Comet Over Broadway

Comet Over Broadway
Directed by	Busby Berkeley John Farrow (uncredited)
Produced by	Bryan Foy Hal B. Wallis Jack L. Warner
Screenplay by	Mark Hellinger Robert Buckner Faith Baldwin (short story)
Starring	Kay Francis
Production company	Warner Brothers
Release dates	December 3, 1938 (1938-12-03)
Running time	70 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Comet over Broadway (1938) is an American film starring Kay Francis and released by Warner Brothers. John Farrow stepped in as director when Busby Berkeley became ill, but Farrow was uncredited on the film.^[1]

Cast

Kay Francis as Eve Appleton
Ian Hunter as Bert Ballin
John Litel as Bill Appleton
Donald Crisp as Joe Grant
Minna Gombell as "Tim" Adams
Sybil Jason as Jackie Appleton
Melville Cooper as Emerson
Ian Keith as Wilton Banks
Leona Maricle as Janet Eaton
Ray Mayer as Brogan
Vera Lewis as Mrs. Appleton
Nat Carr as Haines
Chester Clute as Willis
Edward McWade as Harvey
Clem Bevans as Benson

Plot

Eve Appleton (Francis), wife of small-town garage owner Bill Appleton (Litel), has theatrical ambitions. Bill gets into an argument with a visiting actor over her, kills him accidentally, and is sent to prison. Eve, realizing her part in Bill's fate, vows to right matters, and taking her infant daughter, goes away to make her way in the theatre.

Later, Eve is forced to leave her baby girl with her friend Mrs. "Tim" Adams (Gombell). Bert Ballin (Hunter) befriends her and they fall in love, but she moves abroad and becomes a star. Back in America, as the "Toast of Broadway", she is brought back to a realization of her former vows by Joe Grant (Crisp), her hometown lawyer.

Bette Davis

Following Jezebel, Bette Davis was dismayed to be assigned to Comet Over Broadway, a melodrama in which she would portray a Broadway actress who sacrifices her career to care for her ne'er-do-well husband when he is released from prison. "This was the first nothing script I was given since my court battle in England," Davis later recalled, referring to the lawsuit in which she tried to win her freedom from Warner Bros. after being forced to appear in a series of mediocre films.

"It was heartbreaking to me. After winning a second Academy Award . . . I was asked to appear again in junk." ^[2] Davis opted to go on suspension and remained on suspension when the studio offered her Garden of the Moon, a Busby Berkeley musical, instead. "I was on suspension for a good part of the year following Jezebel. So much wasted time at a time when I felt my career could from then on become a truly successful one . . . It took a lot of courage to go on suspension. One received no salary . . . I couldn't afford it, nor could I afford, career-wise, to make films such as Comet Over Broadway and Garden of the Moon!" ^[2]

References

↑ "Comet Over Broadway".
1 2 Stine, Whitney, and Davis, Bette, Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis. New York: Hawthorn Books 1974. ISBN 0-8015-5184-6, pp.101-104

External links

Films directed by John Farrow

The Spectacle Maker (1934)
Tarzan Escapes (1936)
Men in Exile (1937)
West of Shanghai (1937)
She Loved a Fireman (1937)
Comet Over Broadway (1938)
Broadway Musketeers (1938)
Little Miss Thoroughbred (1938)
The Invisible Menace (1938)
My Bill (1938)
The Saint Strikes Back (1939)
Women in the Wind (1939)
Sorority House (1939)
Five Came Back (1939)
Full Confession (1939)
Reno (1939)
A Bill of Divorcement (1940)
Married and in Love (1940)
Wake Island (1942)
Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942)
China (1943)
The Hitler Gang (1944)
You Came Along (1945)
Two Years Before the Mast (1946)
California (1947)
Blaze of Noon (1947)
Calcutta (1947)
Easy Come, Easy Go (1947)
Beyond Glory (1948)
The Big Clock (1948)
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
Red, Hot and Blue (1949)
Alias Nick Beal (1949)
Where Danger Lives (1950)
Copper Canyon (1950)
Submarine Command (1951)
His Kind of Woman (1951)
Ride, Vaquero! (1953)
Hondo (1953)
Plunder of the Sun (1953)
Botany Bay (1953)
A Bullet Is Waiting (1954)
The Sea Chase (1955)
Back from Eternity (1956)
The Unholy Wife (1957)
John Paul Jones (1959)

