Broadway to Hollywood (1933)

Broadway to Hollywood is a through-the-years saga about a show business family. Frank Morgan and Alice Brady play vaudeville headliners of the 1880s whose fame is eclipsed by their son (played as a youth by Jackie Cooper, then as an adult by Russell Hardie). Morgan and Brady are reduced to bit roles in a musical starring their son and his wife (Madge Evans). Alas, Sonny spoils it all by drinking and philandering, while his wife dies in a freak accident. After Hardie is killed in World War One, Morgan and Brady raise Hardie's son, who grows from Mickey Rooney to Eddie Quillan and becomes a temperamental movie star. Grandpa Morgan gives Quillan a remonstrative on-set speech about professionalism, then drops dead as his chastened grandson goes back to work. Broadway to Hollywood is principally a showcase for several elaborate musical numbers originally filmed for MGM's abandoned 1930 extravaganza The March of Time. While the plotline veers towards the ridiculous, comedy buffs are advised to stick with the film for an uncredited appearance by Moe and Curly of the Three Stooges, both dressed in bizarre clown makeup and speaking in weird German accents. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi