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Broadway Rhythm

Broadway Rhythm
BroadwayRhythm.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
Produced by Jack Cummings
Written by Screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley and Harry Clork
story by Jack McGowan
Based on the musical
Very Warm for May
by Jerome Kern and
Oscar Hammerstein, 2nd.
Starring George Murphy
Ginny Simms
Music by Musical direction and supervision Johnny Green
Cinematography Leonard Smith, A.S.C.
Edited by Albert Akst
Production
company
Release date
  • January 19, 1944 (1944-01-19)
Running time
115 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Broadway Rhythm (1944) is an MGM Technicolor musical film. It was produced by Jack Cummings and directed by Roy Del Ruth.

The film was originally announced as Broadway Melody of 1944 to follow MGM's Broadway Melody films of 1929, 1936, 1938, and 1940. It was originally slated to star Eleanor Powell and Gene Kelly, but Louis B. Mayer and MGM loaned Kelly out to Columbia to play opposite Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl (1944). The film instead starred George Murphy, who had appeared in Broadway Melody of 1938 and Broadway Melody of 1940. Mayer then replaced Powell with Ginny Simms.

Other cast members included Charles Winninger, Gloria DeHaven, Lena Horne, Nancy Walker, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, the Ross Sisters, and Ben Blue, as well as Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra.

Murphy plays a successful Broadway musical comedy producer named Johnnie Demming. He needs a star for his new show. He’s smitten with the glamorous film star, Helen Hoyt (Simms), and offers the part to her, but she turns him down because she wants to be sure she’s in a hit. Johnnie’s father (Winninger), retired from vaudeville, wants to do his own show. He gets his daughter, Patsy (DeHaven) and also Helen. Johnnie feels betrayed by his father.

The film is very loosely based on the Broadway musical Very Warm for May (1939). However, all the songs from the musical except for "All the Things You Are" were left out of the film. Some of the songs from the movie are by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II:


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