Could Mel Brooks have seen this before he wrote his screenplay for "The Producers"? The two films sure have a lot in common. Unfortunately, "Manhattan Parade" is a shout-fest -- apparently, the movie director didn't trust the microphones to pick up normal conversations, and when the movie was converted from its live stage form, nobody told the actors to stop playing to the balcony. So much is screamed it becomes tiresome quickly. If only the lines were memorable enough to be screamed.<br /><br />But I liked the moxieness of the wife, the elegant solutions of the research director, and, yeah, the limp-wristed gayness of the artistic director, a walking dictionary of practically every gay cliché there is. All of this stuff became impossible once the Code kicked in, so the movie does have its interests, if perhaps mainly for film and cultural historians.