gkeith_1 No color movie. Boo and hiss. Jeanette lovely voice. No Nelson Eddy. 1939 movies included Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. Here is Frank Morgan from WOZ also in this movie. Color could have been used here, like WOZ and GWTW. I guess MGM put the money into color for those movies, but not this little gem. (MGM distributed the GWTW Selznick vehicle). Jeanette becomes a star in this movie. I love those old performer gets famous films. This movie is reminding me of Red Shoes and A Star is Born. Man gets less attention than the leading lady. Nice to see Mary Gordon from The Little Minister. I liked Jeanette's costumes. I liked her performance hairstyles. I did not like the lederhosen male stereotypes. War was afoot in Europe. Hitler bombed Poland in 1939. This was way too creepy. The scene may have been Switzerland, but German themes were all too obvious. 8/10

bbmtwist Although Jeanette MacDonald struggles valiantly, the script is poor, overlong and cliché. Ayres' character is thoroughly unlikeable, boorish, insanely jealous, violent - the audience has difficulty caring about him and likewise the motivations and caring of MacDonald, who plays his wife.Able support is given by Al Shean as the kindly old musician who takes an interest in Ayres' serious music composition, and Rita Johnson, who gets all the best lines as a catty chorus girl who has her eye on the producer (Frank Morgan) and won't let anyone get in her way. Also fine is Franklin Pangborn who is wonderful in his three scenes as a frustrated arranger.The score is lackluster. Jeannette has a medley at the beginning (Yip I Addy I Ay, Just A Song at Twilight and a few unrecognizable tunes), Lonely Heart - based on Tchaikovsky's song, Flying High, Un Bel Di from Madame Butterfly, another montage of snippets of songs, Musetta's Waltz, Les Filles de Cadiz, Italian Street Song, One Look At You. It's a combo of song and opera snippets and new songs that are dreary.The stupid finale with grotesque masks and bizarre sets and lighting makes no sense in terms of a staging of a rhapsody, less in the fact that the music is stolen from Tchaikovsky - one of Busby Berkeleky's very worst conceptions.Flatly directed by Robert Z. Leonard and overlong at 114 minutes, this is a forgettable mishmash, far below the standard the studio had previously set for Jeannette, at the time its biggest star. See it only for her.

blanche-2 From 1939, Broadway Serenade is an odd movie, containing all kinds of music. Lew Ayres is a composer/pianist who apparently wrote or ripped off None but the Lonely Heart, I couldn't decide; the Macdonald-less Jeanette is his lovely singer wife. During his audition of a new song for a big Broadway producer (Frank Morgan) and his investor (Ian Hunter), it's Jeanette who gets the job and Hunter's heart. She has to go on the road with the show; she comes back a star, and her husband, hearing rumors of a romance with Hunter and not doing too well himself, rejects her, though the rumors aren't true. He becomes drunk and disorderly while her star ascends.I guess the big, lirico-spinto/dramatic soprano arias were the popular ones, because in movies where she sang opera, Jeanette MacDonald was always doing something like Tosca or Madama Butterfly, which she does here - so totally out of her vocal type, which was way too light for that sort of music. Her repertoire was operetta and roles like those in the French repertoire: Delibes, Gounod, or Bellini and Donizetti. She had a nice middle voice and beautiful, lyrical pianissimos, but her very high notes had a whitish, straight sound - basically that's how female singers were taught back then. I always loved her acting. She and Ayres are both good although an unlikely couple, he being boyish and she being diva-ish.Some bizarre musical numbers, such as the one at the end. A mixed bag. There are better musicals - an understatement.

ktatlow A lot of fun! The ending sequence is great. MacDonald is indisputably a talented vocalist, extremely powerful. (See and hear her in "San Francisco.") She's a little TOO powerful for my taste. Whenever she solos or duets, she smothers everything else with soprano sauce. She's a warbler for sure! Her best bit is the swing sequence at the bar.July 2005 Trivia: Lew Ayres old house in LA (< 2000 square feet) just sold for around $620K.So rent it!Here's another line!