User reviews

THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938 (Paramount, 1938), directed by Mitchell Leisen, is another one of those "plotless" musicals produced by Paramount in the 1930s, this being the most memorable mainly because it puts two comic legends on screen for the first and only time: W.C. Fields (in his final film for the studio) and Bob Hope as Buzz Fielding (in his feature film debut). Out with the old, in with the new. Yet Fields and Hope share no scenes together, with Hope getting more screen time than Fields (in a dual role playing twin brothers).

The radio broadcast, hosted by Hope himself, is set on an ocean liner during a transatlantic race with another. Memorable moments include W.C. Fields golf game routine, and Shirley Ross as one of Hope's ex-wives sharing her "Thanks for the Memory" with him. "Memory" would become Hope's theme song for the duration of his career, and the Academy Award winning tune of 1938. In spite of her name placed second in the cast, Martha Raye, as Fields' accident prone daughter, arrives late into the story, making the best of her "Oh, boys!" and hi-jinx antics, as well as her song number, "Mama, Oh, Mama." On the lighter side, Dorothy Lamour (who twice sings "You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart") is somewhat wasted with her limited footage as Hope's fiancé who may or may not become Mrs. Fielding No. 4.

Aside from Lynne Overman, Ben Blue, Grace Bradley and Leif Erickson participating in the storyline, the shipboard entertainment consists of special guest appearances from Shep Fields and his Rippling Rhythm Orchestra (singing "This Little Ripple Has Rhythm"); Tito Guizar (singing "Zumi-Zumi" and "Don't Tell a Secret to a Rose") and Kirsten Flagstad (performing Richard Wagner's "Brunnilde's Battle Cry"). With the exception of "Thanks for the Memory," the score by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger is forgettable. The big broadcast finale, "The Waltz Lives On" (sung by Hope and Ross) is passable, with Raye stepping into this number briefly with her hot jive "Truckin'". It's also interesting during that same number to see Hope dancing with Ross.

The final "Big Broadcast" musical consists of so much talent with little screen time, possibly victims of severe film editing. The theatrical trailer does include of Kirsten Flagstad performing in another opera segment not included in the final print. Although THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938 can be a disappointment with too little Fields and too many song numbers unrelated to the plot, it somehow gets by.

The musical-comedy did have frequent revivals on the American Movie Classics cable channel from 1995 to 1998. The license to air this was later picked up by Turner Classic Movies where it premiered June 18, 2001, as part of its "Star of the Month" tribute, W.C. Fields. Prior to the start of the movie, host Robert Osborne talked a bit about the this Big Broadcast installment, and the annual musicals that preceded it, starting with the one that launched Bing Crosby in 1932, and the second in the series THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1936. Yet, there was no mention at all about the third, THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1937, as if it never existed, jumping immediately to 1938. While the three "Big Broadcast" musicals are close to being forgotten today, the 1938 edition happens to be the only one of the four available on video cassette and later on DVD, as part of the double feature package with 1938's COLLEGE SWING, also featuring Martha Raye and the legendary Bob Hope. Thanks for the Memories.(***)

There are momentary gems in this movie, and I recently bought the DVD because I fondly remembered it from its television broadcasts during my childhood. Hope and Ross's "Thanks for the Memory" (that's the actual spelling; it isn't plural) is so well portrayed that it seems they are recalling actual moments from their lives. This is almost the only moment of sincerity in this otherwise farcical fluff-piece. Martha Raye's "Oh, Mama!" is eye-popping primarily because I believe she did her own stunts in it, and she is bandied about like an unlucky mouse caught by a gruesomely playful puss. WC Fields sparks frequent smirks with his ostentatious manner combined with total buffoonery. Dorothy Lamour is only pleasant; I don't believe she had yet found her spark for comedy that was later displayed in the Hope & Crosby Road Movies. Her song (she only gets one but sings it ad infinitum to Leif Erickson), along with the remainder of the musical score, is surprisingly engaging. All in all an enjoyable musical comedy review, designed so audiences could finally see the faces of the performers they invited into their living rooms through the radio.

