The Broken Melody (1934)

By CinemaSerf

Recounted by way of an after-show theatre conversation by someone who thinks he recognises one of the actors, this is the rather run of the mill tale of "Paul Verlaine" (a marionette-like John Garrick) who works in a Parisian café with "Germaine Brissard" (Merle Oberon). One night "Simone St. Cloud" (Margot Grahame) - a big star of the stage stops by and next thing she and Garrick are in love, married and have a baby... All of this inspires him to write a musical, but Lloyd Webber he isn't; it flops and she dumps him. He takes revenge by killing his successor in her life and is dispatched to the harsh Devil's Island. He does his time; gets back to Paris and tries to get it all back on track with his old friend Oberon who looks every inch the vulnerable, "Olive Oyl" type, but doesn't feature anywhere near enough to rescue his really rather dreary melodrama. For some reason, the alliterative "Vagabond Violinist" was it's title here in the UK; perhaps to create more mystique around the film - well it doesn't really add anything, sorry....