NEW REGENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 754, 29 August 1929, Page 15

NEW REGENT

“THE BROADWAY MELODY” Featuring all the lilting laughter, daring dancers and mood-moving music of a regular New York revue, “The Broadway Melody,” Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s all-talking, all-sing-ing, all-dancing production of backstage life, has been so successful at the New Regent that its season will be extended for yet another week. Anita Page and Bessie Love, its two leading ladies, appear as a kerosene circuit “sister act” that comes from the “sticks” to show Broadway how to put on a show. Miss Page plays the role of the younger of the two sisters whose beauty takes her farther than the other’s cleverness. Miss Love is the business manager for the act, its chief star and the guardian of her little sister. A humanly interesting love theme runs throughout in which Charles King appears as a smart-cracking song-and-dance man who promises to put the sisters across. However, after being put on for a tryout, at the request of their boy friend, who writes them special musical scores, the act fails. A specially written theme song, “Broadway Melody,” is heard throughout the production. It is augmented by several novelty numbers, among them “The Wedding of the Painted Doll,” “Love Boat” and others. These catchy songs create the musical background for the technicolour sequence in which a chorus of more than sixty specialty dancers appear in one of the most sensational dance creations ever attempted for the screen. The Regent’s programme also includes a number of short talkie features, and selections on the Wurlitzer by Arthur G. Frost.