The "plot" of this slapdash musical concerns a transatlantic ship race between two new "super-ships", the Gigantic and the Colossal. On board the former, S.B. Bellows (W.C. Fields), the brother of shipping line boss T. Frothingill Bellows (also Fields), tries to ensure that his ship wins, although he spends most of his times in drunken calamities. Also on board is entertainment host Buzz Fielding (Bob Hope), who takes time in between introducing musical acts to rekindle romance with one of his ex-wives (Shirley Ross), while his current girlfriend (Dorothy Lamour) falls for handsome ship radioman Bob (Leif Erickson). Things get even more chaotic when Bellows' daughter Martha (Martha Raye) comes aboard. Also featuring Ben Blue, Grace Bradley, Lynne Overman, Patricia Wilder, Rufe Davis, Lionel Pape, Virginia Hale, James Craig, Richard Denning, Monte Blue, Mae Busch, Leonid Kinskey, Bernard Punsly, and Russell Hicks.

Seemingly assembled from bits of different movies awkwardly stitched together, there's some funny stuff here, but no kind of pacing or interesting narrative. Fields, who was making his final Paramount film here, is funny, and his golf game and billiards game scenes are top notch. Bob Hope, making his feature debut, sings his signature song. I was pleasantly surprised to see future Road co-star Lamour already working with him. Martha Raye gets a rather impressive song and dance number that gets acrobatic and she obviously didn't use a double. The music numbers are an odd lot, too, with a couple of songs by Mexican star Tito Guizar, a performance from Norwegian opera diva Kirsten Flagstad (doing Wagner's "Brunnhilde's Battle Cry"), and Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra doing "This Little Ripple Had Rhythm" which combines live action with animation to show the "origin" of the "rippling rhythm", which apparently was an ambulatory blob of swamp water that separates from a bog and walks to Fields' band and teaches them. It makes as much sense as it sounds. The movie won the Oscar for Best Song ("Thanks for the Memory").

This was my third time in watching this movie when I popped the DVD in just now. It's notable as W.C. Fields' last for Paramount, and Bob Hope's first feature after years of doing shorts. It also marked the first time Hope performed what became his theme song-"Thanks for the Memory"-which, as performed here, was originally a bittersweet ditty of a love that had its ups and downs with Shirley Ross providing a nice share of wit in duetting with Hope in singing it. Fields is funny whether playing golf, pool, or trying to run the ship though I admit I rewinded some of his scenes to try to understand what he's saying! Two future Hope co-stars, Dorothy Lamour and Martha Raye, provide some charms along the way with Ms. Lamour singing a nice romantic ballad and Ms. Raye doing some great comic banter and slapstick. There's also some amusements from Ben Blue and a forgotten lady named Patricia Wilder as a Southern belle doing deadpan shtick. Oh, and an animated sequence produced by Leon Schlesinger though since he was just a money man, it could possibly have been helmed by whoever was the "supervisor" under him at the time like Fred "Tex" Avery, Robert Clampett, or Frank Tashlin. No great shakes but The Big Broadcast of 1938 is worth a look for historical reasons and if you find the people I mentioned entertaining.

The trans-Atlantic race is on between the two great ocean liners, the Colossal and the Gigantic. On board the Gigantic (or is it the Colossal? Not even all of the passengers are sure) is an assortment of characters who present us with a sort of variety show over the course of the voyage:

• W.C. Fields, ship's owner. He stops on the way to the pier for a game of golf ("Stand clear, keep your eye on the ball," he tells his large team of caddies) and so has to catch up with the ship by flying in on his mini-helicopter. He's nuts. He has a daughter...

• Martha Raye: According to pop Fields, "She's an unfortunate girl….Seven years ago, she crashed an aeroplane in a mirror factory. Broke 9,831 mirrors."

• Bob Hope: A radio announcer broadcasting updates on the race, he is accompanied on the journey by his three ex-wives, who intend to prevent prospective wife number four from cutting into their alimony checks ("She can't chisel me down to any 25%....").

• Dorothy Lamour, who has second thoughts about becoming that fourth wife when she meets…

• Leif Erickson, handsome and brilliant young engineer who has designed the special propulsion system for the ship.

