MUSICAL / DANCE FILMS
Musical / Dance Films
are cinematic forms that emphasize and
showcase full-scale song and dance routines in a significant way (usually with a musical or
dance performance as part of the film narrative, or as an unrealistic "eruption" within the
film). Or they are films that are centered on combinations of music, dance, song or
choreography. In traditional musicals, cast members are ones who sing. Musicals highlight
various musical artists or dancing stars, with lyrics that support the story line, often with an
alternative, escapist vision of reality - a search for love, success, wealth, and popularity. This
genre has been considered the most escapist of all major film genres. Tremendous film
choreography and orchestration often enhances musical numbers.
Introduction:
With the coming of talking motion pictures, the musical film genre emerged from its roots:
stage musicals and operettas, revues, music halls and vaudeville. They were the last of the
major film genres, because they were dependent on sound captured on film. (How could a
movie be "all-singing, all-dancing" without sound?) Musicals are often described as Broadway
on film, although many other forms of musicals have been made (e.g., rock 'n' roll movies and
disco/dance films). Recently, animated films (with musical soundtracks, such as Beauty and
the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Tarzan (1999)) have emerged
as one of the major musical forms, and many of them have won Best Original Song Oscars.
The Earliest Examples of Sound/Dance Films:
One of the earliest films with a famous dance sequence was The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse (1921), noted for Latin lover Rudolph Valentino's sensuous tango performed in a
smoky cantina while dressed in an Argentine gaucho costume. In 1926, Warner Bros. had
produced Don Juan (1926), the first full-length silent film released with a complete musical
score on a Vitaphone soundtrack. The groundbreaking film cleverly synchronized canned
sound effects and dubbed music to the action.
Warner Brothers' Experiments with Sound:
Warner Bros. had launched sound and talking pictures, with Bell Telephone Laboratory
researchers, by developing a revolutionary synchronized sound system called Vitaphone. It
was a short-lived system sound-on-film process developed in 1925 that became obsolete by
1931. This sound-on-disk process allowed sound to be recorded on a 16" phonograph record
that was electronically linked and synchronized with the film projector. Each disc
corresponded to one reel of film, or about ten minutes. The process was first used for short
one- and two-reel films, mostly comedies and vaudeville acts.
The Jazz Singer (1927): A Landmark Film
With the coming of the talkies, the film musical genre naturally emerged with
the first full-length, revolutionary 'talkie' (with speech and song) that premiered
in New York City at the Warner Theatre on October 6, 1927. It was a
"musical" of sorts - Warner Bros.' The Jazz Singer (1927). Contrary to
popular belief, it was not the first sound feature film, since it was mostly silent,
and it was not the first Hollywood musical (The Broadway Melody (1929) holds that honor).
It was also not the first instance of sound-on-film.
In reality, the landmark part-talkie singing film was an old-fashioned melodrama about
Jewish-bred 'jazz singer' Jakie Rabinowitz/Jake Robin (charismatic Broadway mega-star Al
Jolson). It featured seven songs (including "Blue Skies," "Toot-Toot-Tootsie," and "Mammy"
- famous for the image of Jolson on one knee holding out his arms to embrace the audience),
and a few lines of screen dialogue (including one long emotional homecoming speech to
Jolson's mother, played by Eugenie Besserer). After Jolson had sung his first song, "Dirty
Hands, Dirty Face", he delivered a portentous, spellbinding line that was ad-libbed and left in
the film, before singing his next song. His naturally-spoken words were the first ever heard in
a full-length movie:
Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain't heard nothin' yet. Wait a minute, I
tell ya, you ain't heard nothin'! Do you wanna hear 'Toot, Toot, Tootsie!'?
All right, hold on, hold on. (To the band leader) Lou, Listen. Play 'Toot,
Toot, Tootsie!' Three choruses, you understand. In the third chorus I whistle.
Now give it to 'em hard and heavy. Go right ahead!
In the next year - 1928, the hot star Al Jolson teamed up once more with
Warner Bros. for his only other big hit - director Lloyd Bacon's part-talkie,
part-silent high-grossing tearjerker The Singing Fool (1928). This followup film for Jolson was an even bigger success and soon became the
biggest-grossing film of all time - until Gone With the Wind (1939). In
fact, this film was the one that really introduced the public to the sound
film. It was a sophisticated variation of the earlier hit in which Jolson
crooned seven songs, including: "Sonny Boy," "I'm Sittin' on the Top of
the World," "There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder," and "It All
Depends on You." The first film-related hit record was Al Jolson's Sonny
Boy, sung three times in Jolson's second feature film.
Three more ground-breaking films featured Jolson at the end of the decade, although none of
them approached his earlier success. They were: Lloyd Bacon's Say It With Songs (1929),
director Michael Curtiz' Mammy (1930) - a melodrama with a few Irving Berlin songs and
Technicolor sequences, and Big Boy (1930).
Upheaval in the Industry:
The other major film studios (Paramount, Loew's, First National and UA) realized the
expensive and challenging ramifications of the sound revolution that was dawning, and that
talkie films would be the wave of the future. Most of the studios started to convert from silent
to sound film production - a tremendous capital investment. Thousands of existing theaters
had to be rewired for sound. In 1927, only 400 US theatres were wired for sound, but by the
end of the decade, over 40% of the country's movie theatres had sound systems installed.
Many Hollywood actors/actresses lacked good voices and stage experience, and their
marketability decreased. By 1930, the silent movie had practically disappeared, and by the
mid-1930s, film industry studios had become sound-film factories.
Most early musicals were crudely made, due to technical limitations,
and often just adaptations or photographed versions of recent stage hits.
Broadway stars were called in to become musical film stars. Broadway
legend and popular Ziegfeld Follies star Fannie Brice (in her sound
film debut) performed some of her inimitable sketches and songs ("I'd
Rather Be Blue Over You" and the title song) in director Archie Mayo's
and Warners' musical My Man (1928) - one-third of which was silent.
The film was not financially successful, and Brice was not an overnight
success on film, until her "Baby Snooks" character became popular.
RKO's first major production was the stage adaptation Rio Rita (1929),
one of the first musical spectaculars (filmed in black and white with
one rare Technicolor sequence). Starring Bebe Daniels as the Hispanic title character and John
Boles as a Texas Ranger, it was a costly adaptation of Florenz Ziegfeld's 1927 successful
Broadway stage musical hit shown virtually whole. Two of its stars from the original show,
comics Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, went on to later fame in the early 30s for the
studio.
On stage, the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II Show Boat debuted in 1927 - it was the first
Broadway musical play, differing from previous musical revues (a series of musical numbers
strung together). In two years, Universal released the part-talkie film version Show Boat
(1929) - the first of many versions (James Whale's 1936 version with Paul Robeson - usually
considered the best, and George Sidney's 1951 version with Howard Keel) of the popular
adaptation from Edna Ferber's book.
The First Genuine Musical: The Broadway Melody (1929)
The first genuine musical, fully integrating singing and dancing into a
'backstage musical' plot was also MGM's first full-length musical, The
Broadway Melody (1929). It premiered in Hollywood in early February
of 1929 at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and was the first widelydistributed sound feature. It was proudly advertised as "All Talking - All
Singing - All Dancing", and the popular film brought in a profit of over
$1.6 million. It was the first musical film - and the first sound film as
well - to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. The film inspired
three more "Broadway Melody" films - in 1935 (the best of the series),
1937, and 1940.
The landmark musical starred Anita Page (as Queenie) and Oscarnominated Bessie Love (as older sibling Hank) as two sisters seeking
fame in the New York theatre - known as the Great White Way - while
both were attracted to song-and-dance man Charles King (as Eddie). The musical is outdated
today and exhibits its clumsy vaudevillian, stage-bound roots (with Jack Benny as master of
ceremonies). However, it featured the innovative use of two-colors in "The Wedding of the
Painted Doll" sequence, a mobile camera, and slangy dialogue. The film was also
revolutionary for two sound engineering firsts:
•
•
it used a pre-recorded soundtrack (for "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" sequence)
it had post-production sound effects and editing
The pioneering sound film was produced by young production head Irving Thalberg, and its
original score was written by the team of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed - the film's hit
song was "You Were Meant For Me." [Freed remained with MGM and eventually was
responsible for some of the studio's most successful and sophisticated musicals, beginning in
the 1940s and continuing into the 1950s. Brown's and Freed's songs were later recycled into
Singin' in the Rain (1952).] Other songs included "Give My Regards to Broadway"
(George M. Cohan), "The Wedding Day of the Painted Doll", "Love Boat," "Broadway
Melody," "Boy Friend," and "Truthful Deacon Brown" (Willard Robison).
The Boom in Musicals:
The 1930s were considered the beginning of the "Golden Age of the Musical" with a greater
variety of musical vehicles and stars. Musical arrangers, song-writers, conductors, and dance
instructors hurried to the West Coast to be part of the onslaught of 'talking' musicals. In
particular, backstage musicals became the rage during the Great Depression, encouraging the
production of other imitators with similar characters: a struggling stage producer, wisecracking chorus girls practicing and on the lookout for rich husband prospects, and the
opening night opportunity for stardom for an inexperienced chorus girl filling in for the
leading lady. Paramount's Astoria, Long Island studios were the earliest to master the musical
genre. Some of the leading songwriters and lyricists, such as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole
Porter, and George Gershwin, began to write original screen musicals or provide words and
music. The studio associated with all-star extravaganzas and revue-type productions was
MGM.
