So Oscar Best Picture winner #2, Broadway Melody of 1929, was a complete bust. Let's just say it has not aged well. The plot was inane and the characters insufferable. I'm not sure whether this is an issue with voice recording equipment back then or whether that's how "talkie" performances were done in 1929, but all the voices were shrill, nasal whines and just a little too fast to be understood well, and unfortunately there was a lot of shouting. I'm surprised I didn't have a headache by the end. Probably didn't only because we stopped paying close attention about 1/4 of the way through.
This set the precedent of Movies About Show Business winning Best Picture--this was the very first of those. It was also one of the first movies to have a sequence in Technicolor, though that segment only exists in black and white now, and one of the first movie musicals. For technical achievement alone I see why it won the Oscar. It certainly wasn't because it was a compelling movie like Wings.
Watched: March 1, 2017
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