• Shirley Ross, one of the ex-wives. She and Hope get to chatting and can't quite remember why they ever divorced in the first place.

The plot is an uneven mishmash, but some good songs stand out. Lamour sings "You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart," a lovely ballad. Raye does one called, "Mama, That Moon Is Here Again," which builds into a wild acrobatic dance in which sailors toss Martha all around the deck. The performance by Hope and Ross of "Thanks for the Memory" is truly excellent—it's a bittersweet song that we all know and yet it actually means something in its context of two old lovers hashing over regrets and falling back in love. It's a wonderfully touching and low key performance.

In between these highlights is a lot of nonsense, some of it amusing. The plot doesn't exactly buzz along—it stops and starts too much before ultimately drawing to a rather hasty resolution at the end of the voyage. It is kind of like of a big broadcast, a radio all star variety program, I suppose. Taken as a whole, it's really not that great a picture—but it's certainly worth seeing for the sake of its numerous highlights.

One must have at least a passing familiarity with the 1930s to understand and/or enjoy "The Big Broadcast of 1938". Without that, the movie is a curio piece to be remembered only as Bob Hope's first major film appearance and the one where he first sang "Thanks for the Memory" (soon to be his theme); W.C. Fields's last film for Paramount; and, perhaps if you're of a certain age, Martha Raye and Dorothy Lamour.

"The Big Broadcast of . . . " series of films were strictly pastiche: an odd mixture of familiar film faces, radio personalities, and vaudeville, burlesque and novelty acts with an extremely loose storyline stringing it all together. For 10¢ and the B-picture with an A-picture double-bill, the movie would have hit the spot for most Depression-era movie-goers.

The humour and jokes are pretty period specific, making the movies already out-of-date even ten years later. Without a map and a compass, the territory would be unfamiliar to audiences 70 years later. But that's not unique to "The Big Broadcast of . . . " series either. How well will "Canonball Run", "Airplane", "Scary Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" (all products of their time) hold up in 70 years? As others have stated, the best segment of the film is Hope and Shirley Ross singing the very tender and bittersweet, "Thanks for the Memory". Don't expect much from "The Big Broadcast of 1938", view it as the mind-candy of your great-, grand- or parents' generation.

If The Big Broadcast of 1938 is remembered today it's for the fact that it introduced Bob Hope in his first feature film and at the same time gave him his theme song Thanks for the Memory. Hope was billed fifth in this production behind W.C.Fields, Martha Raye, Dorothy Lamour, and Shirley Ross.

It was in fact a Fields film, but it was also to be Fields's last film for Paramount and everyone knew it. Though there are some flashes of typical Fields humor, basically Fields staggers through the role, a dual role in fact of two brothers, owners of a transatlantic steamship line.

The very thin plot of this film is the fact that two big luxury liners are in a race from New York to Cherbourg with a lot of money in various bets on the race. In fact that's where Bob Hope's money is, tied up in wagers. If he loses, his three ex-wives are going to clobber him with alimony, the three former spouses being Shirley Ross, Dorothy Lamour, and Grace Bradley.

All three are on board one of the liners with Hope who's a broadcaster and will be broadcasting the race on a worldwide hookup.

Of course the plot is simply a convenience to allow a lot of talented people to show their stuff and they do. Besides Thanks for the Memory, Dorothy Lamour has a very nice song in You Took The Words Right Out Of My Heart which she sings to aspiring inventor Leif Erickson.

Thanks for the Memory is sung here and later recorded as a duet by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross. Ms. Ross's part in introducing what became the Oscar winning Best Song of 1938 is usually forgotten. Shirley Ross is also undeservedly forgotten herself today. She had a pleasing screen personality, a bit like Alice Faye and a good way with a lyric, just like Faye. Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger wrote Thanks for the Memory, probably the biggest hit that songwriting team ever had.

The Big Broadcast of 1938 was the last in a series of Big Broadcast films. By then I guess radio wasn't such a novelty gimmick to weave a film around. The first Big Broadcast gave Hope's lifetime rival, Bing Crosby, his first feature film starring role.