MGM's follow-up film to its successful Best Picture entry in 1929 was Chasing Rainbows
(originally titled The Road Show) (1929), again bringing together stars Bessie Love (as
Carlie) and Charles King (as song-and-dance man Terry), with the memorable tune "Happy
Days Are Here Again" - the future Presidential campaign song for Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1932.
Musicals experienced a significant boom during the late 1920s and early
1930s, many of them with Broadway stars lured westward to Hollywood.
Eddie Cantor was attracted to Hollywood from Broadway, where he made
his first sound film Whoopee! (1930), based on Flo Ziegfeld's 1928-1929
Broadway production (with the same cast) and filmed almost intact.
Silent film stars Corinne Griffith, Colleen Moore, and others found
themselves in sound films with dialogue. Pretty star Nancy Carroll
appeared in the part-talkie comedy Abie's Irish Rose (1928) - making her
the first Hollywood actress to sing and dance on a sound stage, and also in
the early sound musicals Sweetie (1929) and Honey (1930), among others.
Janet Gaynor's first all-talking film was Fox's popular early musical Sunny Side Up (1929),
one of the first musicals created directly for the screen - and featuring the film debut of young
Jackie Cooper. She took the role of heroine Molly and sang "I'm a Dreamer (Aren't We All?)",
"If I Had a Talking Picture of You", and the title song. Also, Gaynor was again teamed with
silent film romantic partner Charles Farrell for the first time in a talkie.
Early Operettas:
Many of the first musical sound films were generally heavy-handed, stage-bound adaptations
of operettas that looked much like photographed stage plays. The first all-talking, all-singing
operetta was Warners' and Roy Del Ruth's The Desert Song (1929) with some Technicolor
sequences, which was based on the 1927 operetta of the same name with music by Sigmund
Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II. It starred John Boles as the Red Shadow - the handsome
masked bandit leader of the French Moroccan Riffs, and Carlotta King as heroine Margot.
Myrna Loy also starred in an early role as the exotic native girl Azuri. It was produced two
more times by Warner Bros, in 1944 and 1953.
MGM's Best Picture-nominated musical comedy The Rogue Song (1930) was another
Technicolor musical adapted from the 1912 operetta Gypsy Love, starring ex-Met baritone
Lawrence Tibbett in his first screen role (Oscar-nominated as Best Actor) as Yegor - the
dashing leader of an outlaw band called The Robbing Larks. New Moon (1930) (remade in
1940 with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy), featured Metropolitan Opera soprano diva
Grace Moore and ex-Met baritone Lawrence Tibbett. [Moore's debut film was in MGM's
musical A Lady's Morals (1930) as the 'Swedish Nightingale' Jenny Lind.]
All-Star Revue Musicals:
Every studio in the late 20s produced lavish, star-studded musicals of
the "all-talking, all singing, and all dancing" variety that contained
smorgasbord lineups of specialty or vaudeville acts, comedy sketches,
musical numbers, short dramas, and other production numbers (some of
which had color sequences). In many cases, actors with no musical
talent whatsoever were recruited into these musical revue films.
One of the first "variety" shows was MGM's elaborate, Best Picturenominated The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) noted for two
highlight songs: "While Strolling Through the Park One Day" and
"Singin' in the Rain". Its star-studded cast included Joan Crawford (singing and dancing to
"Gotta Feeling For You"), Marion Davies (performing "Tommy Atkins on Parade" and also
tap dancing), Bessie Love (performing "I Never Knew I Could Do a Thing Like That"),
comedy sketches from Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton and Marie Dressler (singing "For I'm
the Queen"), and other star performers. It was hosted by Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel and
was most notable for an early version of "Singin' in the Rain", performed by Cliff Edwards
(known as "Ukelele Ike") during a rainstorm.
Another was Warners' color film The Show of Shows (1929),
that featured comedienne Winnie Lightner singing the first
renditions of "You Were Meant For Me" (with Bull Montana)
and "Singing in the Bathtub" - to mock the song in MGM's film.
It also starred Myrna Loy, John Barrymore, comedian Ben
Turpin, 'Eight Sister Acts' and more, and was hosted by Master
of Ceremonies Frank Fay.
Other "variety" or "revue musicals" included: Fox's Movietone Follies of 1929 (1929), and
the best of the entire lot -- Paramount's and female director Dorothy Arzner's Paramount on
Parade (1930) - a patchwork from eleven different directors, featuring Nancy Carroll (with
"Dancing to Save Your Sole" performed on top of a shoe with rubber-legged dancer Al
Norman), Maurice Chevalier (singing "All I Want is Just One Girl"), Clara Bow (singing "I'm
True to the Navy Now"), George Bancroft, Kay Francis, William Powell, Warner Oland, Ruth
Chatterton (performing "My Marine") and many more; the film's Technicolor finale was titled
"Rainbow Revels" with the chorus and Chevalier appearing as chimney sweeps and singing
"Sweeping the Clouds Away". The only major Paramount star not included in the film was
Jeanette MacDonald.
Early Musical Directors: Ernst Lubitsch
A few of the more notable early musicals were from director Ernst
Lubitsch, who had already established a reputation as a director of
sophisticated, risque romantic/sex comedies in the silent era. He was
adept at effectively integrating songs into his narratives involving
sexual indiscretions and liaisons. One of his major innovations was to
shoot his pictures without sound (it would be dubbed in later), thereby
giving him more freedom of camera movement. He also introduced the
world to the wonderful pairing of French cabaret star Maurice
Chevalier and soprano Jeanette MacDonald.
His first sound and musical film was at Paramount, The Love Parade
(1929). Lubitsch skillfully used sound and smoothly avoided making it
stage-bound and over-acted like many of the early talkies. The film
featured the delightful pairing of red-haired singer Jeanette MacDonald (in her first film,
debuting as the frustrated Queen Louise of Sylvania) and French entertainer and the film's sole
star Maurice Chevalier in his second sound picture (as womanizer Alfred Renard and
MacDonald's consort/prince). The film included such delightful songs as "Dream Lover," a
duet of the title song, and "Anything to Please the Queen." It received Academy Award
nominations for Outstanding Production, Best Actor (Maurice Chevalier), Best Director (Ernst
Lubitsch), Best Cinematography, Best Interior Decoration and Best Sound Recording. One of
MacDonald's 1930 musical films, also directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Monte Carlo (1930),
contained the famous sequence of her singing "Beyond the Blue Horizon".
The amusing romantic comedy The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), again
with Maurice Chevalier (as an Austrian lieutenant) in addition to Claudette
Colbert (as Franzi, the leader of an all-girls' band) and Miriam Hopkins (as
Princess Anna), was a charming Viennese-flavored operetta (based upon
the 1907 operetta A Waltz Dream by Oscar Straus) - and a box-office hit.
With uncredited co-director George Cukor, Lubitsch re-made his earlier silent film comedy
The Marriage Circle (1924) into a witty romantic comedy-sound musical, renaming it One
Hour With You (1932), again starring Jeanette MacDonald with Maurice Chevalier as
husband and wife. (It was nominated for Best Picture but lost to Grand Hotel (1932).)
For his last musical, Lubitsch brought MacDonald and Chevalier together again, at MGM, for
one of the greatest, most lavish operettas ever filmed, The Merry Widow (1934). It was
loosely based on Franz Lehar's 1905 operetta, with a Rodgers and Hart score.
Early Musical Directors: King Vidor
One of the early landmark musical films was King Vidor's and MGM's
melodramatic musical Hallelujah! (1929). It was King Vidor's first talkie
and only musical. It was a risky film to make, given its questionable boxoffice potential, and the fact that it was shot mostly on location in
Memphis. [He was already known for his great silent films, including
The Big Parade (1925) and The Crowd (1928).] And it was the first
all-black feature film in the sound era with a soundtrack composed of
various spirituals and traditional songs, such as "Swing Low, Swing
Chariot" and "Swanee River."
It was also the first film with a dubbed, asynchronous soundtrack added
later in the studio in Hollywood - a technological, post-production
advancement. Although the film contained some racial stereotypes, over-done acting, and
primitive techniques, it remained a powerful tale of murder and redemption in the Deep South,
regarding black man Zeke (Daniel Haynes) who was led to commit manslaughter and murder
within a love triangle involving seductive temptress Chick (Nina Mae McKinney) and her
lover from the past Hot Shot (William E. Fountaine).
Early Musical Directors: Rouben Mamoulian
In the early 1930s, director Rouben Mamoulian was most adept at
stylizing musicals, using various devices in his pictures, such as slow
motion (to create dreamy interludes and imaginary settings), a moving
camera, swift transitions between scenes, a double-channel soundtrack
with overlapping dialogue, and reversed films. Mamoulian's
directorial debut (and his first sound film) was titled Applause (1929).
It was an inventive, refreshingly-realistic, seamy, sordid and grim
drama of backstage life, with rough dialogue, unattractive characters,
and an uncompromising tragic ending regarding a mother-daughter
relationship. It was one of the earliest talkies to feature Broadway's
legendary 1920s musical star Helen Morgan (in her screen debut) as
fading burlesque (singer-stripper) queen Kitty Darling.
Mamoulian's Lubitsch-inspired romantic musical Love Me Tonight (1932) is considered
among the greatest musicals of the 1930s. This charming and sparkling Paramount Studios'
film featured the ever-popular, effervescent stars Jeanette MacDonald as bored and frustrated
countess Princess Jeanette, Chevalier as tailor Maurice Courtelin mistaken for a baron, and
Myrna Loy as man-hungry Countess Valentine, in a tale set in Paris. The stars wove witty
dialogue and songs together that advanced the plot. The superbly-integrated Richard Rodgers
and Lorenz Hart songs included "Isn't it Romantic?," "Lover," and Chevalier's trademark song
"Mimi."
