Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

mmallon4 Broadway Bill is Frank Capra's forgotten follow up to It Happened One Night, likely due to the film being out of circulation until the 1990's and what a shame too. Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy are not romantic leads as she is his sister in law but both of them have great admiration for each other with Dan Brooks (Baxter) referring to her affectionately as The Princess and Loy clearly in love with the man and holding the same ideals as him but unable to go any further due to family ties; I find this dynamic is more interesting than a standard romance. Capra originally wanted Clark Gable in the lead role but had to settle with Warner Baxter who at least seems to be the next best thing as he holds much of the same rugged, footloose appeal of Gable.Broadway Bill features many of the same Capra-isms as seen in his other films. The small town of Higginsvillie being run by business mogul J.L Higggins played by Walter Connolly is a much more light hearted version of Mr Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. He is in control of his entire family who run his individual enterprises and even their own national bank as visualised in a gag in which the entire Higgin's family proceed to eat dinner in perfect unison. They're not the Rothchilds but they're wealthy and powerful ("Higgins, that's not a family, that's a disease"). Yet at the end of the film J.L. gets rid of his businesses or as he puts it, gives back institutions to the people who founded them. Like the Sycamore family in You Can't Take It With You, Dan Brooks want to leave behind his life of work in favour of leisure and enjoyment, ideals comparable to the counter cultures of the 1960's. After all what could be more dull than running a paper box company? Unless you're Seymour Skinner.One of the most pivotal scenes in Broadway Bill involves one of the richest men in the world, J.P. Chase putting a $2 bet on Broadway Bill at 100/1 as a means to pass time will in hospital. When word gets out it spreads like wild fire and the claims of what the amount of money he placed on the best become exaggerated from $2 to $20,000 to $50,000 all the way up to a quarter million. Simple message - don't believe everything you hear.I love Broadway Bill for its simple cheerful Innocence. This is one of several films which has managed to tug my heart strings over the fate of a horse. One plot element even involves the horse Broadway Bill refusing to race because he doesn't have his pet chicken called skeeter. You wouldn't find this kind of innocence today in a film which is supposedly made for adults.

MartinHafer Successful businessman Warner Baxter quits his job to return to the life of horse racing. Broadway Bill is a horse that Baxter thinks can take him to the big time. The problem is that he is practically broke and must scrimp and scheme to somehow get the money needed to get Bill in 'the big race'.This is an amazing film because it was nothing like I would have expected. Even though it appeared right after director Capra's masterpiece IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, it must have been in the planning stages long before hand. That's because IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT cleaned up at the Oscars and was a huge hit. You'd expect, therefore, that Capra's next film would have been a top-notch film--not some crappy old B-movie. Yet, aside from having a good cast, Broadway BILL is, at heart, just a clichéd B-movie--and certainly far from the director's best.Part of the problem is that it's hard to have a horse racing film that is fresh and exciting. In the 1930s, Hollywood made quite a few racing films--and they all seem very similar. In fact, as I watched Broadway BILL, I kept thinking "wow, this reminds me of another racing film I saw"--and this happened again and again. While I cannot remember every title, it's clearly a lot like SERGEANT MURPHY and especially LONG SHOT. In fact, you could say that LONG SHOT was a re-working of Broadway BILL--not exactly a remake, but using major chunks of the original story. It's a case of 'been there, done that'.In some ways, this sort of clichéd bilge is a surprise--not just because Capra was at the helm. You'd think it would be a better film with Warner Baxter, as he was a big name in 1934 as he'd already won an Oscar for IN OLD ARIZONA and had a starring performance the year before in 42ND STREET. Additionally, Myrna Loy had starred in the hugely successful THIN MAN earlier that year--and it catapulted her to stardom. You'd have thought she could have merited something better than this! Perhaps someone was holding family members of Capra, Baxter and Loy hostage--otherwise, there's no explaining this film! In addition to a clichéd B-movie plot, the picture also betrayed a cheapness you just wouldn't have expected from a Capra picture. In the very beginning of the movie, there is one of the very, very worst examples of rotten rear-projected camera work. It's obvious that Warner Baxter is clearly riding in a car that is stationary and the 'horse' running along side of his very, very clearly is being projected on a screen.The most amazing thing about this silly film is that in 1950, Capra would remake this movie as RIDING HIGH!! Remakes are a decent idea if the original story is flawed or the acting particularly bad and you somehow correct these flaws---but when the story idea is a clichéd and dusty old plot, a remake can't help but fail as well.My advice is to skip this one or DON'T expect it to be an A-picture. If you just pretend it's a cheap B-movie, then it's very pleasant experience, as it's reasonably entertaining...in a very modest way.

xerses13 Frank Capra spotted Broadway BILL (1934) between IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) and MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN (1936). The Director did not think much of the film at the time nor in his memoirs. Critics remarks mainly praised the cast and little else. They were right, there are better Race-Track films out there, from CHARLIE CHAN AT THE RACE TRACK (1936) too SEABISCUIT (2003). This film has a first rate cast starting with Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy, the leads. The rest, competent character actors from Capra's stock company at COLUMBIA the producing studio. So what went wrong?The screenplay has 'whiskers' on it even for a mid 1930s' programmer. There is every corny and trite cliché that can be imagined in the script. They even have Franky Darro as BILL's Jockey, TED WILLIAMS! Darro made a Hollywood career out of playing Jockey's. The worse portrayal is Baxter's DAN BROOKS. Maybe in the 1930's being a irresponsible and obnoxious jerk was somewhat enduring, it certainly is not in the 21st Century. This film should be viewed solely as a curiosity piece or for the real Frank Capra fanatics.For some reason Capra felt the need to remake this film with Bing Crosby as DAN BROOKS. RIDING HIGH (1950) though longer is no better and we also rate it IMDb Four****Stars. Capra, post WWII seemed to have lost his 'touch'. He would also remake LADY FOR A DAY (1933) as POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES (1961) his last film. His time had run out.

bkoganbing In his memoirs Frank Capra gave very short shrift to Broadway Bill. In fact he only mentions it when he starts to talk about the remake of this film Riding High. The remake was in 1950 and Broadway Bill was done immediately after It Happened One Night.In just a couple of paragraphs he mentions that he did a film called Broadway Bill sandwiched between It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. He was dissatisfied with it because the leading man, Warner Baxter, was afraid of horses and it showed. Capra then said he resolved to do the film over again with an actor who loved horses. Of course he got Bing Crosby and second to golf Crosby did love horses and horse racing. It was a perfect fit.I didn't notice anything too terribly wrong with Baxter's performance away from the horse playing the title role. Baxter's a footloose sort of guy who's married to the daughter of millionaire Walter Connolly, Helen Vinson. Baxter's heart is at the racetrack, he loves the life and the people there. Vinson's younger sister Myrna Loy understands him though and it does take Baxter a while to figure out he married the wrong sister.Frank Capra filled out his cast with many of the regulars who appeared in his more well known classics and they all look like they were born and bred at the racetrack. In this and in Riding High, my favorite is Raymond Walburn, the larcenous and lovable old 'Colonel' Pettigrew ready to make the ultimate sacrifice and marry 'Vinegar Puss' Margaret Hamilton.Broadway Bill is not up there with Capra's more populistic films nor is it as good as Riding High, but it still is a wonderful heartwarming story of a horse who showed us in the higher species, the meaning of courage and heart.