User reviews

Virginia Mayo is largely associated with lightweight Danny Kaye movies and occasional dramatic roles ('White Heat' and 'The Best Years of Our Lives'). "She's Back on Broadway" is an attempt to star Ms Mayo in a musical with some real substance to it. This movie fails at most of what it sets out to do, but it's an interesting failure with some genuine merit and some good performances.

Several months before starring in "She's Back on Broadway", Virginia Mayo starred in another Warners film which is better than this one: "She's Working Her Way Through College". These two films are not related, but their similar titles and similarity of tone suggest that somebody at Warners was trying to exercise an overall strategy for Mayo's film career.

In "She's Back on Broadway", Mayo plays Catherine Terriss, a Hollywood actress who starred in several movies a while back, but whose film career is now idling. (Ironically, Mayo herself was never as great a star as the character she plays here!) The opening scene grabs our attention, and promises that this will be no typical frothy musical. Catherine is sitting at the pool of her movie-star mansion, reading a newspaper headline about another film actress who has just committed suicide. The other actress was only slightly older than Catherine, with a similar career arc: Catherine tells her manager (the excellent Larry Keating) that she's afraid she'll land up the same way. Desperate to give her career a jolt, she quits Hollywood and returns to where she started: Broadway. Using her own savings, she bankrolls a stage musical and hires big-deal director Rick Sommers to direct it.

Sommers is played by Steve Cochran, an underrated actor who never got the career he deserved ... possibly because Cochran had leading-man looks but his talents were geared more towards character roles. He gives a fine performance in this movie as the dynamic Broadway director, but Cochran is lumbered with some gimmicky dialogue. After giving his cast a spirited pep-talk, he abruptly relaxes and tells them something which contradicts everything he's already said: 'You'll find we're very easily satisfied...' Then, before this can sink in, he straight away changes mood again and barks: '...with perfection! And nothing less!'

Gene Nelson (an ingratiating song-and-dance man whose gymnastic talents were never properly utilised) auditions for a role in the show. He barely sings four bars before Cochran tells him to come back tomorrow '...and bring a pen'. There's an annoying and unfunny running gag about a pawky and untalented young man who auditions as a bass singer, as a baritone, as a tenor ... until Cochran finally casts him in a non-speaking part so he won't show up at the audition for sopranos! I found all of the audition and rehearsal sequences in this film extremely unrealistic.

The problem with "She's Back on Broadway" is that its plot isn't gripping enough to succeed as straight drama, and its songs aren't tuneful enough for this to be more than a sub-average musical. All of the songs are dull and unmemorable. Gene Nelson never gets a chance to cut loose with the spectacular acrobatics he displayed in other films. (I still savour the incredible standing back salto he performed in 'Tea for Two', with its Olympic-class amplitude.) The 'best' song here (not saying much) is 'Breakfast in Bed', a tinkly little ditty performed by Mayo in a ludicrous costume. Steve Condos, formerly of the Condos Brothers, does a jazzy dance number that has him bojangling his way up and down a tiny plywood staircase.

SPOILERS??? COMING. We get a lot of turgid dialogue here about how everybody's career is at stake, and everybody is taking huge risks ... but it's absolutely no surprise at all that the Broadway show is (of course) a huge hit. "She's Back on Broadway" keeps threatening to be something much more substantial than just another let's-put-on-a-show story, but never lives up to the promise of that starkly dramatic first scene. This film is a pleasant time-passer with glimpses of greatness. I'll rate "She's Back on Broadway" 5 out of 10.

Virginia Mayo sings, she dances and she also romances in this her latest musical/romance/drama feature film. Mayo plays a big Hollywood star named Catherine/Cathy Terris a 27 year old actress whose star is somewhat dimming lately so her agent Mitchell Parks (Larry Keating) convinces her to go back to where her career all started six (6) years earlier and that is back on the live musical Broadway stage. Unbeknownst to Cathy she agrees to do a Broadway stage show until she finds out that the director is her former lover Rick Sommers (Steve Cochran) who has it in for Cathy since he feels she just abruptly left Broadway six (6) years ago selfishly leaving Rick to fend for himself without her by his side.

It's not an original story but the two leads Virginia Mayo and Steve Cochran have great on screen chemistry and this little song and dance film flows smoothly with mayo singing and dancing and flashing her gams.

I give it a tap tapping 6 out of 10 IMDB rating. Well worth watching for any TCM appreciative fan.

Once upon a time a young director played by Steve Cochran took a young lady from the chorus and made her a Broadway star. The two fell in love and it should have been a storybook ending. But the new star left the play after six months and Virginia Mayo found success in Hollywood.

Now with her career slipping Mayo is thinking maybe Broadway will give her another vehicle to revive a now sagging career. At least producer Frank Lovejoy thinks it will if he can only get Cochran back as the director. In any event, She's Back On Broadway.

