A bittersweet gem (Broadway Danny Rose (DVD))

Member Name: Jake Speed

Product:	Broadway Danny Rose (DVD)
Date:	31/07/07 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautifully shot, great performances

Disadvantages: None

Danny Rose (Woody Allen) is a kind, well meaning theatrical agent who struggles to hold onto his modestly talented clients. He also has a tendancy to become emotionally attached to them meaning their departure is all the more melancholic and complicated. Both he and his clients have one thing in common; both are unsuccesful. Welcome to the bittersweet Broadway Danny Rose, one of Woody Allen's lesser known gems.

Shot in black and white, Broadway Danny Rose has a beautiful framing device. A group of comedians meet in a New York restaurant and begin swapping stories and jokes. One of them mentions Danny Rose and they laugh and begin to talk about him in the past tense. Danny's threadbare career as an agent and constant struggles appear to have made him a slightly cultish and humerous figure in the world of New York showbusiness. One of the comedians says that he has the best Danny Rose story of all time and that story of course is the one that unfolds in the film we are watching.

Danny's clients include a one-armed juggler, a skating penguin and a one-legged tap dancer. Not only does he remain endearingly committed to these acts but they become almost like an extended family to the lonely bachelor. Despite his positive outlook amidst such failure Rose knows deep down that fame and fortune are going to remain elusive...until that is he starts working with overweight but ambitious crooner Lou (Nick Apollo Forte). Lou is an old style exuberant night-club singer who was a bit famous once. He had a hit in the fifties. Danny thinks that with enough work he can restore Lou to his former mild glory. Danny picks clothes for Lou, books him on cruises and gives him pep talks littered with his stock motivational phrases. "Star, smile, strong!" Danny however is mortified when he discovers that Lou is having an affair with Tina (Mia Farrow). Tina is the girlfriend of a member of the mafia.

Danny persuades Milton Berle to watch Lou's act. If the veteran comic is impressed he might get them a tv spot. Lou however, wracked with nerves, will only go onstage if Tina is there. Reluctantly, Danny agrees to go and find Tina and bring her to the performance. Things get even worse when Danny is mistaken for Tina's lover. Now he has attracted the attention of Tina's mob connections.

Mia Farrow gives perhaps her best ever performance as Tina, her gamine, fragile beauty completely transformed into the brassy Tina with the addition of a huge blonde wig and a gigantic pair of sunglasses. Allen gives her a huge close-up when she is introduced and it's clear that Danny is smitten right from the start. Danny and Tina find themselves on the run and after a funny mafia garden-party set-piece the chase takes them through barren wasteground ("My husband's friend used to drop bodies here," says Tina) and a warehouse containing floats for the city parade.

Danny is tied up by the mob when finally captured but, amusingly, his showbusiness background means he knows how magicians escape from similar situations. He does however tell them that the man they really want is Barney Dunn in order to save his neck. Dunn is a hopeless ventriloquist ("Five year-old kids would boo him!") Danny knows and with Barney working on a South American cruise ship Rose knows that they can't get to him.

Barney however is resurrected towards the end when we've almost forgotten him. Tina has persuaded Lou to ditch Danny and find a better agent. The wheels for this were put in motion before she met Danny but Lou goes through with it. Danny, gloomily ruminating on Lou's rejection of him, sits alone in a late night restaurant. He is told that Barney Dunn has been badly beaten up. Danny visits Barney in hospital and full of guilt and remorse promises him he'll help in any way. After he walks out of the Hospital in the rain and the melancholic, bittersweet atmosphere of Broadway Danny Rose is distilled in one beautiful shot.

Equally touching is the moment when Danny learns that Lou is going to leave him. All his work and enthusiasm has counted for nothing. There are bigger fish in showbusiness than Danny Rose and there is nothing he can do about it. At the end we see Danny in his small apartment at thanksgiving. His clients, including the recovering Barney, are there and Danny waits on them with frozen turkey and makes sure everyone is ok. He might be a loser but Danny is a sweet, kind man and that is worth more than success or money.

Broadway Danny Rose is one of Allen's smaller works but is up there with anything he's done. It is perhaps the closest he has come to making a great black comedy. The film explores the dark (or downbeat) side of the American dream. The hustlers and losers who get eaten up by bigger fish. People who have big ideas and dreams but are never able to do anything with them. Most of all though, Allen, you sense, knew these people in his night-club days as a young comedian. Broadway Danny Rose is his tribute to them. A love letter to a world that has gone.

Extras:

Woody Allen doesn't do extras! A trailer and a great print of the film will have to suffice

Summary: A great film