Strictly Confidential

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.

"Broadway Bill" is one of Frank Capra's lesser known gems. Made in 1934 and starring Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy, it is the story of a man who is willing to walk away from a life of wealth to follow his dream. In many ways it is the typical Capra film.

Adapted from a story by Mark Hellinger, "Broadway Bill" has all of the feel and characters one might expect from a Damon Runyon tale.

Baxter as the owner of Broadway Bill and Loy as his sister-in-law, who is also in love with him are first rate. As are Walter Connolly, Clarence Muse, and especially Raymond Walburn, who walks off with the best role.

Dated and a little sappy, but full of good cheer from start to finish.

"Broadway Bill" is a good bet.

8 out of 10

Warner baxter and the amazing myrna loy. The picture quality is pretty washed out in some parts, but this film is so old, i don't see a restoration anytime soon! When dan leaves the family business, he puts everything on his horse broadway bill. But the horse is so nervous, he won't stay in the chute. Margaret is dan's wife, but her sister alice seems to care about him more. Trials and tribulations. Can they ever get the horse ready to race? Will they ever get out of debt? It's pretty good. Some familiar character actors here also. Funny guy walter connolly, douglas dumbrille. Also frank darro and charles lane. Many of these actors were in the remake "riding high" in 1950. And of course, margaret hamilton, five years before wizard of oz! Myrna loy was pretty busy this year.. this film came out the same year as manhattan melodrama and the first "thin man"! Directed by frank capra. Capra, loy, and baxter had all started in the silent films.

Extremely heart-warming depression era movie by director Frank Capra about a big-hearted race-horse who ran his heart out to the point that it burst leaving those who believed and loved him, in the audience as well as those in the movie, in tears: Broadway Bill.

Marrying into money Dan Brooks, Warren Baxter, just couldn't take being big business tycoon J.L Higgins' son-in-law anymore and left him as well as his wife Margaret, Helen Vinson, to go back to his life on the racetrack with his horse Broadway Bill and his horses groom Whitey, Clarence Muse. Dan got Broadway Bill into a number of low purse money races at the local Imperial Racetrack to get the horse, if he won them, into the big race at the track The Imperial Derby against Kentucky Derby favorite Gallant Lady.

With that wonderful Frank Capra spirit the movie is about the little man standing up to the powerful establishment and with both his hopes and dreams prevail against the establishments money and power in the end. Warren Baxter and Myrna Loy were both wonderful as Broadway Bill's owner trainer and Dan's sister-in-law Alice who, unlike her older sister Margaret, saw the good that Dan had inside of him. A goodness that was reflected on Dan's caring and feeling for the horse and for the people who, unlike Alice's father, had to live day by day with no hope for the future but for their next meal and a place with a roof over their heads to sleep overnight.

Everything was stacked against Broadway Bill in the movie but like the champ that he was he overcame all of them and ended the film with a heart-stopping as well as heart-breaking finish on the racetrack. Re-made 16 years later in 1950 with Bing Crosby in the movie "Riding High" which even has a number of scenes from the movie " Broadway Bill" inserted into it but the original is still by far the best of the two and the one to watch.

Noble and uplifting with Frank Capra using the betting at the racetrack to make a point about the conditions in the country at that time, 1934. With most of those betting on Broadway Bill being down on their luck and looking for the gallant and courageous equine to give them back the hopes and dreams that they lost because of the Great depression that hit America as well as the world after the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929. Tremendous final race sequence with a both heart-lifting as well as heart-breaking stretch run that will leave you totally speechless as well as reaching for your handkerchief.

Incredibly up-lifting ending that only Frank Capra could have dreamed up with Dan's hopes and dreams as well as Broadway Bill's courage and determination making even Dan's father-in-law the greedy and unfeeling J.L Higgins finally see the light in that being a kind and giving human being was worth more that all the wealth that he had."Broadway Bill" has everything going for it: a great story with great acting and directing and last but not least a great star Broadway Bill.

From 1934 to 1946, Frank Capra's movies are all well known and beloved...except this one. His golden age started the year before with It Happened One Night and would last through his second film after returning from his efforts to help document the Second World War, but this little horse racing comedic drama is all but forgotten. It's not at that high level of something like American Madness, but it's a perfectly fine little film about one man using his moxie to make his own way, something much more typically Capraesque than It Happened One Night, ironically enough.

The small town of Higginsville was established by the Higgins family, and the current patriarch J. L. (Walter Connolly) has four daughters. His eldest, Margaret (Helen Vinson) is married to Dan Brooks (Warner Baxter), a former owner of horses who came into town three years prior and charmed his way into her heart, but he's so caught up on making his own way through horses again, namely through his mount, the titular Broadway Bill, that he's ignoring the box factory J. L. put him in charge of, letting it falter, and getting into an argument that leads him to leave Higginsville with Bill and his helper Whitey (Clarence Muse), leaving behind Margaret's youngest sister, Alice (Myrna Loy) who had helped him with Bill's training.

The problem is that Dan wants to do this entirely on his own, so he does not bring any Higgins money with him, meaning he brings no money with him other than pocket change. With just that, he has to find a way to pay $550 in fees to get Bill into the big $25,000 race. He connects with an old friend, the Colonel (Raymond Walburn), just as penniless as himself, and they work to figure out how to con their way to the funds. It's a combination of amusing bits as the Colonel tries to trick people into the idea that he has secret knowledge then falling for it when the cry for it becomes loud enough (something very intelligently used since the same behavior affecting betting odds plays in the film's finale) along with serious efforts to keep Bill healthy especially in the face of an unexpected rainstorm. It's primarily a drama, but Capra would never do something single-mindedly dramatic, peppering in comedic bits through even his most serious films.

I suppose the one thing that is just too oddly built is the romance that develops between Dan and Alice. I mean, it's obvious from her introduction in a car with him at the beginning of the film that they have more in common than he has with his own wife, but we have to have this chaste little dance between them throughout the film, especially once she shows up near the track to hand over Bill's mascot, a rooster that he won't race without. It just feels like extra stuff that doesn't really feed into the central idea of Dan making his own way in the world. I suppose you could say that it does feed it because Dan had to marry Margaret to get into the family, Alice being too young when he showed up, except that's a trick of timing, not of Dan being forced into one marriage when he wanted another. Meh, I'm just saying that them being unmarried was enough. The fact that Dan is already married feels like an unnecessary barrier, though he needs to be married to be that head of the box factory. Eh, I'm putting too much thought into this. I don't think it quite works, but that's not to say that their interactions are bad. Loy and Baxter have good chemistry (even if he looks like he could be her father), and the attraction makes sense since she's young, pretty, and loves his horse, and he's got an independent streak that none of the men around her share.

Challenges are mounted and overcome, and we get our big race. It's an exciting bit of filmmaking that has quite an unexpected ending providing a surprisingly somber tone to the film's finale, though Capra would never let an audience go out on a sour note, providing one final bit of happiness and joy when J. L. learns his lesson about what's important (Capraesque spoiler: it's not acquiring wealth and new businesses).

Is it a great film? Not at all. The business around getting the money to enter the race feels over busy while the romance with Alice is needlessly complex. However, the central story of one man finding his own way in the world and inspiring those around him is pure Capra and works fairly well with a fun little stinger to let the audience out of the theater on. It's not quite "Nobody's perfect", but it's pretty good. Broadway Bill is all but forgotten, but it's emblematic of the kind of good fare that Capra had been learning to churn out with regularity for about a decade.