Resurgence of Musicals:
Warner Bros. was the studio that produced the first talking picture in 1927, the first
movie operetta (The Desert Song (1929)), and the first color musicals. The first allcolor (actually two-strip Technicolor) sound musical was Warners' and director Alan
Crosland's backstage musical On With the Show! (1929) - advertised as "the first
100%, Natural Color, All-Singing Production" - with a plot similar to the later release,
42nd Street (1932/33). Director Edmund Goulding's big-budget musical Reaching
for the Moon (1930), starring Douglas Fairbanks (in one of his few sound pictures) and
Bebe Daniels, was to be the first musical to feature an all-Irving Berlin song score, but
the studio eliminated all of them except "When the Folks High-Up Do the Mean LowDown", performed by a young Bing Crosby, June MacCloy and Bebe Daniels.
The second full-length color sound feature film ever made was Warners' ambitious and successful Technicolor
musical The Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929) by director Roy Del Ruth. It featured a number of popular
variety stage stars, including talented dancers, singers, and comedians. It was famous for "Tip-Toe Through the
Tulips With Me" and "Painting the Clouds with Sunshine" by Nick Lucas, who also starred in the film. It was a
remake of the silent, non-musical comedy film about chorus girls, The Gold Diggers (1923) - and it was
followed by Mervyn LeRoy's musical remake The Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). See more below.
By 1932, however, Hollywood studios had glutted the public's tired appetite and their overexposed song-anddance epics (often sacrificing plot and character development) went into a commercial decline, coinciding with
the height of the Great Depression. Audiences bypassed many of the musical films that were being cranked out,
and preferred to watch other genre creations, such as the early gangster films: Public Enemy (1931) and Little
Caesar (1930), the comedy film Min and Bill (1930), or the Best Picture-winning western film Cimarron
(1931). The novelty of sound had worn off and the popularity of musicals suffered. For example, MGM's starstudded, over-produced Hollywood Party (1934) with a host of writers and directors, originally titled
Hollywood Revue of 1933, was basically a disaster. It had a mish-mashed plot, and starred such diverse actors as
Laurel and Hardy, Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez, Polly Moran, Frances Williams, and The Three Stooges.
The Landmark Film: 42nd Street
The musical genre was really sparked, fortunately, when the Warners studio stole director
and dance choreographer Busby Berkeley away from United Artists. (Earlier in the decade,
Berkeley was hired by Sam Goldwyn as dance director on Whoopee! (1930), his debut film.)
The Warners film that breathed new life into the musical form was Darryl Zanuck's executive
production of director Lloyd Bacon's 42nd Street (1932/33), another lively backstage
drama that chronicled the hard work of a manic Broadway director (Warner Baxter) behind
the making of a musical comedy - where life (whether as a director or chorus girl) depended
upon the success of the opening show. The Warner Bros.' 'putting on a show' film (with two
Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Sound, with no wins) also featured two fresh
new juvenile stars, Ruby Keeler (as a chorus girl) and tenor Dick Powell, and it starred
Ginger Rogers as veteran showgirl Anytime Annie.
Berkeley made screen history in this milestone-grandfather of spectacular musicals, with scores of chorus girls,
large extravagant musical 'production numbers' and sumptuous art deco sets, surrealistic imagery, optical
effects, zoom lenses, escapist musical numbers, fast-paced timing and rhythmic editing, and wise-cracking
dialogue. Berkeley was aided by the penned tunes of Harry Warren (and co-writer Al Dubin), who contributed
"Shuffle Off to Buffalo", "Young and Healthy", and the climactic title song "42nd Street".
[Songwriter/composer Warren also worked on Berkeley's other 1933 films, and wrote some of the bestremembered musical songs ever created.]
Busby Berkeley - Master Musical and Dance Choreographer:
It was the first real look at the imaginative choreography of former Broadway dance director Busby Berkeley, a
transplant from Broadway musical-directing. He was the first to truly realize that a filmed musical was totally
different from a staged musical, with the camera becoming an integral participant with the choreography. He
was becoming known for his trademark sensual, kaleidoscopic patterns of carefully-positioned, often scantilyclad chorus girls with props photographed from above (his "top shot"), from swooping cranes, from the trench
below the stage, or from cameras placed on specially-designed tracks to capture audacious camera movements.
Abstract, shifting geometric patterns, screen compositions, and props in his highly-stylized 'moving pictures'
included giant flowers, neon violins, and waterfalls.
In most of these unique films, emphasis was on large extravagant (sometimes outlandish) musical numbers and
sets. He used his chorus girls not as individuals but as parts of large, attractive geometric patterns moving with
precise choreography. The images could be animated tiles in vast, ever-shifting mosaics, fanciful geometric
patterns or cascading designs. Often, he would use his legendary cinematic "top view" shot to capture the
kaleidoscopic views. He dressed the girls up in preposterous costumes, sometimes as coins or musical
instruments, or the chorus girls would wear next to nothing but wisps of gauze.
Berkeley produced many more distinctive musicals during the Depression-afflicted 1930s for Warner Bros. In
fact, Berkeley alone choreographed three films for WB in 1933 (*). [Note: These three films all featured
performers Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Guy Kibbee, Lorena Layson, Renee Whitney and Pat Wing. They also
featured songs written by Al Dubin and Harry Warren, and conducted by Leo F. Forbstein.] Each movie
attempted to outdo the previous extravaganza in exotic, erotic flamboyance (in chronological order):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
42nd Street (1933) *
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) *
Footlight Parade (1933) *
Roman Scandals (1933)
Fashions of 1934 (1934)
Dames (1934)
Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)
• Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
He introduced spectacular musical numbers (often non-integrated into the narrative) with
stylized action, astonishing sets, and huge lavish dance numbers for the Gold Digger series.
Mervyn LeRoy's blockbuster Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) (a remake of the Gold Diggers
of Broadway (1929) which itself was a remake of the silent film Gold Diggers (1923) about
chorus girls), was one of Berkeley's purest fantasies for the Depression Era. It featured a
young, coin-clad Ginger Rogers in the opening production number leading a chorus line of
showgirls garbed in more gold-coin costumes singing "We're in the Money" (with one verse
in Pig Latin). In another scene, Berkeley undressed his pretty chorus girls entirely behind
screens, backlighting them so that the audience could see all they had to offer in silhouette.
In another romantic scene "The Shadow Waltz", neon-lighted violins formed geometric
designs on the screen with girls dressed all in white. The film ended with the social
commentary of the finale's downbeat number: "Remember My Forgotten Man" accompanied
by the singing of Joan Blondell.
One of Berkeley's greatest extravaganzas in the same year was another Lloyd Bacon
collaboration: Footlight Parade (1933), in which Ruby Keeler and Joan Blondell co-starred
with a lively yet crazed Broadway musical producer (James Cagney). The film has many
classic numbers including "Shanghai Lil" and the underwater/fountain sequences in
"Honeymoon Hotel". The most incredible and showy of all sequences of musical fantasy in
Berkeley's films was the 15 minute production number "By a Waterfall". It included a
revolving wedding cake fountain and an elaborate aquacade of 100 bathing-suited girls,
performing kaleidoscopic patterns in the water and reflecting their images in a pool,
climaxing in a huge human fountain.
Dames (1934) included Berkeley's inventive, staged choreography in a title production
number ("I Only Have Eyes For You") in which gigantic, precision-fit jigsaw puzzle pieces
on the backs of dancing chorus girls came together to form a large picture of the face of Ruby Keeler. The film
also featured the songs of Harry Warren and Al Dubin, including "The Girl on the Ironing Board".
The visually-stunning Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935), not only production-designed but directed by Berkeley,
featured one of the finest examples of Berkeley's inventiveness. He traced the experiences of a chorus girl
through a day and night, culminating with her death fall from a Manhattan balcony. In another sequence titled
"The Words Are In My Heart", pretty chorus girls playing long rows of two-dozen separate white pianos were
merged together into one huge piano. He accomplished this spectacular feat by having his stagehands invisibly
dressed in black while they wheeled the pianos around on stage. The film climaxed with Berkeley's large-scale
dancing number "Lullaby of Broadway".
The era of extravagant Gold Diggers/Berkeley numbers began its decline shortly after the mid-30s, due to
production cuts and enforcement of the Production code that forbade some of Berkeley's sublimated sexual
images. The famed director/choreographer was restricted to only two production numbers in Lloyd Bacon's
Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936), featuring the ten-minute final musical number "All's Fair in Love and War",
nominated for Best Dance Direction. It featured Joan Blondell leading a chorus of 104 women dressed in white
military uniforms (against a shiny black floor) as they tapped their way through a series of military formations
and flag-wavings with Berkeley's trademarked geometric patterns. By the time the last Gold Diggers film was
released, Gold Diggers in Paris (1938), Rudy Vallee had replaced Dick Powell (who had starred in the previous
three Gold Digger films), and the budgets for Berkeley's numbers were drastically cut and scaled down.
