Two Tickets To Broadway (Remastered)

I'm adding a review to the other words of praise for this often overlooked gem among big-budget, full-color Hollywood musicals, mainly because I want to emphasize the fun of seeing Bob Crosby play a major part later in the movie.Bob had a significant career of his own and was highly respected as a bandleader with a commitment to big-band jazz. He made early appearances on TV and actually had his own variety show in the mid 1950s. The central goal of the wannabe actresses and actors in this film is an appearance on network TV on Bob Crosby's show. When they finally get inside his TV studio, Bob and his band have a lot of fun with his celebrity in comparison to his more famous brother. That's really the most delightful segment of this film, we found.If you want to see Bob performing in this era in another great musical, try Presenting Lily Mars, which we also saw recently and can highly recommend. Bob doesn't get as much of a spotlight in that movie, however.It's also fun to see Janet Leigh exercise her musical skills. Today, moviegoers who are familiar with her career mostly think of her star turn (and death) in Hitchcock's Psycho—or perhaps they've seen her costarring with Tony Curtis or maybe in the highly praised classic Touch of Evil. Leigh was multiply talented, including as an author, and it's nice to see her signing and dancing in her prime in this movie.

This 1951 musical, a tribute to the early days of TV, was co-produced by Howard Hughes for RKO Pictures. It features many selections from The Great American Songbook, by various composers (Rodgers and Hart, Jule Styne, and Sammy Cahn, among others). Tony Martin, better known to some as Mr. Cyd Charisse, is the leading man and has an excellent voice; his hit "There's No Tomorrow," which is featured in the movie, is based on the Neapolitan song "O Sole Mio," and inspired Elvis Presley to record his own version, in 1960, called "It's Now Or Never." Janet Leigh, the leading lady, is a surprisingly good singer and dancer; Jamie Lee and Kelly Curtis' mom was a very versatile actress, and more than just the shower murder victim in Psycho (Collector's Edition).The other major players in the movie are bandleader Bob Crosby, who does an hilarious number where he pokes fun at brother Bing; Gloria DeHaven, Barbara Lawrence, vaudeville comics Joe Smith and Charles Dale, who play bickering deli owners; comedian Eddie Bracken, and, of course, Ann Miller, who does one of her terrific tap routines to "The Worry Bird." Busby Berkeley, genius that he is, choreographed that number, and all of the dances in the movie.Although Annie was loaned out from MGM, this movie marked her return to RKO, the studio where she began her movie career, in 1937, at age 14 (though she lied about her age, and pretended that she was 16).Overall, while not perfect, this is a very entertaining Technicolor movie musical.

A FANTASTIC MOVIE... which I first seen as a young man in Hollywoods Golden Years the 1940 s.... so for I have managed to source 160 of these musicals, my wife & me, LOVE THEM.... were in our 80th years... but films like this make you feel young again...The STARS were wonderful... and little did I know all those years ago... that I would meet most of them in my Grown UP YEARS... as I was a Photographic Journaliston the Hollywood beat..... as Mister Paparatzzi

Howard Hughes's line up of acts is basically his way of responding to the other studios' efforts to do the same thing. There are echoes of the Garland/Rooney cycle of musicals from MGM, with a spice of Fox glitz and the good ol' feelin' of well-being from Warners' Doris Day vehicles of a similar period.The only snag is that Hughes did really have any big stars on his payroll. What TWO TICKETS TO Broadway presents is a panoply of would-be leading lights, youngsters on their way to stardom, and imitations of more famous originals such as Bob Crosby who does a specialty number with a cardboard cutout of his more illustrious sibling Bing.Having said that, some of the cast give winning turns. The triumvirate of Janet Leigh, Ann Miller and Gloria DeHaven adumbrate a similar conception in Fox's GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953); and they acquit themselves thoroughly well in the song and dance sequences, with Miller getting the chance to show off her famed legs. Tony Martin croons his way through one or two numbers, to the delights of hordes of adoring bobbysoxers. Eddie Bracken camps it up in a largely extraneous comedy role.Yet perhaps the most interesting aspect of James V. Kern's all-star line-up is its inherent structural contradiction that tells us a lot about the contradictions of movie capitalism at the time. The film begins in Garland/ Rooney fashion by suggesting that, given time and talent, anyone can make it big so long as they have the drive and energy to do so, even if they originate from small-town and America and have to travel to New York by Greyhound bus. This is precisely what Leigh, DeHaven and Miller try to do.Yet once they get there, they find that they are very much at the agents' and radio program-makers' mercy. They have to alter their work to suit specific formats, and compromise at every opportunity in line with their employers' requirements. We wonder at this point whether Broadway - like Hollywood - actually values originality, or whether or not both institutions would be much happier with carbon copies of tried and tested formulas.The film does not attempt to answer the question, of course (why should it, when it was planned as a joyful musical), but it reveals an undercurrent of cynicism about the potentially adverse effects of money-making and success.

I collect old time musical. This is great movie for the entire family to spend sometime together in a Dreamland.