{"id":88538,"date":"2015-08-05T17:31:26","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T21:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=88538"},"modified":"2015-08-05T17:37:46","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T21:37:46","slug":"my-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/","title":{"rendered":"My Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5yiyZRGLdYY?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>The Broadway Melody <\/em>of 1929 won the Oscar for best picture. The highest-grossing film of the year, it was the first all-talk musical, and MGM\u2019s first musical, period. It contained a groundbreaking Technicolor sequence.<\/p>\n<p>Even if you\u2019re not a cinephile, the film\u2019s a great, pre-Code watch. While the acting is certainly dated, and the story somewhat melodramatic and lurid\u2014it centers around a sister-act love triangle\u2014it\u2019s an emotionally and visually satisfying spectacle. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em>Broadway Melody<\/em> introduced the standards \u201cBroadway Melody\u201d and \u201cYou Were Meant for Me,\u201d both later used in <em>Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em>. But for some of us, the sound track has but one raison d\u2019etre: \u201cThe Wedding of the Painted Doll.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I am not a woman who ever dreamed about her wedding day. I didn\u2019t know what I\u2019d wear or what sort of cake I wanted. But this much I did know: whomever I married, whatever else was forced upon me, by God, \u201cThe Wedding of the Painted Doll\u201d would play. (Similarly: when I die, please have someone perform the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6cMsXBJ0Y98\" target=\"_blank\">Munchkin Coroner\u2019s solo<\/a> from <em>The Wizard of Oz<\/em>; to everything else I am indifferent.) I liked, of course, that it involved a doll; I liked that it was kind of creepy. Having given up on getting my friends to enact the entire barn-raising dance from <em>Seven Brides for Seven Brothers<\/em>, I didn\u2019t think hearing this song was too much to ask.<\/p>\n<p>And indeed, this is precisely what was enacted at City Hall on July 24th: I mean, sort of. In my head.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>, and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Broadway Melody of 1929 won the Oscar for best picture. The highest-grossing film of the year, it was the first all-talk musical, and MGM\u2019s first musical, period. It contained a groundbreaking Technicolor sequence. Even if you\u2019re not a cinephile, the film\u2019s a great, pre-Code watch. While the acting is certainly dated, and the story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[19017,79,19019,81,5335,19016,19018,604],"class_list":["post-88538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-broadway-melody","tag-film","tag-hayes-code","tag-movies","tag-musicals","tag-the-wedding-of-the-painted-doll","tag-wedding-day","tag-weddings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Wedding of the Painted Doll<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on a longstanding nuptial ambition.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Day by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 5, 2015 \u2013 The Broadway Melody of 1929 won the Oscar for best picture. The highest-grossing film of the year, it was the first all-talk musical, and MGM\u2019s first\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-05T21:31:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-05T21:37:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"My Day\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-05T21:31:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-08-05T21:37:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/\"},\"wordCount\":278,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Broadway Melody\",\"film\",\"Hayes Code\",\"movies\",\"musicals\",\"The Wedding of the Painted Doll\",\"wedding day\",\"weddings\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/\",\"name\":\"The Wedding of the Painted Doll\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-05T21:31:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-08-05T21:37:46+00:00\",\"description\":\"Sadie Stein on a longstanding nuptial ambition.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/05\/my-day\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"My Day\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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