MGM's 'Singing Sweethearts': Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy
MGM studios also contributed to the resurgence of musicals in the 1930s, filming a number
of "singing sweethearts" or "America's sweethearts" films teaming baritone Nelson Eddy and
Jeanette MacDonald singing romantic duets in remade operettas with bittersweet romantic
themes. After Jeanette starred in Paramount's film version of the operetta The Vagabond
King (1930) as heroine Katherine with co-star Dennis King as the roguish poet Francois
Villon, and in the Ernst Lubitsch/Paramount production of One Hour With You (1932), she
appeared in Rouben Mamoulian's/Paramount's musical fairytale Love Me Tonight (1932)
(with a star-making role for Myrna Loy) featuring a Rodgers and Hart score. She also starred
in MGM's The Merry Widow (1934) with Maurice Chevalier, and then was successfully
and profitably paired with Nelson Eddy. They starred in eight films together from 1935 to
1942:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Naughty Marietta (1935)
Rose Marie (1936) (with the song "The Indian Love Call" known for its phrase, "When I'm calling
you-oo-oo")
Maytime (1937)
The Girl of the Golden West (1938)
Sweethearts (1938)
Bitter Sweet (1940)
New Moon (1940)
I Married an Angel (1942)
Nelson Eddy's debut was in the revised operetta Naughty Marietta (1935). Their best remembered (and most
commercially successful film together) was Rose Marie (1936). Maytime (1937), a 1937 box-office champion
was a beautiful, bittersweet love story featuring the famed duo reprising the oft-repeated "Will You
Remember?" Their film Sweethearts (1938), MGM's first Technicolor feature, demonstrated the effectiveness
of color - its color cinematography won an Oscar.
MGM Dancing Star Eleanor Powell:
Another of the musical stars on the MGM studio lot during the 1930s was former Broadway
performer and glamorous tap dancer Eleanor Powell, who starred in a number of popular
musical films. Over her long career, she danced with the likes of Fred Astaire. The best of
her films were the following (notice that they included three Broadway Melody films):
•
•
•
The Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) - a bit role, but Powell's first association
with MGM; Powell played opposite Robert Taylor, and supporting cast members
Jack Benny and June Knight; this film, the best in the series, was one of the few
sequels to be nominated for Best Picture
Born to Dance (1936) featuring Powell in her first lead film role tap-dancing on
board an Art-Deco battleship
the expensive, over-produced Rosalie (1937) featuring a Cole Porter score and co-
•
•
•
•
•
•
star Nelson Eddy
The Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937), a film in which Powell's dance solos are overshadowed by a
young Judy Garland (her original name was Frances Gumm, in her first feature film appearance)
singing and dancing with Buddy Ebsen and singing the classic "You Made Me Love You" to a
photograph of Clark Gable
Honolulu (1939), in which Powell performs a hula-style tap dance, and also a stair-tapping tribute - in
blackface - to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
The Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), one of Powell's best, with a six-minute, film-ending dance
with Fred Astaire to Cole Porter's tune "Begin the Beguine"
Lady Be Good (1941), with George Gershwin songs
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Sensations of 1945 (1944) - Powell's final starring film
1936's Best-Picture Winning Biopic Musical:
Another lavish musical from MGM during the 1930s was The Great Ziegfeld (1936), the
second Oscar-winning musical. It was the epic musical biography of impresario/showman
Florenz Ziegfeld (starring William Powell, Luise Rainer, and Myrna Loy), that also featured
actual Follies stars as themselves, such as Fannie Brice, Will Rogers, and Eddie Cantor. The
three-hour, over-rated Best Picture Academy Award winning film, defeated other worthy
Best Picture nominees A Tale of Two Cities (1936) and Dodsworth (1936) in a year in
which Astaire-Rogers' Swing Time (1936) was not nominated for the top award. Gargantuan
numbers and songs included: "Won't You Come Play With Me?," "It's Delightful to be
Married," "If You Knew Susie," "Shine on Harvest Moon," "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,"
"You Gotta Pull Strings," "She's a Follies Girl," "You," and "You Never Looked So
Beautiful." Luise Rainer also won the first Oscar statuette awarded to an actress in a musical,
for her role as Ziegfeld's stage star Anna Held - for a memorable telephone scene.
Goldwyn's Musicals with Eddie Cantor:
Broadway comedian Eddie Cantor starred in six musical comedies independently produced by Samuel Goldwyn
in the 30s, including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Whoopee! (1930) - from Flo Ziegfeld's Broadway spectacular, with the hit songs: "My Baby Just Cares
For Me" and "Makin' Whoopee"
Palmy Days (1931)
The Kid From Spain (1932)
Roman Scandals (1933) - probably the best of the group
Kid Millions (1934)
Strike Me Pink (1936)
Shirley Temple at 20th Century Fox:
Besides MGM, other studios had their own musical attractions, and merchandising 'cash
cows.' One of the biggest money-making, musical super-stars of the mid-1930s was
Twentieth Century Fox's talented, naturally-acting, charming child attraction Shirley
Temple. The diminutive, curly-topped sensation earned a special Oscar in 1934 "in grateful
recognition to her outstanding contribution to screen entertainment." Although her films
went into decline by the late 30s as she got older, she achieved legendary film status in
such films as:
•
•
•
•
Baby Take A Bow (1934) - her first starring vehicle
Bright Eyes (1934) - one of Shirley's best, with her classic rendition of "On the
Good Ship Lollipop"
Little Miss Marker (1934)
Curly Top (1935) - with Shirley as a resident of an orphanage, and noted for her phrase: "Oh, my
goo'ness!" - [this phrase was referenced in the latter film Annie (1980)]
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Little Colonel (1935) with her famous staircase dance sequence with 56 year-old vaudevillian and
musical stage star Bill "Bojangles" Robinson; has a short Technicolor finale
The Littlest Rebel (1935) - a Civil War era film, the finale includes a 'challenge dance' against Bill
Robinson
Captain January (1936) including the delightful song/dance number "At The Codfish Ball" with
Buddy Ebsen
Dimples (1936) - famous for Shirley's convincing re-enactment of Little Eva's death scene in Uncle
Tom's Cabin
Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) - a remake of Mary Pickford's 1917 film, co-starring Alice Faye
Stowaway (1936) - as a character named Ching-Ching, orphaned and stranded in Shanghai, China who
stowaways on a ship bound for San Francisco; known for Shirley's frequent spouting of wise 'Charlie
Chan' sayings, and her wonderful rendition of "You've got to S-M-I-L-E, To be H-A-Double-P-Y"
Heidi (1937) - includes a dream sequence set in Holland with the singing of "In My Little Wooden
Shoes"
Wee Willie Winkie (1937) - directed by John Ford and set in India
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) with 10 year-old Shirley performing a medley of many of her
earlier hit songs, "On the Good Ship Lollipop," "When I'm With You," and more
Little Miss Broadway (1938)
The Little Princess (1939) - her first Technicolor feature film
Alice Fay and Betty Grable at 20th Century Fox:
For adult audiences, Fox's singer/dancer and musical performer Alice Faye starred in such hits as:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sing, Baby, Sing (1936)
You're a Sweetheart (1937) - Faye's only film for Universal
On the Avenue (1937) featuring Irving Berlin songs
In Old Chicago (1938)
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), a large-scale Irving Berlin backstage musical with Don Ameche,
Tyrone Power and young Ethel Merman - director Henry King's Best Picture-nominated film was the
first all-star epic musical to feature classic Irving Berlin songs (28 songs including "Heat Wave", "Now
It Can Be Told" and Jack Haley's rendition of "Oh How I Hate To Get Up In the Morning," among
others) and set the pattern for musicals into the 1940s; the film won the Best Score Oscar for Alfred
Newman's musical direction
Rose of Washington Square (1939), with song classics "California Here I Come," "Toot Toot Tootsie
Goodbye," "I'm Just Wild About Harry," and "My Man"
Tin Pan Alley (1940), an enjoyable film starring Alice Faye and Betty Grable as a pair of singing
sisters, won the Best Score Academy Award
Hello Frisco, Hello (1943) - starring Faye (singing "You'll Never Know") and co-star John Payne
The Gang's All Here (1943) - this was Faye's final starring role in a musical, director Busby
Berkeley's only film for Fox, and the one noted for Carmen Miranda's fruit-laden hat and the song "The
Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat"
After Alice Faye, Twentieth Century Fox found a successor in the person of Betty Grable for
much of the 40s decade and into the mid-50s. They capitalized on her popular and shapely
"million dollar legs" made famous in WWII pin-ups showing her mostly in a rear-view image.
Grable appeared in many nonsensical, Technicolor extravaganzas including the musical
comedy Moon Over Miami (1941) with Carol Landis and supporting player Charlotte
Greenwood, Footlight Serenade (1942) with Victor Mature, Springtime in the Rockies
(1942) with supporting Brazilian player Carmen Miranda, Coney Island (1943), Pin-Up Girl
(1944) - a title that capitalized on her earlier fame, and the hit film The Dolly Sisters (1945).
Fox's Technicolored State Fair (1945), with Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews, was the only
Rodgers & Hammerstein musical written directly for the screen. Its tune, "It Might As Well
Be Spring" won the Oscar for Best Song.
June Allyson:
MGM's 'girl-next-door' star was June Allyson who made her film debut in Best Foot Forward (1943). Later she
starred in MGM's war-time musical revue Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), and in three roles she portrayed
James Stewart's wife: in The Stratton Story (1949), in Universal's Big Band musical biography The Glenn
Miller Story (1954) (considered her best role), and in Strategic Air Command (1955).
Astaire and Rogers: The Greatest Dance Duo
The resurgence of musicals for RKO in the 1930s featured the cinematic artistry of the
seemingly effortless and carefree, graceful, energetic and inspired dance team of Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers - the most enduring, best-loved and complementary stars of the era.
Katharine Hepburn was quoted as saying, "He gave her class, she gave him sex." In a unique
musical courtship, the earthy Rogers matched Astaire's nimble dancing vitality with her own
brand of wise-cracking humor and talent. Their films often seamlessly integrated the musical
numbers into the storyline - often one of mistaken identities.
