Screenplay by Robert Riskin and based on the short story "Strictly Confidential" by Mark Hellinger, the film is about a man's love for his thoroughbred race horse and the woman who helps him achieve his dreams.
Broadway Bill was filmed between June 18 and August 16, 1934 at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, and on location at Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, Warner Bros. Ranch, and the Pacific Coast Steel Mills.
The film received positive reviews, with Andre Sennwald in The New York Times calling it "sly and impertinent screen comedy, painlessly whimsical and completely engaging".
Alice nurses the horse back to health, and then sells her fur coat and jewelry in order to raise the necessary nominating fee—telling Whitey to say he won the money shooting craps.
[3] Like Claudette Colbert's character Ellen Andrews, Myrna Loy's Alice Higgins rebels against the wealth and privilege of her father's world and the constraints they impose on her search of legitimate love.
[5] During these ritualistic meals that resemble board meetings, Alice is seated opposite an empty chair reserved for her future husband who, like her brothers-in-law, will be required to work for her father.
[3] The screenplay for Broadway Bill was written by Robert Riskin, based on the unpublished short story "Strictly Confidential" by New York Daily Mirror columnist Mark Hellinger.
[6][7][8] Riskin had written previous screenplays for Capra for The Miracle Woman (1931), Platinum Blonde (1931), American Madness (1933), Lady for a Day (1933), and It Happened One Night (1934)[9]—receiving an Academy Award for the latter film.
[8] With Riskin on vacation in Europe and unavailable, Capra invited former Paramount screenwriter Sidney Buchman to Palo Alto to discuss changes to the end of the film.
[13] According to cinematographer Joseph Walker and sound engineer Edward Bernds, Capra wanted Clark Gable for the leading role, but the actor was unavailable.
[7] Broadway Bill was filmed from June 18 to August 16, 1934[16] at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, and on location at Tanforan Race Track in San Bruno, California, Warner Bros. Ranch, and the Pacific Coast Steel Mills.
[1] In his review for The New York Times, Andre Sennwald called the film a "sly and impertinent screen comedy, painlessly whimsical and completely engaging".
[2] Seenwald continues: Broadway Bill unfolds the fresh and inventive talent of Frank Capra in a mood of high good humor.
Out of the sentimental simplicities of Mark Hellinger's story, Mr. Capra manufactures the kind of entertainment which pleases the thin-nosed sophisticate as well as the ribbon-counter empress and the affrighted defender of the public morale.
So skillfully does he wield his gently satirical cameras that, if you are not aware of the portentous matters he is spoofing, you are still under the impression that the screen is providing an uncommonly pleasant experience.
[2]Seenwald goes on to praise the performances of the entire cast, singling out the "enormously agreeable" Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy who "reaffirms our faith in her, both as a light comedienne and as a person".