Despite its status as a terrible movie, 1929’s The Broadway Melody won the second-ever Oscar for what would soon become called Best Picture. This eventually spawned a mini-franchise of similarly-themed “sequels”, with 1938’s Broadway Melody of 1938 as the second of these.

Equine trainer Sally Lee (Eleanor Powell) worries about the well-being of a horse formerly owned by her family. She stows away on a train to New York City so she can watch after the steed.

On the trip, Sally meets talent agent Steve Raleigh (Robert Taylor). He discovers that Sally possesses good dancing and singing skills so he sets her on the path to stage stardom – and perhaps romance as well.

Yeah – “perhaps”. I’m sure some 1930s Hollywood musicals shunned predictable love stories but Melody doesn’t feel like a candidate to fall into that category.

Really, “plot” of Melody exists as little more than an excuse for lots of singing and dancing. We also find a secondary story in which Alice Clayton (Sophie Tucker) tries to get her talented daughter Betty’s (Judy Garland) foot in the door of show business.

Again, that doesn’t become much of an actual narrative thread. We get to meet and see Betty and Alice so we can hear and watch Garland and Tucker sing.

Apparently Garland’s rendition of “Dear Mr. Gable” – a riff on the classic “You Made Me Love You” – helped turn her into a major star and snag her the lead in 1939’s Wizard of Oz. Coincidentally – maybe? - Melody also features Oz’s Uncle Henry (Charlie Grapewin) and Buddy Ebsen, the original choice for the Tin Man until he needed to leave the production because the makeup damaged his health.

Trivia aside, does Melody offer anything of note? Not really, though that doesn’t make it a bad movie.

On the negative side, director Roy Del Ruth fails to give the production any panache. He depicts the musical numbers devoid of pizzazz and creates a fairly bland cinematic experience.

On the positive side, Melody comes with some good comedy. Of course, like the gratuitous musical numbers, the gags often pop up as entities unto themselves.

Take a segment at Alice’s boarding house that devotes a few minutes to resident (Robert John Wildhack) who does nothing other than present an array of comically exaggerated sneezes. This serves literally no plot purpose but it does amuse.

Really, across the 111 minutes of Melody, I doubt we get more than maybe 45 minutes of actual plot or character development. The movie really does exist as little more than a collection of production numbers and comedy scenes.

Nonetheless, that proves sufficient in this case. Nothing about the 1938 Melody makes it a classic, but it keeps us entertained and it easily betters the awful 1929 Melody.

The Broadway Melody of 1938 appears in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This turned into a generally appealing presentation.

Sharpness usually appeared good. The film only suffered from a few slightly ill-defined shots, as the majority of the flick demonstrated nice delineation.

I saw no problems with jagged edges or shimmering, and the movie lacked edge haloes. Grain seemed appropriate and I witnessed no print flaws.

Blacks appeared deep and rich, while low-light shots demonstrated nice definition and clarity. Even with some softness, this ended up as a solid image.

Although the DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack of Melody didn’t demonstrate anything special, it worked fine for its era and genre. Speech seemed slightly thin but was good for its age, as lines remained intelligible and clear.

Music demonstrated reasonable range. The score didn’t impress, but it appeared acceptably bright.

Effects became a minor component in this chatty flick, and they came across as reasonably accurate. Though they had little heft, they were clean and didn’t suffer from distortion or other concerns. The audio appeared positive for its period.

A bunch of extras appear, and a radio show called Good News of 1938 runs 55 minutes, 14 seconds. Aired November 4, 1937, it brings a mix of skits and scenarios.

For the first half, filmmaker Robert Z. Leonard hosts the show and takes the audience on a “studio tour”. This allows various castmembers of Melody to appear and entertain us, all with an eye toward selling tickets to the movie, of course.

At 30:10, News branches off to give us a dramatization of a film called The Firefly with performances from Jeanette MacDonald and Allan Jones. None of this seems tremendously compelling but it’s a decent promo piece.

Leo Is On the Air spans 14 minutes, 10 seconds and acts as a long advertisement for Melody. It’s pretty forgettable.

Under Audio Outtakes (19:20), we get two versions of Judy Garland’s “Your Broadway and My Broadway”, two takes of Garland’s “Yours and Mine”, a demo of Garland’s “Feelin’ Like a Million” and a performance of Igor Gorin’s “Sun Showers”.

Five Alternate Audio Cues (13:12) all connect to “Everybody Sing”. None of this does much for me but fans of the flick’s music will enjoy these outtakes and alternate elements.

Along with the movie’s trailer, we find four vintage shorts. The set features That Mothers Might Live (10:16), Romance of Celluloid (10:35), Glimpses of Peru (8:25) and Pipe Dreams (8:27).

With Live, we get a factual look at Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (Sheppard Strudwick), the 19th century Hungarian physician who discovered the need for doctors to wash before they work with patients. Though melodramatic in presentation, Live offers a vivid look at the topic.

The Romance of Celluloid runs 10 minutes, 45 seconds and depicts the physical creation of movie film and other aspects of the cinematic processes.

The reel starts with footage of Blacks in the fields and the narrator refers to “darkies picking cotton”. Yikes.

Beyond that offensive launch, Romance manages to offer an interesting view of Hollywood, even if it goes for a fairly fluffy perspective – and exists to promote a bunch of then-new movies.

Via Glimpses, we find a “FitzPatrick Traveltalk” that allows us to witness the wonders of Peru, all in glorious Technicolor. Inevitably, it becomes little more than a puffy promo piece, but it gives us a view of Peru as it existed nearly 90 years ago.

The only cartoon of the bunch, Dreams features monkey statues that come to life, get high on tobacco and hallucinate. Trippy as that sounds, it becomes too cute to really amuse.

Essentially a collection of musical numbers and comedy shtick in search of a plot, Broadway Melody of 1938 delivers a flimsy cinematic experience. However, it comes with enough talent and verve to become a likable little affair. The Blu-ray brings fairly positive picture and audio along with a mix of supplements. While not a classic, Melody entertains much of the time.