Astaire, arguably the greatest dancer in film history and an import from Broadway, was the
creative and revolutionary force behind the choreography and cinematography. He didn't fit the
profile of a studly, good-looking actor, but he changed forever the way in which the camera
moved in musicals. Musical numbers would now be filmed in long takes with minimal camera movements and
cuts, and Astaire also insisted that his full-figure had to be captured in the camera frame. The fact that long
dance sequences would be filmed in only one or two takes meant that the dance routines had to be performed
flawlessly - or repeated. Film technicians designed a so-called "Astaire dolly" that could move on wheels and
capture his whole body from a low-angle.
The RKO Films of Astaire and Rogers:
Here is a summary listing of the dance couple's nine films together at RKO over a six-year period - only two of
them were nominated for Best Picture (*):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Flying Down to Rio (1933)
The Gay Divorcee (1934) *
Top Hat (1935) *
Roberta (1935)
Swing Time (1936)
Follow the Fleet (1936)
Shall We Dance (1937)
Carefree (1938)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
Beginning at RKO, in the first of their nine films there, they co-starred (billed fourth and
fifth in secondary roles) in Flying Down to Rio (1933) in only one dance number. The film
was known for its memorable airplane wing-dancing chorus girls scene and their debut dance
number - the sensual 18-minute, show-stopping "Carioca." (Their first film together was also
the first time Astaire/Rogers had been teamed with choreographer Hermes Pan.) Then, after
being recognized as possible stars (as a dancing playboy and sweet but spunky dancing
partner), they were top billed in the next year's excellent The Gay Divorcee (1934), playing
their traditionally-remembered elegant and sophisticated dancing roles, exhibited in two
classic Cole Porter numbers: "The Continental" (it won an Oscar as Best Song) and "Night
and Day." In 1935, they were second-billed in their fourth film - the light-hearted Roberta
(1935) (directed by William Seiter) with a nominated Best Song contender by Jerome Kern:
"Lovely to Look At."
The Three Best Films of Astaire/Rogers:
The famous dance team's three best films in the series are considered to be:
•
the quintessential and very successful Top Hat (1935), a tale of mistaken identities and romantic
misunderstandings set in London and on the Italian Riviera, featuring Irving Berlin's superb songs (i.e.,
"It's This a Lovely Day to Be Caught in the Rain" and "No Strings") and their memorable dreamy duet
"Cheek to Cheek" number with Rogers in an ostrich-feathered dress (that shed during the routine), and
Astaire's signature solo number "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails"
•
the magical Swing Time (1936) featuring their poignant duet "Never Gonna Dance," Astaire's
blackface solo dance "Bojangles of Harlem," the romantic "Waltz in Swing Time", and the light
courtship dance "Pick Yourself Up"
•
Shall We Dance (1937) their seventh film together in four years, featuring Gershwin music and their
classic tap duet "They All Laughed"; also with a delightful roller-skating routine
They also teamed up to dance together in Follow the Fleet (1936) with an Irving Berlin score, and in the
screwball musical comedy Carefree (1938). Their last RKO picture together was The Story of Vernon and
Irene Castle (1939). After a ten year absence from the screen, the legendary pair of Astaire and Rogers was
reunited for their tenth and final film in MGM's inferior reunion film - The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), their
only Technicolored film. Amazingly, Astaire and Rogers were never nominated for an Academy Award for any
of their musical performances/roles.
Astaire's Other Dance Films:
Astaire continued to star in musicals for other studios and with other dance/film partners.
After Fred Astaire left RKO for MGM to make The Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940), the
only film in which he tap-danced with Eleanor Powell (to Cole Porter's "Begin the
Beguine"), he later made two wonderful musicals with Bing Crosby for Paramount:
•
•
Holiday Inn (1942) in which Crosby relaxingly croons "White Christmas" for the
first time and Astaire dances with Marjorie Reynolds - the film was later remade as
White Christmas (1954)
Blue Skies (1946) featuring Irving Berlin music and Astaire's classic "Puttin' On the
Ritz"
Both of Astaire's marvelous romantic musicals for Columbia with a ravishingly-beautiful
Rita Hayworth in the early 1940s have been under-rated - Hayworth was probably Astaire's best dance partner
after Ginger Rogers. They were first paired together in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) featuring Cole Porter
songs, and then in You Were Never Lovelier (1942). Their dancing was as good as the best Astaire-Rogers
romantic duets. Astaire also starred in Vincente Minnelli's Yolanda and the Thief (1945) and the Irving Berlin
musical Easter Parade (1948) with Judy Garland.
In Royal Wedding (1951), Astaire performed two memorable numbers: his hat and coat stand-rack routine, and
his famous "wall and ceiling walk" dance number in his hotel room during "You're All the World To Me". He
also performed many song and dance numbers with Jane Powell, including the dance duet "Open Your Eyes"
and "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You (When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life)?"
[Keenan Wynn's famous number in the film was "What a Lovely Day For a Wedding".] Much later, Astaire
danced with Audrey Hepburn in one of the best musicals of the 1950s, the gorgeously visual Funny Face
(1957) - a film also directed by Stanley Donen.
Paramount and Columbia in the 1930s:
Paramount Studios' contributions to the musical genre in the 1930s included their musical The Big Broadcast
(1932) (and its three sequels) with radio stars George Burns and Gracie Allen and their popular crooner Bing
Crosby in one of his earliest film roles, singing his future theme song: "When the Blue of the Night Meets the
Gold of the Day." The three sequels, all following the same pattern of the first entry with music and a lineup of
stars were:
•
•
The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935)
The Big Broadcast of 1937 (1936)
•
The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1937) - notable for Bob Hope's feature film debut, and the singing of his
future theme song, "Thanks for the Memories"
Crosby also crooned in other films for Paramount in the 30s and into the 40s:
•
•
•
•
Mississippi (1935)
Pennies From Heaven (1936) (for Columbia Studios)
Sing You Sinners (1938)
Going My Way (1944), a Best Picture winner, with the songs "Swingin' On a Star" (Best Song Oscar
winner) and the title song "Going My Way"; and the film's equally-popular sequel The Bells of St.
Mary's (1945)
Columbia Studios, under the direction of Harry Cohn, made very few musicals in the 1930s, although they did
produce One Night of Love (1934) from director Victor Schertzinger, with Metropolitan Opera diva Grace
Moore in her best screen role. The film scored six major Oscar nominations (including Best Picture, Best
Actress, Best Film Editing and Best Director), with two wins for Best Sound and Best Score.
Deanna Durbin at Universal:
Universal Studios capitalized on (or exploited) the popularity of their young, classicallytrained, 14 year-old soprano singer Deanna Durbin, who first appeared in Three Smart Girls
(1936) as a matchmaker for her divorced parents. [The film received three Oscar
nominations, including Best Picture.] Universal's next entertaining musical comedy with
Durbin, 100 Men and A Girl (1937), helped save Universal Studios from bankruptcy, and
won the Academy Award for Best Score. The young star also sang classical songs in the teen
musical comedy That Certain Age (1938) tailored especially for her, and in the same year
starred in Mad About Music (1938). She was awarded a 1938 special Oscar "for bringing to
the screen the spirit and personification of youth." Two sequels with the sweet-faced Durbin
were follow-ups to her first film: the highly-successful, lighthearted Three Smart Girls
Grow Up (1939) with Durbin singing the hit wedding song "Because," and the musical
romance Hers to Hold (1943). In 1939, 17 year-old Durbin received her first, brief on-screen
kiss (from young actor Robert Stack) in the romance-musical, First Love (1939). Her first adult role was in
Can't Help Singing (1944), a Technicolor Western musical - the start of her decline as a singing star.
Musicals in the Late 30s and 40s Post-War Period:
Musicals really came into full flower in the late 1930s and into the 1940s, with an increased
demand for escapist entertainment during World War II and bigger budgets for the musical
genre. The 1940s inaugurated the heyday of elaborate MGM musicals in technicolor. Color
was also being introduced into the major productions. MGM's most popular fantasy musical
was the artistic, classic Technicolor masterpiece The Wizard of Oz (1939), starring an
appealing and young emerging star Judy Garland as Dorothy in a magical land and dreaming
"Over the Rainbow." [Garland was recognized earlier for her singing of "Dear Mr. Gable/You
Made Me Love You" in The Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937).]
Even Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the first full-length animated
feature, was also the first animated musical - with the title character occasionally singing
within the film. Its songs included the tuneful "Heigh-Ho" and "Some Day My Prince Will Come." Although
not technically a musical, the visually-brilliant masterpiece Fantasia (1940) blended together animation and
classical music.
As in other film genres (such as the western and gangster films), darker undertones emerged in some musicals
in the post-war period, such as in director Michael Curtiz' Technicolored musical comedy My Dream is Yours
(1949), a Warner Bros' film starring Doris Day (in her second film). In its story about a tormented romance
(similar to A Star is Born), the film demonstrated how personal relationships between performers were
sacrificed for their careers (single war-widowed mother Martha Gibson (Doris Day) was told: "Two careers in
one family is one too many. We'll concentrate on mine, huh?" by egotistical and conceited popular radio crooner
Gary Mitchell (Lee Bowman)).
Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland: Teen Stars in the 40s
One of MGM's top musical teams in the 1940s was composed of all-American kids Mickey
Rooney and Judy Garland, successfully paired together in seven popular films from 1937 1948 - either in (1) a series of "backyard musicals" (in which a group of teenagers put on
their own musical show against insurmountable odds), often directed and/or choreographed
by Busby Berkeley, or in (2) a series of Andy Hardy films (they appeared three times
together in the 16 Andy Hardy films (*)):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
(1) A Family Affair (1937)
Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937) - the first pairing of Rooney and Garland in a
romantic comedy/drama
(2) You're Only Young Once (1938)
(3) Judge Hardy's Children (1938)
(4) *Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) - the pair's first Hardy film and probably the best in the series
(5) Out West with the Hardys (1938)
(6) The Hardy's Ride High (1939)
Babes in Arms (1939), d. Busby Berkeley
(7) Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939)
(8) Judge Hardy and Son (1939)
Strike Up the Band (1940), d. Busby Berkeley
(9) *Andy Hardy Meets a Debutante (1940) - the second Hardy film for Garland
(10) Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941)
(11) *Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941) - Garland's third and final Hardy film
Babes on Broadway (1941), d. Busby Berkeley
(12) The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942)
(13) Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942)
Girl Crazy (1943), d. Busby Berkeley. Includes a reprise of Ethel Merman's Broadway hit, partially
choreographed by Berkeley in a scene where Garland sings: "I Got Rhythm" in white buck-skin
Thousands Cheer (1943)
(14) Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944)
(15) Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946)
Words and Music (1948) - with Garland and Rooney reunited and singing "I Wish I Were In Love
Again"
(16) Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958) - the last in the series
MGM also presented a number of Judy Garland showpieces - she was the young queen and
top star of the musical in the 40s. Aside from her films with Mickey Rooney, she also
performed in Little Nellie Kelly (1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), a film with extravagant dance
numbers, co-stars Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr, and hundreds of beautifully-costumed
Ziegfeld Girls, one of which was Judy Garland. And she also appeared in Busby Berkeley's
For Me and My Gal (1942) with Gene Kelly in his film debut, the light-hearted musical
comedy The Harvey Girls (1946) (in which she sings "On the Atchison Topeka"), The
Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Till The Clouds Roll By (1946) (appearing as Marilyn Miller and
singing "Look For the Silver Lining"), Easter Parade (1948) with Fred Astaire, and In the
Good Old Summertime (1949), a musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
with Van Johnson.
Garland's best role and fresh singing (of Hugh Martin-Ralph Blane hits including "The Boy Next Door," and
"The Trolley Song") were showcased in MGM's nostalgic period musical Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) for
war-time movie-goers, where she was directed by her future husband Vincente Minnelli. The story, about a
middle-class family in a turn-of-the-century, Mid-western World's Fair city, was based on New Yorker stories by
Sally Benson. Songs and dances in the film were performed in natural circumstances by many of the characters
as a way to further the plot, and to reveal the characters and their emotions, such as Garland's "Have Yourself a
Merry Little Christmas"). Garland's swan song film at MGM was Summer Stock (1950) in which she again costarred with Gene Kelly and sang "Get Happy" - in drag.
Musical Biographies: Show-Biz Figures and Big Band Musicians
The musical-film biographies of show-biz figures and big band musicians (and their music)
was a major sub-genre of all the studios in the 1940s and 50s (and later), in the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
the rousing and patriotic Warners' production of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942),
starring the indefatigable James Cagney (who won a Best Actor Academy Award) as
the hoofing showman George M Cohan
the idealized career and timeless music of American composer George Gershwin in
WB's Rhapsody in Blue (1945), starring Robert Alda, and with an appearance by Al
Jolson singing "Swanee"
the fictionalized, show-business life story of vaudeville and Broadway stage
performer Al Jolson in Columbia's The Jolson Story (1946), starring Larry Parks (who lip-synched to
Jolson's songs); its popularity led to the sequel Jolson Sings Again (1949)
composer Cole Porter in Michael Curtiz' Night and Day (1946), starring Cary Grant
the musical biography of songwriter Jerome Kern in MGM's Till The Clouds Roll By (1946)
the big-band superstars Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey in UA's The Fabulous Dorseys (1947)
the composer-songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in MGM's Words and Music (1948)
WB's The Eddie Cantor Story (1953) about the bug-eyed entertainer
the stories of musicians Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in Universal's The Glenn Miller Story
(1954) (with James Stewart) and The Benny Goodman Story (1955) (with Steve Allen in his film
debut) respectively
New York's pianist and bandleader Eddy Duchin in Columbia's The Eddy Duchin Story (1956),
starring Tyrone Power
country music songwriter and performer Hank Williams, Sr. (George Hamilton) in the musical biopic
Your Cheatin' Heart (1964)
50s rock idol Buddy Holly (Gary Busey) in The Buddy Holly Story (1978), who tragically died in a
plane crash at the age of 22
John Lennon in Imagine: John Lennon (1988), a music-video collection of tracks from Lennon's
Imagine album
the feature biography of controversial rock 'n' roller Jerry Lee Lewis (Dennis Quaid) in Great Balls of
Fire (1989), with Winona Ryder as his 13-year old second cousin/wife
Musical Biographies: Classical Composers
Classical composers were also featured in Hollywood films, such as the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
A Song to Remember (1943), Columbia's biography of the Polish composer
Frederick Chopin, starring Cornel Wilde, Paul Muni and Merle Oberon as novelist
George Sand
MGM's Song of Love (1947), about young German composer Johannes Brahms
(Robert Walker) and musician Robert Schumann (Paul Henreid) and his wife
(Katharine Hepburn)
Sun Valley Serenade (1941) and Orchestra Wives (1942), two Glenn Miller big
band films of the 40s
Song Without End (1960), (an Oscar-winning film for "best musical
arrangement"), a biopic about Franz Liszt starring Dirk Bogarde
The Music Lovers (1970), Ken Russell's musical biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Immortal Beloved (1994), with Gary Oldman as Ludwig von Beethoven
Sonja Henie:
20th Century Fox produced brassy Americana features that capitalized on the figure skating abilities of
Norwegian champion skating star Sonja Henie. She was featured in a number of ice-follies style films in the late
30s and early 40s, including:
•
•
•
Thin Ice (1937)
My Lucky Star (1938)
Sun Valley Serenade (1941)
Esther Williams' Swimming Musicals:
One of the biggest MGM stars of the 1940s was swimmer Esther Williams who found
ingenious ways to appear in musicals in a bathing suit. She was featured with other perfectlychoreographed chorus girls in many imaginative and absurd situations centering around
water. She starred in synchronized swimming routines or ballets in various swimming
musicals, including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bathing Beauty (1944), with Red Skelton
On an Island With You (1948), with Peter Lawford
Neptune's Daughter (1949), with Red Skelton
Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), a highly fictionalized biography of early film
swimming star Annette Kellerman, featuring Busby Berkeley-choreographed waterballet sequences
Easy to Love (1953)
Jupiter's Darling (1955) - her last film with MGM
Flag-Waving Musicals and Americana:
Flag-waving war-time musicals to build morale during the war years included:
•
•
•
Columbia's Cover Girl (1944), with Rita Hayworth as a Brooklyn nightclub singer (her singing was
dubbed) and choreographer/actor Gene Kelly (the film won the Best Scoring of a Musical Picture
Oscar), with Kelly's astonishing "Alter Ego" dance sequence
Pin Up Girl (1944), with Betty Grable
Four Jills in a Jeep (1944), with Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, and Mitzi Mayfair playing
themselves
Semi-documentary movie versions of USO shows featuring singing, dancing, comedy,
patriotic speeches, multitudes of stars, magic and other forms of entertainment included:
•
•
•
•
•
Stage Door Canteen (1943) - UA's Broadway-star-studded extravaganza
This is the Army (1943) with Kate Smith belting out "God Bless America",
Ronald Reagan in an early role, and Irving Berlin singing "Oh, How I Hate to Get
Up In the Morning"
WB's Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)
Universal's Follow the Boys (1944)
Hollywood Canteen (1944), with a parade of Warner Bros' stars from the West
Coast, to 'answer' the film of a year earlier
In the war years, there were also two, rare studio-made musicals starring Hollywood's top
black entertainers:
•
•
Cabin in the Sky (1943), MGM's all-black musical directed by Vincente Minnelli (his first feature
film)
Fox's Stormy Weather (1943), featuring many top black entertainers of the time - Lena Horne, Bill
'Bojangles' Robinson, Dooley Wilson, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and others
MGM - The Top Studio for Musicals: Arthur Freed
By the end of the 1930s, MGM was emerging as a revolutionary new force in Hollywood musicals (and
dominated the musical genre in terms of Academy Awards). MGM producer Arthur Freed was originally a
skilled lyricist/songwriter from the earliest days of the musical talkies at MGM. He had come to Hollywood to
write the score for The Broadway Melody (1928/29), and then had played a key role as Associate Producer for
The Wizard of Oz (1939) (and had spotted Judy Garland's talent early on). During the 40s and 50s over a
period of twenty years, Freed produced for MGM some of the greatest landmark musical films in the history of
the genre, and worked with some of Hollywood's most talented musical film directors and stars:
Arthur Freed-Produced Musicals for MGM (a sampling)
Babes in Arms (1939)
On the Town (1949)
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Babes on Broadway (1941)
Pagan Love Song (1950)
For Me and My Gal (1942)
Royal Wedding (1951)
Cabin in the Sky (1943)
Show Boat (1951)
Girl Crazy (1943)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
An American in Paris (1951)
Singin' In The Rain (1952)
The Clock (1945)
The Band Wagon (1953)
Yolanda and the Thief (1945)
Brigadoon (1954)
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
Kismet (1955)
Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
It's Always Fair Weather (1955)
The Harvey Girls (1946)
Silk Stockings (1957)
Easter Parade (1948)
Gigi (1958)
The Pirate (1948)
Bells are Ringing (1960)
Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
With his sharp eye for quality and freshness, his promotion of new, integrated musical forms (to make song and
dance numbers a more natural part of the story), and the choice of skilled directors (Vincente Minnelli, Busby
Berkeley, and Stanley Donen imported from Broadway), dance/directors (Gene Kelly), choreographers (Michael
Kidd), musical directors (Andre Previn), and dazzling stars (Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Debbie
Reynolds, Fred Astaire and June Allyson among others), Arthur Freed created musical fantasy worlds on screen
- and some of the greatest musicals ever made.
