Successful journeyman director with taste, Mitchell Leisin was responsible for many films of distinction like DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY, KITTY, HOLD BACK THE DAWN, and TO EACH HIS OWN. But he had to do many films that annoyed him for one reason or another. Occasionally a film he put a lot of time and effort into (LADY IN THE DARK, for example) was taken out of his hand and re-cut to it's detriment. Sometimes he was given inferior material to work with. He hated the material that became THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938.
He was highly capable as a musical director. Besides LADY IN THE DARK, he did MURDER AT THE VANITIES (which introduced COCKTALES FOR TWO). But this project was dropped on him because of other projects he wanted to do. The key to understanding this was that it was the last film for Paramount that W.C.Fields was to do. To his fans, Fields was a great comic artist - one of the greatest film personalities of his time if not of all time. But he was, in the words of Leisin, "the most ornery S.O.B. I ever met!"
Fields kept on making demands in the production, such as a share of the writing credits (so that he could make more money from the studio). He also interfered in scenes where he was not wanted. Leisin, a man of culture and taste, put Kirsten Flagstad into the film in a segment. But Fields muscled into a sequence around the pre-filmed segment of Flagstad singing "The Ride of the Valkyrie" from SIEGFRIED, and made a crack that he thought it was a squawking animal. Leisin hated this, and subsequently announced in Fields' hearing that Miss Flagstad's agent was planning to sue the studio if the line was kept in. Fields raised no objection to the line being taken out.
It's an odd musical. Like all the BIG BROADCAST movies it centers on radio and the personalities on it. But here we have the Gigantic - Colossal ocean liner race across the Atlantic, with Leif Ericson's revolutionary turbine engine that works on radio waves. It's doubtful that something like this would work, but the audience was there to be entertained. T. Frothingham Bellows (Fields in his first role) is sending his brother (S.B.Bellows) to board the Colossal (the reason is that S.B. is a jinx - he has been in every major ship disaster since the sinking of the Merrimac*). But S.B. ends up on the Gigantic, and does a great deal of damage before he realizes his error. To add to his bad effect, his daughter Martha (Martha Raye) is rescued with her boyfriend Scoop (Lynn Overmann). Martha is a jinx too (she crashed a plane into a mirror factory seven years before).
(*This is not, as I thought, a reference to the scuttling of the Confederate ironclad Virginia (i.e. the Merrimac) in May 1862. Bellows would be too young for that. It is a reference to the scuttling of the collier U.S.S. Merrimac by Lt. Richmond Hobson and his crew in June 1898 in Santiago Harbor, in a doomed attempt to bottle up Admiral Cevera's Spanish fleet in the Spanish American War. Hobson won the congressional medal of honor for the action. As that was forty years before the movie, S.B. could have been on the scene.)
The entertainment on the ship is handled by the much married Buzz Fielding (Bob Hope) and his assistant (Ben Blue). Hope was married to three women, all of whom are on board to make sure he continues paying alimony. His recent fiancé is Dorothy (Dorothy Lamour), but she gradually becomes closer to Leif Erickson. However, Hope slowly becomes closer to his first wife, Cleo (Shirley Ross). The film's one classic moment was their singing "Thanks For The Memories". Hope, in later years, criticized his singing of the song - it's done very wistfully and sadly, as it should be. He should not have been so harsh, as it became his theme song (not to mention the Oscar winning song of the year).
As a pleasant time killer THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938 is okay. It is not a film for the ages - and Mitchell Leisin would have agreed to that judgment. After it was completed he suffered his first heart attack, due to the strain of working with Fields. He never worked with Fields again. Fortunately he went on to better films. For Leisin's sake (and in honor of his health hazard) I'll give it a "7".
He was highly capable as a musical director. Besides LADY IN THE DARK, he did MURDER AT THE VANITIES (which introduced COCKTALES FOR TWO). But this project was dropped on him because of other projects he wanted to do. The key to understanding this was that it was the last film for Paramount that W.C.Fields was to do. To his fans, Fields was a great comic artist - one of the greatest film personalities of his time if not of all time. But he was, in the words of Leisin, "the most ornery S.O.B. I ever met!"
Fields kept on making demands in the production, such as a share of the writing credits (so that he could make more money from the studio). He also interfered in scenes where he was not wanted. Leisin, a man of culture and taste, put Kirsten Flagstad into the film in a segment. But Fields muscled into a sequence around the pre-filmed segment of Flagstad singing "The Ride of the Valkyrie" from SIEGFRIED, and made a crack that he thought it was a squawking animal. Leisin hated this, and subsequently announced in Fields' hearing that Miss Flagstad's agent was planning to sue the studio if the line was kept in. Fields raised no objection to the line being taken out.
It's an odd musical. Like all the BIG BROADCAST movies it centers on radio and the personalities on it. But here we have the Gigantic - Colossal ocean liner race across the Atlantic, with Leif Ericson's revolutionary turbine engine that works on radio waves. It's doubtful that something like this would work, but the audience was there to be entertained. T. Frothingham Bellows (Fields in his first role) is sending his brother (S.B.Bellows) to board the Colossal (the reason is that S.B. is a jinx - he has been in every major ship disaster since the sinking of the Merrimac*). But S.B. ends up on the Gigantic, and does a great deal of damage before he realizes his error. To add to his bad effect, his daughter Martha (Martha Raye) is rescued with her boyfriend Scoop (Lynn Overmann). Martha is a jinx too (she crashed a plane into a mirror factory seven years before).
(*This is not, as I thought, a reference to the scuttling of the Confederate ironclad Virginia (i.e. the Merrimac) in May 1862. Bellows would be too young for that. It is a reference to the scuttling of the collier U.S.S. Merrimac by Lt. Richmond Hobson and his crew in June 1898 in Santiago Harbor, in a doomed attempt to bottle up Admiral Cevera's Spanish fleet in the Spanish American War. Hobson won the congressional medal of honor for the action. As that was forty years before the movie, S.B. could have been on the scene.)
The entertainment on the ship is handled by the much married Buzz Fielding (Bob Hope) and his assistant (Ben Blue). Hope was married to three women, all of whom are on board to make sure he continues paying alimony. His recent fiancé is Dorothy (Dorothy Lamour), but she gradually becomes closer to Leif Erickson. However, Hope slowly becomes closer to his first wife, Cleo (Shirley Ross). The film's one classic moment was their singing "Thanks For The Memories". Hope, in later years, criticized his singing of the song - it's done very wistfully and sadly, as it should be. He should not have been so harsh, as it became his theme song (not to mention the Oscar winning song of the year).
As a pleasant time killer THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938 is okay. It is not a film for the ages - and Mitchell Leisin would have agreed to that judgment. After it was completed he suffered his first heart attack, due to the strain of working with Fields. He never worked with Fields again. Fortunately he went on to better films. For Leisin's sake (and in honor of his health hazard) I'll give it a "7".