I counted 25 different songs in the score, some original, some from the considerable library at Warner Brothers, in any event they were kind of lucky to get the plot in. Helping with the musical numbers because God knows Frank Lovejoy and Steve Cochran had little talent in that direction was Gene Nelson who's singing and dancing complemented Mayo.

The story gets the short shrift here as the numbers are just piled in. A pity because Cochran and Mayo should have gotten more non- musical time in She's Back On Broadway.

Catherine Terris (Virginia Mayo) is an actress whose films have recently been bombs. So her agent convinces her to return to Broadway where she had her first successes and then, if this goes well, she can return to Hollywood. But she didn't count on having her old lover, Rick (Steve Cochran), directing the show....and they both have a lot of baggage from this old romance. Not surprisingly, Rick ends up resenting the heck out of her...and he treats her like dirt. Soon the two can't stand each other and the show might not be a go after all.

While Virginia Mayo is known most for playing molls and various light parts for Warner Brothers, here she gets to sing and dance...and while she's not the greatest actress in these roles, she's quite good. It's nice to see a different side of this actress...even if I don't adore song and dance numbers. Plus the film simply had too many of these numbers...as if we are getting to see almost the entire Broadway show. Had they cut a bit of this, it would have made the film a bit more interesting. Still, the film fits the bill if you're looking for a pleasant time-passer.

SHE'S BACK ON Broadway (1953), the sixth and final film to pair actors Virginia Mayo and Steve Cochran, is the first in which their romance takes center stage and the first in which Cochran is something of a good guy. For the record, the others are: WONDER MAN, THE KID FROM BROOKLYN, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, A SONG IS BORN and WHITE HEAT and they were romantically involved in all but the first two. This one doesn't quite have the lusty passion of their perilous, ill-fated fling in WHITE HEAT, but the outcome is much more pleasant for both of them (although not nearly as dramatically compelling). It's a different kind of character for Cochran, with a greater degree of emotional vulnerability than we're used to seeing in the tough guy actor. His lingering resentment of Mayo for leaving him six years earlier leads to some pretty obnoxious behavior on his part and I can't say I felt much sympathy for him. Get over it, dude, and get on with the show. In any event, Cochran just doesn't seem suited for the role of a celebrated director of Broadway musicals. He's much too rough-hewn for this rarefied setting. It's a safe bet his character wasn't modeled on George Abbott or Jerome Robbins.

The musical numbers tend to dominate the film, which doesn't leave much room for character development—on either of their parts. The numbers are generally lavish and well-staged and we get to see the two female leads, Mayo and Patrice Wymore, dance a lot, always a treat in my book. And we also get to see Gene Nelson perform in several numbers. However, we never get any sense of what the show they're rehearsing, "Breakfast in Bed," is about or how the numbers connect to each other. Each song seems like it came from a completely different show. There's a number about a New York working girl dreaming of getting rich and in the next one she's a dancer in New Orleans' Mardi Gras celebration. Contrast this with Vincente Minnelli's THE BANDWAGON, also 1953, in which the conception of the musical-within-the-movie is made very clear to us as are the reasons for its flopping, followed by a completely revamped show and a full explanation of why all the numbers are so different from each other. It all made sense there. This film has its pleasures, but it's no BANDWAGON. I must confess, though, that I did like the montage of singing and dancing auditions. It was clearly meant to be funny and the unrealistic, almost surreal quality of it was, I believe, intentional. I enjoyed the kid who keeps returning to audition in each category before they give him a job as a "gopher" to keep him from returning to the auditions. With his skinny frame, gray checked suit and bow tie, he reminded me of Pee Wee Herman and made me wonder if Herman had seen this film as a child. (I'm not sure I heard the character's name, but I'm guessing he's Mickey Zealand, played by Ray Kyle.) Also, the varied songs in the audition sequence, mostly taken from the Warner Bros. song library, look forward to the use of songs in Chuck Jones' classic 1956 cartoon, "One Froggy Evening," another Warner Bros. production.

Mayo is gorgeous in this and always an exciting, scintillating presence, but I was especially taken with Wymore, who was a little more demure and more clearly devoted to Cochran. I was kind of rooting for her and hoping he'd come to his senses. I was more than a little annoyed that Cochran was the third-billed of the male actors even though he has a bigger and more central part than either Nelson, who's billed right after Mayo, and Frank Lovejoy, who plays the producer. I mean, he IS the male lead and has as much screen time as Mayo. I'm posting this on May 25, 2017, which marks the centennial of Cochran's birth.

This is more than a review of the 1952 feel-good comedy loaded with as many hardships and frowns as smiles, taking place mostly indoors without much sunshine: Except for the opening scene as a poolside Virginia Mayo, playing a has-been actress, is taking business with her faithful but weary agent, trying to find her a leading role and suggesting she go back on... Refer to the title...

