Did anyone realize that the Busby Berkeley number at the end was a tie in for the Lew Ayres character telling Jeanette MacDonald to take off her mask in the scene where she was crying? I believe that to be a direct tie in to the musical finale with all the masks. Although it was not the best of Jeanette MacDonald films It does show a side of her that is in direct juxtiposition for the films with Nelson Eddy. How many Canadian Mounty movies can she do. Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy were a tour de force that even had fans expecting or anticipating that the two were married. This movie is a relief for Jeanette MacDonald not to be type cast. I for one really enjoyed the final acte.

Although Jeanette MacDonald struggles valiantly, the script is poor, overlong and cliché. Ayres' character is thoroughly unlikeable, boorish, insanely jealous, violent - the audience has difficulty caring about him and likewise the motivations and caring of MacDonald, who plays his wife.Able support is given by Al Shean as the kindly old musician who takes an interest in Ayres' serious music composition, and Rita Johnson, who gets all the best lines as a catty chorus girl who has her eye on the producer (Frank Morgan) and won't let anyone get in her way. Also fine is Franklin Pangborn who is wonderful in his three scenes as a frustrated arranger.The score is lackluster. Jeannette has a medley at the beginning (Yip I Addy I Ay, Just A Song at Twilight and a few unrecognizable tunes), Lonely Heart - based on Tchaikovsky's song, Flying High, Un Bel Di from Madame Butterfly, another montage of snippets of songs, Musetta's Waltz, Les Filles de Cadiz, Italian Street Song, One Look At You. It's a combo of song and opera snippets and new songs that are dreary.The stupid finale with grotesque masks and bizarre sets and lighting makes no sense in terms of a staging of a rhapsody, less in the fact that the music is stolen from Tchaikovsky - one of Busby Berkeleky's very worst conceptions.Flatly directed by Robert Z. Leonard and overlong at 114 minutes, this is a forgettable mishmash, far below the standard the studio had previously set for Jeannette, at the time its biggest star. See it only for her.

From 1939, Broadway Serenade is an odd movie, containing all kinds of music. Lew Ayres is a composer/pianist who apparently wrote or ripped off None but the Lonely Heart, I couldn't decide; the Macdonald-less Jeanette is his lovely singer wife. During his audition of a new song for a big Broadway producer (Frank Morgan) and his investor (Ian Hunter), it's Jeanette who gets the job and Hunter's heart. She has to go on the road with the show; she comes back a star, and her husband, hearing rumors of a romance with Hunter and not doing too well himself, rejects her, though the rumors aren't true. He becomes drunk and disorderly while her star ascends.I guess the big, lirico-spinto/dramatic soprano arias were the popular ones, because in movies where she sang opera, Jeanette MacDonald was always doing something like Tosca or Madama Butterfly, which she does here - so totally out of her vocal type, which was way too light for that sort of music. Her repertoire was operetta and roles like those in the French repertoire: Delibes, Gounod, or Bellini and Donizetti. She had a nice middle voice and beautiful, lyrical pianissimos, but her very high notes had a whitish, straight sound - basically that's how female singers were taught back then. I always loved her acting. She and Ayres are both good although an unlikely couple, he being boyish and she being diva-ish.Some bizarre musical numbers, such as the one at the end. A mixed bag. There are better musicals - an understatement.

Through no fault of the players, this must be one of the worst major studio films of a great year for cinema--1939. Jeanette is charming as always, although I'd like to see her try Butterfly on stage without amplification. I'm afraid the orchestra would win that round! That said, she warbles beautifully and is great fun to watch.Lew Ayres plays a nearly saintly husband (albeit with a temper) and the supporting cast is just fine. The problems: a hackneyed script, and an incredibly tasteless and vulgar Busby Berkeley number to end the affair. Of course we expect BB's numbers to be over the top, we just don't expect them to be so poorly designed. Without this final extravaganza, I'd have given this a 5 at least, but after seeing that debacle, I'm giving it a 3.