The film is part of an era of wonderful nonsense on the screen that was never concerned with any message of significance, just with providing the public with good entertainment. And with the cast of this film, it's guaranteed to be good entertainment.

The plot for this film is a bit odd...but funny. W.C. Fields plays two roles--two identical twins who own a cruise line. One is a crafty businessman and the other a guy who always seems to have things around him fall apart. The smart brother arranges to have the dopey jinx ride aboard the Colossal because it's own by a rival company and he hopes some disaster will befall the ship--especially since one of their ships, the Gigantic, is racing to Europe with the Colossal. Unfortunately, the dopey brother lands on the wrong ship--the one owned by him and his brother. Due to his actions, the ship seems destined to lose! Things appear to get worse when the ship picks up some shipwrecked people--as one is the jinxed brother's daughter (Martha Raye) who is even more of a walking disaster area than her father! In addition to the main plot, there are a variety subplots involving various people aboard the boat as well as quite a few acts that play aboard the boat to entertain the guests. It comes off like a short movie padded with a variety show. One of the most prominently featured is Bob Hope (in his first full-length film) as the emcee of the bizarre variety show that seems to always be taking place through the cruise. There's a lot more to the film--including a couple romances for Hope (including one with Dorothy Lamour) and a bizarre golf game with Fields that is rather reminiscent of his short "The Golf Specialist" and "International House" (in regard to how he leaves the game and arrives at the boat). Overall, there are so many disparate plot elements and TONS of singing that the film seems like a weird melange that doesn't always work. It has lots of nice moments (mostly with Fields) but many more that fall flat (most of the musical numbers are, at best, adequate and a few of Fields' antics are a bit tiresome).

For lovers of Fields or Hope, their appearances are a bit diluted by the crazy patchwork style of the film. While the film IS interesting, it's not especially good and is best described as a time-passer. Hope, Fields and the rest clearly have done better films than this one, though it isn't particularly bad, either.

I really don't understand what some people expect when they watch an old movie like this. This one in my estimation, is light hearted and entertaining. It is a showcase for some of our greatest stars as they were just starting out. Is it their best effort? Probably not. But it is fun to watch if you don't take it too seriously. I'm awfully glad we have it around to watch. Being a fan of almost every star in it, I consider it a treasure chest of many favorites talent. W.C. Fields is wonderful through out the film. Some of his skits are hilarious! Bob Hope is so good in his role that you have to really feel sorry for his character. Of course the song "Thanks For The Memories" is forever linked to him with this film. Martha Ray is hilarious in another one of her zany roles. All in all, a very good and entertaining film to be watched over and over. A real, or reel part of history.

This was the first Bob Hope film I'd ever seen, and I saw it on Hope's 100th birthday in Cleveland, Ohio where he'd grown up. Although I liked some of the other 10 films in the Cinematheque tribute, this was probably my least favorite, but it did have its moments . . . and memories. Does anyone else think that Walter Matthau sounds a little like W.c. Fields in this film?

A bad movie, but with one reel that is worth savoring. For most of the film, the jokes are bad, the songs are bad, even W.C. Fields is bad. Then there is one sequence with Bob Hope and his movie-ex; the dialogue is witty and the song (a version of "Thanks for the Memories") light, cynical and delightful. Who parachuted in for this one bit? Yet it makes the whole thing worth the original 25 cents admission.

Overall I was not overly impressed with the movie. It was a nice evening's entertainment. There are a couple of good scenes and the best by far (that makes the whole movie worth watching!) is the scene with Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in the ship's bar. They sing "Thanks For The Memories" which Bob took as his own theme song. Without a doubt it is the best rendition of that song I have ever heard. When the movie was over I backed it up just so I could see it again.