In the first two of three films, Virginia Mayo was snatched from Cult Film Freak's two all-time favorite actors by tall, dark and viciously handsome b-actor Steve Cochran: First in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, finishing Dana Andrews (not so happy) marriage so the perky dame can enjoy the nightlife...

And her most famous role as a reluctant gun-moll for ultra-violent James Cagney... He can only trust his tough old mom since his temperamental, discontented moll-wife is, once again, cheating with handsomely swarthy Cochran - and now it's his turn to sweat and stress over the pretty gal as bitter stage director Rick Sommers.,,

While looking more like a famous director's chain-smoking, cool and smooth, womanizing, multi-faceted and downright lethal bodyguard, it's the heated chemistry... or perhaps, in this case, the bitter and hardened anti-chemistry... between Cochran and Mayo that makes SHE'S BACK ON BROADWAY a better picture than an idyllic and breezy title begging for second placement on a marquee...

Despite the boatload of music, it's not a musical since most of the film is the actual musical's cast and crew getting prepared for a show called 'Breakfast In Bed' that Mayo is nervous about initially but then Cochran... in scenes where she's a natural with one of the greatest all-time dancers, Gene Nelson... he's the only person with second thoughts, basically playing a coldhearted jerk, seeming like an inspiration for Michael Douglas in A CHORUS LINE and best yet, Alan Rachins in SHOWGIRLS...

Some of the most humorous scenes take place during a prolonged audition showing the rejected bad and chosen great dancers, leaving little time for a few more rehearsals as a somewhat uninspired melodrama's unveiled as Cochran and Mayo bicker in front of everyone...

And then, alone, the pair becomes more interesting since they'd shared a past together, and only she benefited from it... He was her first stage director before she shot to stardom, and she took Hollywood's big picture bait, leaving the show that went bust because of it, and so he remained grounded because...

Well that's part of the dialogue as involving as the songs are semi-catchy, and it's fun to watch the musical being ignited by the talents of Mayo and Nelson, followed by Frank Lovejoy as the stressful producer...Which makes Cochran fourth in the credits, rather misleading since the movie's really about his refusal to let our pretty star shine bright...

Big Steve with his wild dame from the greatest post-war and gangster-prison flick make an edgy couple, yet there's little urgency from Mayo, and for a little while it's tough to buy that Cochran is anything but a tough, swarthy actor meant to cut in on other guy's women. But it's a nice, smooth nightcap, and Virginia looks better than ever wearing less than usual. Many bravos.

Virginia Mayo is kaput in Hollywood. Agent and would-be husband Larry Keating persuades her to regain her magic by returning to the Great White Way. Unknown to her, he arranges the financing. But the director is the man who made her a star, and former lover Steve Cochran.

It's a putting-on-a-show musical with a great supporting cast, and choreography by Leroy Prinz. It's certainly engaging, and the songs are good, if not great. One of the problems is Miss Mayo's line readings; she's dull in the emotional speeches, although her legs certainly make up a lot for that. The highlight is the big set number near the end, "Behind the Mask", with Gene Nelson showing off his athleticism. With Frank Lovejoy and Patrice Wymore.

"She's Back on Broadway" stars Virginia Mayo, Steve Cochran, Frank Lovejoy, Gene Nelson, and Patrice Wymore.

Mayo is movie star Catherine Terris in a bad career slump, when her agent (Larry Keating) receives an offer for her to star in a Broadway show. Unfortunately, the director of the show is her ex-beau, Gordon Evans (Steve Cochran) - he's bitter and angry with her and makes her life a living hell in the show. She quits in anger, but agrees to go back.

Where to begin with this...well, there was some wonderful dancing by Gene Nelson and by Patrice Wymore. Mayo is lovely, with a beautiful figure, and as an actress, she was fine. Her singing is dubbed by Bonnie Williams. Cochran was so handsome, but as someone pointed out, he had the personality of a tough character actor and the looks of a lead, so he never received the recognition he deserved. Plus he died at 48 years old.

Whenever you know something about a profession and see it portrayed in a movie, there will always be complaints. For the dance auditions, people wore regular clothes and each person came forward and danced whatever routine they wanted to whatever music.

No one ever chose a dance chorus like that - first of all, there's a certain look they're going for; and secondly, everyone wears dance outfits; third, you divide the dancers into groups and give each group the same specific choreography, then weed people out.

Also, you don't hand an unknown a lead on the basis of eight bars and half a script page.

The show itself was awful.

So she's back on Broadway - for her own good, she should have stayed in Hollywood.