Vincente Minnelli: Great Musical Director
Under Freed's guidance, Minnelli directed Cabin in the Sky (1943), his debut Hollywood film and the first allblack musical in many years. (That same year, another one of the greatest all-black musicals of all-time was
released, Stormy Weather (1943), a revue starring the ravishing Lena Horne -- who sang what would become
her signature tune, the title song Stormy Weather. Other performers included Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, the
Nicholas Brothers, Cab Calloway, Babe Wallace, Katherine Dunham, Ada Brown, Dooley Wilson and Fats
Waller. Ironically, the scenes of Cabin in the Sky's star Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson were deleted in Stormy
Weather!)
Arthur Freed's unit also produced Minnelli's Yolanda and the Thief (1945), an exotic,
charming fantasy about a con man (Fred Astaire) who convinces a rich, virginal, South
American heiress that he is her guardian angel. One of Minnelli's most lavish films was
The Ziegfeld Follies (1946), with scores of MGM stars (Lucille Ball, William Powell,
Judy Garland, Fanny Brice, Lena Horne, Red Skelton, and more), a Ziegfeld-style stage
revue of musical numbers, and comedy. The film included Astaire and Kelly appearing
together in their only duet ever. Another Minnelli-directed film was The Pirate (1948), set
on a remote Caribbean island with Gene Kelly as a pirate wooing a lonely woman. Garland co-starred and sang
Cole Porter's hit tune "Be A Clown" with Kelly.
Under the guidance of MGM producer Freed, Vincente Minnelli (with Michael Kidd as choreographer) also
directed the big-scale classic The Band Wagon (1953), an extravagant film that marked a pinnacle for
musicals. It starred Fred Astaire as a fading Hollywood movie star interested in a Broadway comeback as a
sparkling, song-and-dance man, opposite partner Cyd Charisse. The musical featured the well-recognized hymn
to show business - "That's Entertainment." The duo performed "Dancing in the Dark" in Central Park and the
"Girl-Hunt Ballet" final production number, a film-noiric satire of Mickey Spillane's pulp novels (with the
characters of a private eye and dangerous femme fatale siren in a sparkling red dress). Astaire also danced with a
black shoeshine boy in "Shine on My Shoes."
Gene Kelly: MGM's New Musical Dance Star
Freed was responsible for bringing a new musical star from Broadway to Hollywood in the early 40s - the
dynamic, ballet-oriented, Irish-American Gene Kelly. As a dancer, Kelly brought an imaginative freshness and
athletic-style, muscular vitality to a number of films, projecting a very different down-to-earth persona from the
sophisticated, suave and stylish tap dancing of Fred Astaire who often wore top hats and tails. His first major
role, in a stage production of Pal Joey, brought him a Hollywood contract.
In Kelly's film debut, he was teamed with director Busby Berkeley, playing a song-and-dance
man opposite co-star Judy Garland in MGM's For Me and My Gal (1942). He was
successful in Columbia's Techni-colored Cover Girl (1944) opposite Rita Hayworth,
particularly when he danced with his own reflection in "Alter Ego." And then in MGM's Best
Picture-nominated Anchors Aweigh (1945) in the post-war years, Kelly (with his sole Best
Actor nomination in his career) performed a dance with a scene-stealing Jerry, the cartoon
mouse from "Tom and Jerry" - and the film co-starred a young and thin Frank Sinatra who
crooned Styne-Cahn tunes. As mentioned earlier, Kelly also performed a song-and-dance
duet with Fred Astaire (their sole dance together) in The Ziegfeld Follies (1946). The Pirate
(1948) featured Kelly's singing and acrobatic, graceful dancing opposite Judy Garland,
accompanied with a Cole Porter score - its most famous dance sequence was "Be a Clown."
Teamed with co-director Stanley Donen for the first time (they directed three MGM post-war musicals), Kelly
made his directorial debut with On The Town (1949), an energetic dance/musical that took the musical out of
the wall-bound studio and on location into New York City. The adapted Leonard Bernstein stage show was a
story about three on-leave sailors (Kelly, Sinatra, and Munshin) looking for romance during a 24-hour shore
leave. Some of the film's production numbers included the opening "New York, New York", "The Miss
Turnstiles Ballet", and "Prehistoric Joe." Stanley Donen also directed MGM's Royal Wedding (1951), a story
inspired by star actor Astaire's real-life story, and featuring Astaire's two famous solos: a 'tap-dance on the
ceiling' routine, and a hat-rack duet.
There were two musicals that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in the 1950s, and
both were the works of Freed's and MGM's remarkable musical production unit, and directed
by Vincente Minnelli. Kelly expressed his amazing appeal and choreography in MGM's
trademark film, An American in Paris (1951), a classic, Award-winning Best Picture
film (over A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and A Place in the Sun (1951)) about the
romance between an American painter (Gene Kelly) and a French girl (Leslie Caron). It
featured George and Ira Gershwin music and a climactic, 17-minute, half-million-dollar
'dream ballet' - one of Freed's pioneering inventions. The musical won five other Oscars
(Best Screenplay, Best Score, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume
Design), and Kelly was awarded an honorary Oscar for "his brilliant achievements in the art
of choreography on film."
Freed's other Best Picture award winner was another Minnelli-directed film, MGM's adaptation of Colette's
story of Gigi (1958). The story within this original film musical was about a shy Paris courtesan (Leslie Caron)
who was courted as a wife by a wealthy Parisian playboy/patron named Gaston (Louis Jourdan). [Leslie Caron's
other major musical hit was in the title role as the charming Lili (1953), a film that became the basis for the
1961 Broadway musical hit Carnival.] The visually-enjoyable, Parisian-flavored film was actually filmed in the
City of Lights and used the talents of the composers (Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe) and the costume
designer (Cecil Beaton) of the play My Fair Lady. Gigi set a new record by winning nine Oscars in all the
categories in which it was nominated - one more than any other film had received up to that time ( Gone
With the Wind (1939), From Here to Eternity (1953), and On the Waterfront (1954) each had received
eight Oscars). Maurice Chevalier received an Honorary statue, and Vincente Minnelli became the first director
to win an Oscar for a musical. [The win was Minnelli's second nomination as Best Director and first and only
Best Director win. His first nomination was for another 50s musical, An American in Paris (1951).]
The Greatest Musical Ever:
By most accounts, the greatest musical ever produced (co-directed by Kelly and Donen and
produced by Freed), a comic, satirical spoof of the dawn of the Hollywood sound era, was
MGM's Singin' In The Rain (1952). It included Kelly's now-classic solo dance of the title
song in the rain, Donald O'Connor's energetic, acrobatic, slapstick dance/song "Make 'Em
Laugh," the Kelly/O'Connor duet of "Moses Supposes," and a remarkable "Broadway Melody"
ballet sequence in the finale (with Kelly dancing with Cyd Charisse). It is one of Hollywood's
best-loved films, with Kelly as silent film star Don Lockwood, and Jean Hagen as dumb,
squeaky-voiced actress Lina Lamont, but it was ignored by the Academy Awards (with only
two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress for Jean Hagen, and Best Scoring of a
Musical Picture). The film's setting was during the disruptive transitional period between silent
films and the coming of the talkies. It captured the confusion caused by the introduction of
talking-film technology in Hollywood, and its often disastrous effects upon silent era performers.
More Musicals in the 50s:
Gene Kelly's third and last musical with director Stanley Donen was the cynical and odd It's Always Fair
Weather (1955) about three WWII soldier friends who reunited after ten years and discovered that they didn't
have anything in common. The film was memorable for the scene in which Kelly and his co-stars danced down
the street with trash-can lids on their feet.
A 50s-decade Warner Bros. film (directed by George Cukor) that resembled the classic
Freed-produced musicals at MGM but with a melodramatic edge was the oft-filmed classic
romantic tragedy-drama A Star Is Born (1954) - a remake of a 1937 non-musical,
tearjerker film version with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. It told the poignant story of
aging, but alcoholic and self-destructive Hollywood actor/mentor Norman Maine (James
Mason) on the decline as he sabotaged the show business career of his loving partner. The
1954 film starred Judy Garland (as a band singer turned movie star) and capitalized on her
acting and singing talents (especially in "The Man That Got Away" and the "Born in a
Trunk" sequence), marking the peak of her career.
Paramount's and director Stanley Donen's gaudily-colorful Funny Face (1957), with Fred
Astaire and Audrey Hepburn (in her first major musical and singing her own songs!), was a
filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical, with tunes including the title song,
"S'wonderful", "How Long Has This Been Going On" and "He Loves and She Loves". Although the film was a
box-office disappointment, and the leads were miles apart in age, the film is still considered a musical favorite.
The Demise of the Cinematic Musical:
In the 1950s and early 60s, when the studio system started its demise and the public again grew tired of a long
succession of musicals, the expensive-to-produce, risky screen musicals were among the first genre to be
discarded. Television was making inroads and grabbing the film-attending public, so some Hollywood musicals
were made cheaply, such as Top Banana (1953) starring Phil Silvers in the film version of his Broadway hit,
and shot on location at NYC's Winter Garden Theatre. Other musicals such as MGM's and Minnelli's
Brigadoon (1954), WB's Damn Yankees (1958) with Gwen Verdon, and Paramount's Li'l Abner (1959) (both
lesser renditions of their 1956 Broadway hits), were examples of the decline of the musical feature film during
the 1950s.