This movie would have improved had the ship that WC Fields is piloting struck those icebergs about five minutes in and sank without survivors. It is a sequence of dull acts loosely strung on the strand of a trans-Atlantic race. Some of the stuff is meant to be dull -- like the bad jokes with which Bob Hope tries to keep his radio show going once Ben Blue has broken all the records (78s, that is)and like the stupid "play" performed by a woman who comes on to help Hope out. The rest is awful. The Fields part is badly written (presumably by Russel Crouse) and takes no advantage of Fields' ability to deliver the cynical aside (compare "Poppy" or "The Bank Dick"). Martha Raye comes aboard to smash mirrors with her mere glance and to perform a vulgar dance with a bunch of sailors. Kirsten Flagsted delivers Wagner at his worse and does sound like an animal howling, as Fields said (in lines cut from the film). Shep Fields' band accompanies the dull story of a water drop. The big production number is a numbing tribute to the waltz. The only redeeming moment is Hope and Shirley Ross singing the Academy Award winner that year, "Thanks for the Memories." Hope reveals a vulnerable side that he quickly shelved. And Ross, of course, disappeared, to be replaced by Dorothy Lamour, whom we glimpse briefly in this film. A waste of talent and money and a waste of time for the viewer who savors the films of the 1930s.

As a curio with Bob Hope and W. C. Fields--that alone is worth the 25 cent admission. Throw in Ben Blue, Martha Raye. If the viewer had never before seen W. C. Fields, then his shtick is hilarious as well as bent. Bob Hope plays Bob Hope and forever solidifies a film and television persona that never deviates from the real Bob Hope.

Early in the movie, Fields leaves from a golf course and flies in a self-propelled bicycle toward his boat; in the background, the viewer can see what looks like San Francisco's Ocean Beach, circa 1938. Or at least it looks that way to this viewer.

Bob Hope and Shirley Ross sing the touching and moving ballad: "Thanks for the Memory." The highlight of the movie and that alone makes the movie worth watching. It got me to thinking about other songs about memory and time passing. "As Time Goes By." found in CASABLANCA. "September Song" with Walter Huston narrating more than singing. Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold singing "I Remember it Well" in GIGI. "Sunrise, Sunset" from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. "Memories" that Barbra Striesand sings. Isn't there a song in CATS about memories as well? "Send in the Clowns" from A LITTLLE NIGHT MUSIC by Stephen Sondheim. "My Cup Runneth Over" from THE FANTASTICS. All of these songs evocative of time lost, time past. Innocence lost.

It's not a great movie; yet it has a certain sophistication thanks mainly to that song, that so many modern comedies seem to be lacking.

This movie is very dear to me. I saw it on late-night TV when I was about 12 years old, tape-recorded the sound track and listened to it over and over again. This is a movie that has everything: wacky W. C. Fields bits like his golf and pool routines, Bob Hope bombing out with the crowd on the ship (imagine, in his first movie role he can't even raise a laugh!), bizarre but charming performers like Shep Fields with his Rippling Rhythm orchestra (whom Lawrence Welk obviously ripped off), accompanied by an even more bizarre animated segment.

It's almost like watching a '30s stage revue of really gifted and varied performers, including a Mexican singer so beautiful he must be gay, and Martha Raye doing her foghorn bit. But the crowning glory of this film is the funny and poignant duet, Thanks for the Memory, with Bob Hope and Shirley Ross.

Most people know the tune as Bob's theme song, but few know the clever, tender, almost Dorothy Parker-like lyrics. This is the story of a sophisticated but madcap couple, not unlike Nick and Nora Charles, running through money like water, traveling the world, and finding bliss in bed. Each verse tells a little bit more of their story in an arch, clever way that is never too trite because of Shirley Ross's marvelous acting. Her facial expressions reveal the deeper story underneath the actual events, a couple who were madly in love but stormy and tempestuous, with fights that may have included screaming and hair-pulling.

Shirley makes reference to "the night you came home with lipstick on your tie", making it sound like an uproarious joke, while Bob rolls his eyes in discomfort. He sings of "that weekend in Niagara when we hardly saw the falls," and Ross murmurs, "How lovely that was." "Thank you," Bob replies.

This is a fresh and sensitive take on what could be a very sentimental song, and I can never see it without tearing up at the end. This movie is worth renting or buying, if you can find it, as a great example of '30s entertainment with the bonus of a truly great "love-lost" song.

