If, like me, you are fascinated by films from the dawn of sound, You will enjoy Broadway. If you don't, you'll find it a clunky monstrosity in a bad print.
The first thing you'll notice is the camera work: optical printing of a giant spritzing the Great White Way, a camera that flashes around the set and so forth. This is an enormously technically advanced movie for 1929.
The next thing you will notice is the bad acting. It's certainly interesting to see Arthur Houseman in a sound film in which he's not a comic drunk, Thomas Jackson is fine in the role he originated on Broadway and Evelyn Brent gives an amazing performance. However, leads Glen Tryon and Merna Kennedy are whiny. In addition, a lot of the cast moves in strange ways, which I attribute to the fact that they're used to shooting for silent films, and don't have much understanding of how to pace movement with dialogue.
What gave me the most pleasure is that this is an anti-Damon-Runyon show. I love Damon Runyon's stories, but, as some one noted, the pleasure of his work is that you never hear the gunfire, never see the murders; you see the people at the edge of the underworld, stupid and non-threatening. Here, in this backstage musical, you see the gangsters backstage, killing each other and threatening rape. My pleasure in this movie lies not in what it does, but what it tries to do and fails.
