast of 1936" was produced.