This was the fourth and last in a series of "Big Broadcast" movies made by Paramount over a period of seven years; they were essentially the studio's reply to MGM's run of "Broadway Melody" releases. I've watched two among the latter franchise (see below and the 1940 entry) but this is my first brush with the "Big Broadcast" series; comparing the two, it seems the MGM films had much more plot than Paramount's – but the latter, to their ultimate advantage, incorporated much more comedy. In this particular case, we get two(!) W.C. Fields and, in his screen debut, Bob Hope; the former is his typical larger-than-life and iconoclastic self (traveling on a motorbike that can spread its wings and fly!) – who manages to revive two of his favorite game routines i.e. golf and billiards – while the latter is already the wisecracking heel (who has four wives to his name and another in the offing!) emceeing the entertainment aboard one of two cruise-liners engaged in a race. The show involves several long-forgotten (and now highly-resistible) attractions – ranging from a Mexican heart-throb to a female soprano – and even a bland bit of animation (courtesy of Leon Schlesinger from Warners' "Looney Tunes" stable). Needless to say, there is the obligatory romance as well – between Hope's proposed No. 5 wife Dorothy Lamour and inventor Leif Erickson, Hope's own re-affirmed affection for ex-spouse Shirley Ross (while singing his signature tune, the Oscar-winning "Thanks For The Memory") and between Fields' even wackier daughter Martha Raye and her companion Lynne Overman. All the various stars (including a redundant third comic in Ben Blue) get to do their thing, but the laughter element is clearly the most effective – with Fields' surreal antics (the best of which, perhaps, is when he unwittingly blows up a gas station) and Hope's quips mixing quite well (though the two barely ever meet throughout!). Most of the music, then, is pretty dire (as already intimated), while the choreography includes an energetic number highlighting Raye and the expected splashy finale. At least, director Leisen (who had also helmed the previous entry from 1937) lends the film his customary surface style.

Pauline Kael gave this movie a good review but it is terrible. It is very outdated , the humour is silly and the music is forgetable.In fact it is so silly it is almost embarrassing. It might have been some fun in 1938 but I can not imagine anyone enjoying it in 2003.

Lots of mainly young and beautiful stars of the thirties appear in this movie. Dorothy Lamour and Shirley Ross are knockouts with the zany Martha Raye as a comic foil. This is a great movie for black and white buffs.

Some classic scenes in this movie:

W. C. Fields in his best golf playing scenes ever.

Martha Raye hugging and puffing with her big mouth against a sail to keep a life raft sailing toward a big ocean liner.

Kirsten Flagstad from the Metropolitan opera delivering a Wagner aria.

But the piece de resistance is Shirley and Bob singing what would later become Bob Hope's Theme song, "Thanks for the Memory."

Although not listed in the cast, I saw Lucille Ball, probably with the most lines of any of her thirties' movies.

Paramount did a bunch of musicals in the '30s that were essentially variety shows with plots tacked on, and here's one of the most lavish examples. Based on a story by the august team of Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, it uses a transatlantic ocean liner race as the clothesline to hang all the finery on. Bob Hope, fifth-billed, is the on-board emcee, and he reveals some sides to his personality we don't usually get to see. Notably, there's real tenderness in his "Thanks for the Memory" duet with the excellent Shirley Ross, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to call it one of the great screen duets. The whole score, by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin, is terrific, and you'll also love the humongous "The Waltz Lives On" sequence, Paramount's attempt to outdo MGM's huge "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" extravaganza in "The Great Ziegfeld." Martha Raye has a lively comedy number with some hunky sailors that looks like an "Anything Goes" outtake, and among the variety acts, Kirsten Flagstad lends some class with a bit of Wagner. It's a silly story, unevenly paced, and I don't love W.C. Fields as much as many others do, though he has a reasonably funny golf sequence here. What impresses is that we get a wide variety of '30s performance styles, and some very fine performers, and it never takes itself seriously. Postscript: One of my earliest memories of living in New York is seeing the film's lyricist, Leo Robin, at the 92nd Street "Y" in 1981 or so. He was quite old, but he got up on that stool and whispered the lyrics to "Thanks for the Memory," which are superb, and by the time he got to "And strictly entre nous, Darling, how are you," I was spellbound.