Moon Over Broadway: Movie Review (2008)

Directed by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, 98 minutes, no rating.  



Editor's Note:  Another from the archives...



At the opening of “Moon Over Broadway,” Tom Moore, the director of the Broadway show “Moon Over Buffalo,” leans back against the plush interior of a stretch limousine and sighs, his face a pinched mask caught in the throes of frustration.  “People have very little appreciation of just what it takes to structure a farce,” he says, and then proceeds to talk with meaning about the merits of Feydeau farce.



He does this without hesitation or irony, which is amusing since, after seeing “Moon Over Broadway,” the spirited documentary that showcases “Buffalo’s” long and painful limp into New York theater, one wonders how much Moore himself knew about the structure of Feydeau farce.



The film, directed by the husband-and-wife team D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, is astonishingly candid, offering audiences a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into all of the pettiness and ugliness, contained temper-tantrums and quiet triumphs that went into the making of “Buffalo.”



Initially, the producers’ instincts were right:  Pair Carol Burnett, queen of shtick, with Philip Bosco and others in a farce that would find all members of the cast slamming through doors and shrieking at the tops of their lungs in an effort to divert attention from dialogue that was mildly funny at best.  The play, written and rewritten by Ken Ludwig, needed Burnett’s presence badly; only her star power, comic timing and shtick could make it work.  But shtick is what everyone involved in “Buffalo” says they don’t want--which proves to be a major problem for the play and, ultimately, for Burnett.



Burnett, you see, is treated as a faded star by Moore and Ludwig; she is television, not theater, and thus not their equal.  Her suggestions to improve the play are routinely dismissed by each, and while their criticism of her performance is sugarcoated, it nevertheless stings with a condescension that is difficult to watch.



All of this, of course, makes for an engrossing film.  Burnett, who is the most exposed, emerges as the consummate professional--she takes Moore and Ludwig’s criticism in stride, rising above their pettiness.  She is the Carol we remember--warm and funny in the face of chaos.  At the Boston premiere, she literally saves the show when the curtain falls midway through and technicians cannot get it to rise.  Ever the trouper, Burnett crawls under the curtain to entertain the crowd while Moore, stunned and grateful, stands at her side, watching the real genius at work.



Finally, just days before the show’s premiere at the Martin Beck Theater in New York, Burnett’s worries surface as massive, last-minute rewrites of the script suddenly appear.  Knowing that Moore and Ludwig demand she learn the words exactly and never improvise as she did on her CBS show, tension mounts.  Does Burnett pull it off and see the show through to a successful run?  Or does the show fold in a blizzard of negative reviews?



Don’t miss your chance to find out.



Grade:  A-