Busby Berkeley: Choreographer and director

Broadway pre-Hollywood	Holka Polka (chor, 1925) The Wild Rose (chor, 1926) Lady Do (chor, 1927) A Connecticut Yankee (chor, 1927) White Eagle (chor, 1927) Present Arms (chor, 1928) Earl Carroll's Vanities (1928) (chor, 1928) Good Boy (chor, 1928) Rainbow (chor, 1928) Hello, Daddy (chor, 1928) Pleasure Bound (chor, 1929) A Night in Venice (chor, 1929) Broadway Nights (chor, 1929) The Street Singer (dir & prod, 1929) Nine-Fifteen Revue (chor, 1930) The International Review (chor, 1930) Sweet and Low (chor, 1930)

1930s	Whoopee! (chor, 1930) Kiki (chor, 1931) Palmy Days (chor, 1931) Flying High (chor, 1931) Sky Devils (chor, 1932) Girl Crazy (chor, 1932) Night World (chor, 1932) Bird of Paradise (chor, 1932) The Kid From Spain (chor, 1932) 42nd Street (chor, 1933) Gold Diggers of 1933 (chor, 1933) She Had to Say Yes (dir, 1933) Footlight Parade (chor, 1933) Roman Scandals (chor, 1933) Dames (dir mus nmbrs, 1934) Fashions of 1934 (chor & dir mus nmbrs, 1934) Wonder Bar (chor, 1934) Gold Diggers of 1935 (dir & chor, 1935) Bright Lights (dir, 1935) I Live for Love (dir & chor, 1935) In Caliente (chor & dir mus nmbrs, 1935) Stars Over Broadway (chor & dir mus nmbrs, 1935) Stage Struck (dir, 1936) Varsity Show (dir finale, 1937) The Singing Marine (chor & dir mus nmbrs, 1937) Gold Diggers of 1937 (dir mus nmbrs, 1937) The Go Getter (dir, 1937) Hollywood Hotel (dir & chor, 1937) Men Are Such Fools (dir, 1938) Gold Diggers in Paris (chor & dir mus nmbrs, 1938) Garden of the Moon (dir, 1938) Comet Over Broadway (dir, 1938) Broadway Serenade (dir finale, 1939) They Made Me a Criminal (dir, 1939) Fast and Furious (dir, 1939) Babes in Arms (dir, 1939) The Wizard of Oz (Scarecrow's dance-cut, 1939)

1940s	Forty Little Mothers (dir, 1940) Strike Up The Band (dir, 1940) Blonde Inspiration (dir, 1941) Lady Be Good (dir mus nmbrs, 1941) Ziegfeld Girl (dir mus nmbrs, 1941) Babes on Broadway (dir, 1941) For Me and My Gal (dir, 1942) Calling All Girls (chor & dir mus nmbrs, 1942) Born to Sing (dir finale, 1942) Cabin in the Sky (dir "Shine" seq, 1943) The Gang's All Here (dir & chor, 1943) Three Cheers for the Girls (chor, 1943) Girl Crazy (dir "I Got Rhythm", 1943) All Star Musical Revue (dir mus nmbrs, 1945) Cinderella Jones (dir, 1946) Romance on the High Seas (chor, 1948) Take Me Out to the Ball Game (dir, 1949)

1950s	Annie Get Your Gun (dir-cut, 1950) Big Town (dir TV series, 1950) Weeks With Love (chor, 1950) Call Me Mister (chor, 1951) Ticket to Broadway (chor, 1951) Million Dollar Mermaid (chor, 1952) Small Town Girl (chor, 1953) Easy to Love (chor, 1953) Rose Marie (chor, 1954)

1960s	Billy Rose's Jumbo (chor & dir 2nd unit, 1962)

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