Catherine Terris (Virginia Mayo) is fading from the Hollywood spotlight. She is willing to take bit parts, but her manager Mitchell Parks insists that she gets leads or nothing. Instead, he suggests going back to Broadway and director Rick Sommers (Steve Cochran) who got her a big break. Rick however still holds a grudge after she left him for Hollywood.

This tries to be a look behind the curtain on Broadway. Some of it is reasonable. Some of it is almost insightful. I can do with less song and dance. The actual musical is of no importance. It is the relationship and my personal taste is for them to go their separate ways. This ending is not my preference, but I'm not going to destroy it.

Gordon Douglas rates highly in my film viewing. He could shine in any genre, from the always watchable ' Young at Heart ' to the ( perhaps ) best Science Fiction horror film ever made ' Them '. He was not responsible for the often rotten material that Hollywood gave him, and even then some of these films were better directed than Hollywood deserved. This film almost rates as highly as the above mentioned films if it were not for the mediocre songs - no spoilers but that failure as a musical is a key plot element at the end. Douglas was a clever man, fast paced in his filming and hardly ever losing the pace. I have no idea if the BFI have had a retrospective of his work, but if they have not it is never too late. He is even responsible for giving Jacqueline Bisset one of her first and very good roles in the Frank Sinatra homosexually themed ' The Detective ' when the subject was a hot potato for studios. But returning to ' She's Back on Broadway ' it is unique in my opinion by opening with a dark almost Noir scene of Virginia Mayo on the verge of breakdown. In another musical of 1953 this could have been a killer, but it works and in this scene alone Virginia Mayo shows how exceptionally good she was as an actor. Basically she has been left high and dry by Hollywood and is suicidally depressed at not being able to act. To get out of the depression she accepts a Broadway role in a musical that is not first rate. The machinations of ' show business ' are both hard edged and amusing, and the many good actors in the film are on top form. Gene Nelson's role could have been fleshed out better, but he shows how equal he was to Astaire and to Gene Kelly. Patrice Wymore, a sadly unused and good actor is a foil to Mayo and their scenes together are sharp and brilliantly acted. And there is Steve Cochran, one of the best actors Hollywood had and only when Antonioni came along and gave him the lead in ' Il Grido' ( the Cry ) did he get the very major film he deserved. Edgy and nervous he shows raw feelings and his good looks could shift from brutality to gentleness in a second. Along with Mayo he turns this musical into something way beyond the batch of them that were produced at the time. A difficult film to find it is well worth the search, easier perhaps to track down in America than in the UK. But this review is to encourage more interest in Gordon Douglas, and if you want to find a film that is really hard boiled find ' The Fiend Who Walked The West ' torn to pieces by critics when it came out but audacious in re-creating the 1940's Fim Noir ' Kiss of Death ' as a Western. To be found in France on DVD in English and perhaps better respected there. So why not a 10 ? The mediocre songs and the Mardi Gras scenes fail ( as I said cleverly on purpose ) but the core drama of the film does not fail due to expert direction and exceptionally good acting.

Starts off with the premise that unless an actress abandons Hollywood for NYC she will artistically and literally die. And the songs are worse!

Warners, I guess, wanted this backstage musical to have a little more heft and gravitas than their Doris Day standard at the time. So along with the usual production numbers and leggy chorus girls and backstage wisecracks, they grafted a rather serious story of a chorus-cutie-turned-movie-star and her Pygmalion director and their rather somber and complicated history together. Virginia Mayo and Steve Cochran play it competently, but it's just not very interesting, and the outcome is never in doubt. He's billed below both Gene Nelson and Frank Lovejoy, but neither of them has much to do, and there's a great deal of footage of Cochran sulking, drinking, and vacillating between Mayo and Patrice Wymore, who actually seems a better fit. That's a problem: You don't really want to see Mayo and Cochran end up together, especially as it leaves Wymore and Larry Keating, as Mayo's lovestruck agent, with nobody. One appreciates the effort at wringing real emotion out of a backstager, but there's no denying, it doesn't really work. Insipid songs--did Bob Hilliard ever write a good lyric in his life?--and perfunctory direction by Gordon Douglas don't help.

'She's Back On Broadway' stars Virginia Mayo, Steve Cochran and Gene Nelson, and is rather a pedestrian example of a minor 50s musical. Characters are fairly stock - from Mayo's star-struck ingénue to Nelson's charming hoofer. Songs are OK but unmemorable and not that well-staged.

There are many better musicals than this - 'She's Working Her Way Through College' and 'Painting The Clouds With Sunshine' (the loose remake of 'Gold Diggers of 1933') for example. There are better musical stars from the same period - Vera-Ellen, Doris Day.

Warner Bros musicals like this one were no threat to the gloss of MGM, while Gene Nelson is no Gene Kelly. However, if you like musicals generally, 'She's Back On Broadway' is watchable, but not groundbreaking.