"Lord Byron of Broadway" and "Chasing Rainbows" were intended to be MGM's blockbuster movies of 1930 after "The Broadway Melody" but both were flops. "Chasing Rainbows" was shelved for 6 months (it was made in mid 1929) so it failed to capitalize on it's hit song "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Lord Byron of Broadway" was hampered by the fact that the two leads were complete film novices. Charles Kaley, a Richard Arlen look alike, was known as the "Singing Band Leader" of vaudeville and Ethelind Terry had originated the role of "Rio Rita". Compared to these two Marion Shilling was a movie veteran, having made a movie "Wise Girls" the year before. Fortunately the score by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed was great.
The bottom of the barrel story had Kaley as an egotistical song writer, Roy Erskine, whose strange way of becoming inspired was to exploit personal events in his friends lives, eg when Bessie (Gwen Lee) shows him some letters written by an old beau, Roy pens "A Bundle of Old Love Letters". He sweet talks Nancy (Shilling) a music store manager into making a piano copy of it and before you know it, it is being introduced by Joe Lundeen (Cliff Edwards, the best actor in the movie, who brings pathos to his role), at the local vaudeville house. Before you know it they have teamed up with Joe - Roy supplying the songs and pretty Nancy at the piano but Roy finds it impossible to stop his roving eye and Nancy is heartbroken.
There is an attempt at innovation - a montage of piano keys tinkling over a Broadway skyline and there is a blazing Technicolor sequence in a nightclub. "Blue Daughter of Heaven" is a Chinese inspired ballet choreographed by Albertina Rasch to music written by her husband Dimitri Tiomkin. The dance also featured some early overhead camera work - that reveals some pretty out of step dancers. Roy then sings the catchy "Should I Reveal".
Enter temptress Ardiss Trevelyan (Terry) a high class singer and another conquest for Roy. She takes the act to the big time - the Amsterdam Theatre. Another spectacular color production - "The Woman in the Shoe" is very reminiscent of "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" number from "The Broadway Melody", looked like the same dancers wearing the same costumes. The dance has a nursery rhyme theme with a line of chorus girls dressed up as "4 and 20 blackbirds" and Ardiss, in a beautiful spangley dress with an ostrich feather fan, sings the song.
Joe has something he wants to get off his chest, he is married to Ardiss but when he is mocked and berated by Roy he runs into the night and is killed in a car accident. Nancy realises how low Roy is when he tries to publish a song about Joe - "Old Pal, Why Did You Leave Me" - she feels it is cheap and tasteless. That only leaves about 10 minutes for Roy to hit rock bottom and take to the bottle before he realises that Nancy has been the girl for him all along. Is it any wonder the picture was a flop. The critics were scathing, feeling the inexperienced cast was partly to blame. Kaley and Terry didn't receive any more offers and Shilling, who was pretty bad I thought, soon found herself in shorts and low budget movies. The only person to earn ticks, in my opinion, was "Ukelele Ike" - his rendition of "Japanese Sandman" at least had get up and go!!!
Also the reason there were two directors credited. The film's producer, Harry Rapf lost a fortune in the stock market crash (which happened during the film's production) and when he saw the first rough cut he wanted to scrap the whole film but ended up bringing in Harry Beaumont to replace William Nigh and Benny Rubin was bought in to liven the film up!!!
The bottom of the barrel story had Kaley as an egotistical song writer, Roy Erskine, whose strange way of becoming inspired was to exploit personal events in his friends lives, eg when Bessie (Gwen Lee) shows him some letters written by an old beau, Roy pens "A Bundle of Old Love Letters". He sweet talks Nancy (Shilling) a music store manager into making a piano copy of it and before you know it, it is being introduced by Joe Lundeen (Cliff Edwards, the best actor in the movie, who brings pathos to his role), at the local vaudeville house. Before you know it they have teamed up with Joe - Roy supplying the songs and pretty Nancy at the piano but Roy finds it impossible to stop his roving eye and Nancy is heartbroken.
There is an attempt at innovation - a montage of piano keys tinkling over a Broadway skyline and there is a blazing Technicolor sequence in a nightclub. "Blue Daughter of Heaven" is a Chinese inspired ballet choreographed by Albertina Rasch to music written by her husband Dimitri Tiomkin. The dance also featured some early overhead camera work - that reveals some pretty out of step dancers. Roy then sings the catchy "Should I Reveal".
Enter temptress Ardiss Trevelyan (Terry) a high class singer and another conquest for Roy. She takes the act to the big time - the Amsterdam Theatre. Another spectacular color production - "The Woman in the Shoe" is very reminiscent of "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" number from "The Broadway Melody", looked like the same dancers wearing the same costumes. The dance has a nursery rhyme theme with a line of chorus girls dressed up as "4 and 20 blackbirds" and Ardiss, in a beautiful spangley dress with an ostrich feather fan, sings the song.
Joe has something he wants to get off his chest, he is married to Ardiss but when he is mocked and berated by Roy he runs into the night and is killed in a car accident. Nancy realises how low Roy is when he tries to publish a song about Joe - "Old Pal, Why Did You Leave Me" - she feels it is cheap and tasteless. That only leaves about 10 minutes for Roy to hit rock bottom and take to the bottle before he realises that Nancy has been the girl for him all along. Is it any wonder the picture was a flop. The critics were scathing, feeling the inexperienced cast was partly to blame. Kaley and Terry didn't receive any more offers and Shilling, who was pretty bad I thought, soon found herself in shorts and low budget movies. The only person to earn ticks, in my opinion, was "Ukelele Ike" - his rendition of "Japanese Sandman" at least had get up and go!!!
Also the reason there were two directors credited. The film's producer, Harry Rapf lost a fortune in the stock market crash (which happened during the film's production) and when he saw the first rough cut he wanted to scrap the whole film but ended up bringing in Harry Beaumont to replace William Nigh and Benny Rubin was bought in to liven the film up!!!