Disney's Animated Musicals:
Not to be overlooked, Disney Studios produced many classic animated musicals in the 50s with hand-drawn
animation and great scores, including:
•
•
•
•
•
Cinderella (1950)
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Peter Pan (1953)
The Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
The Rise of Big-Budget Screen Adaptations of Broadway Hits:
During the age of television (and song-and-dance variety shows), the Hollywood studios
played it safe. Most musicals were lifted directly from established Broadway smash-hits on
the "Great White Way" - and adapted into film versions for the big screen. Classic
Broadway hits that opened on the silver screen in the 50s included Annie Get Your Gun
(1950) with Betty Hutton and Howard Keel in the lead roles, the colorful Show Boat
(1951), MGM's Kiss Me Kate (1953) - a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew with
Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson [and the only musical ever filmed in 3-D], and the
breathlessly entertaining barn-raising dancing of MGM's and Stanley Donen's Seven
Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) (sensationally choreographed by Michael Kidd,
especially in the "Challenge Dance" sequence). This Best Picture nominee, with completely
original songs, later became a Broadway musical in the 70s.
In addition, there were other great hits in the 50s and 60s:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls (1955), that substituted Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando for the
original musical talent
Fox's and collaborators Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1955)
Carousel (1956), adapted from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical of the same
name
The King and I (1956) with Yul Brynner in an Oscar-winning, Best Actor role as the King of Siam
and Oscar-nominated Deborah Kerr (with singing dubbed by ghost vocalist Marni Nixon)
Gypsy (1962), with Natalie Wood miscast in the title role of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee
director Joshua Logan's and Fox's South Pacific (1958), based on another popular Rodgers and
Hammerstein Broadway musical
the superior The Music Man (1962) from Warners, with Robert Preston reprising his greatest
Broadway role as charlatan Professor Harold Hill; future TV child star (The Andy Griffith Show and
Happy Days) and Oscar-winning director Ron Howard appeared as the insecure, stuttering boy
Winthrop
MGM's The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), with Debbie Reynolds
Best Picture-Winning Musicals in the 60s:
From 1958 to 1968, there were five musical Best Picture winners out of eight nominees. Four
musicals in the decade of the 1960s adapted for the screen won the Academy Award for Best
Picture. All four were based on Broadway hits, but with a distinct difference - each one
involved a major cast change:
•
UA's West Side Story (1961), from Best Director-winning co-directors Jerome
Robbins and Robert Wise, with ten Academy Awards from eleven nominations, was
the Romeo-and-Juliet inspired 1957 hit Broadway musical with spectacular
choreography (especially in the film's opening), hit songs including the exhilarating
"America" (performed on a rooftop), and "Maria" with music by Leonard Bernstein
and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Its romantic tale featured star-crossed young lovers:
Puerto Rican Maria (Natalie Wood replacing Carol Lawrence, with singing dubbed by Marni Nixon)
and American Tony (Richard Beymer replacing Larry Kert, with singing dubbed by Jim Bryant)
associated with competing juvenile gangs in Manhattan's Upper West Side
•
Warners' and Lerner's and Loew's musical play My Fair Lady (1964), with twelve nominations and
eight Oscars, was directed by the legendary George Cukor and based upon George Bernard Shaw's
Pygmalion and the 1956 stage production. It was about a Cockney street urchin named Eliza Doolittle
(Audrey Hepburn replacing Broadway star Julie Andrews, with singing again dubbed by Marni Nixon)
who was transformed by linguist Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) into a proper lady; Cukor won his sole
Best Director Oscar with his fifth nomination, and all three British cast members (Stanley Holloway,
Gladys Cooper, and Rex Harrison) were nominated in acting categories, with Harrison the winner as
Best Actor; Audrey Hepburn was conspicuously absent from the nominees; My Fair Lady (1964)
defeated another Best Picture-nominated musical, Mary Poppins (1964) - see
below
•
Rodgers and Hammerstein's and producer/director Robert Wise's most successful
work - 20th Century Fox's romantic musical/drama The Sound of Music (1965)
based on Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse's 1959 Broadway hit about a romance
between a nun-turned-governess (Julie Andrews) and a widower (Christopher
Plummer) with seven children, with ten nominations and five Oscars, featured an
unforgettable Julie Andrews (replacing Broadway star Mary Martin) in the lead role,
singing melodic Rodgers and Hammerstein songs (including the lively "Do-Re-Mi"
and lyrical "Edelweiss"). The sweet, somewhat sentimental film was set in 1938
Salzburg, Austria and shot with beautiful views of the Alps and the city.
[The Sound of Music (1965) surpassed Gone With the Wind (1939) to become
the biggest money-making box-office hit to date (and the biggest, most profitable box-office musical of
all time.) It saved 20th Century Fox from going into bankruptcy after their lavish spending on the
disastrous Cleopatra (1963). The film won five Oscars - Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Wise),
Best Sound, Best Musical Score, and Best Film Editing. (Julie Andrews starred a year earlier, with her
film debut and a Best Actress-winning role, in the marvelous childrens' film Mary Poppins (1964),
with 13 Academy Awards nominations and five wins, that blended animation and live action and was
filled with delightful Disney songs, including Oscar winner "Chim, Chim Chiree".) And Andrews
would go on to star in the 1920s musical spoof Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), and reteamed with
director Wise in the box-office failure Star! (1968), a biography of stage musical comedy star Gertrude
Lawrence.]
•
Columbia's Oliver! (1968), the British film adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens tale about an
orphan boy in 19th century England, with eleven nominations and five wins, whose major musical
competitor was director William Wyler's and Columbia Studios' Funny Girl (1968), with eight
nominations and one win (Best Actress for Barbra Streisand in her screen debut in the role of Fanny
Brice)
All of the directors of the Best Picture-winning musicals in the 60s were long-overdue recipients of a Best
Director Oscar:
- co-directors Jerome Robbins (with his sole nomination) and Robert Wise (with his second
nomination) for West Side Story (1961)
- director George Cukor (with his fifth nomination) for My Fair Lady (1964)
- director Robert Wise (with his third nomination) for The Sound of Music (1965)
- director Carol Reed (with his third nomination) for Oliver! (1968)
The Demise of the Musical in the Late 60s and 70s:
The adaptation of stage material for the screen remained the predominant trend in Hollywood
with extravagant, lavish productions that attempted to duplicate the successes of the 60s, in
films such as: Bells Are Ringing (1960), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), director Norman Jewison's Fiddler on the
Roof (1971) based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem about changing times and the life of a
milkman's family in pre-revolutionary Russia, Man of La Mancha (1972) and more.
However, by the end of the 1960s and early 70s, musicals were virtually extinct and had significantly
diminished in popularity.
For a few decades (until the 80s), major musicals, whether adaptations or original productions, seemed to have
disappeared or fared poorly at the box-office, and were regarded as insipid and overblown. A number of
disappointing flops and sometimes disastrous films spelled an end to the large-scale film musical:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
20th Century Fox's Doctor Doolittle (1967), overlong and expensive, with Rex Harrison 'talking to the
animals' - astonishingly received nine Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) and only two wins
Warner Bros.' $15 million flop Camelot (1967), with non-musical lead actors Vanessa Redgrave and
Richard Harris
20th Century Fox's and director Robert Wise's $12 million Star! (1968), a disastrous film for Julie
Andrews, with seven nominations and no wins
Finian's Rainbow (1968)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), with two nominations (including a Best Actor nomination for Peter
O'Toole!)
another Fox financial disaster was Hello, Dolly! (1969), directed by Gene Kelly, with seven
nominations (including Best Picture) and three wins; a young Barbra Streisand was miscast as the
titular matchmaker Dolly Levi, who replaced the stage originator Carol Channing; it was noted for
Louis Armstrong's performance of the title song
Paint Your Wagon (1969), Lerner and Loewe's western-musical with one nomination (for Nelson
Riddle's Best Score), featuring action/western stars Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood as singing gold
prospectors!
director Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity (1969) with Shirley MacLaine - adapted from the 1965 Broadway
musical
On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever (1970), directed by Vincente Minnelli
Song of Norway (1970) - a musical biography of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), received only one nomination, for Best Score
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), an appealing animated musical similar to Mary Poppins (1964)
The Boy Friend (1971) - a Ken Russell parody of Busby Berkeley's musical and visual extravaganzas,
starring 70's model Twiggy - with disappointing results
1776 (1972)
Man of La Mancha (1972) - a disastrous adaptation of the hit Broadway musical (with Peter O'Toole
and bosomy Sophia Loren)
Lost Horizon (1973) - often rated as one of the worst films ever (a remake of Frank Capra's nonmusical Lost Horizon 1937)), with a Burt Bacharach score and a tone-deaf all-star cast (including Peter
Finch and John Gielgud)
Godspell and Jesus Christ, Superstar (1973) - two religious musicals
Mame (1974) - with comedienne Lucille Ball in the lead role
Lisztomania (1975), British director Ken Russell's bizarre musical biography with The Who's Roger
Daltry as composer Franz Liszt
A Little Night Music (1977), the film version of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway stage musical starring
Elizabeth Taylor, with two nominations and one win - Best Score
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) - this rock musical featured a soundtrack of Peter
Frampton and The Bee Gees masquerading as The Beatles
director Richard Fleischer's poorly-acted The Jazz Singer (1980) - a third version (the second remake
of the classic film) with popular singer Neil Diamond in the lead role, and Laurence Olivier as his
father
director Robert Altman's Popeye (1980), critically-assailed, with Robin Williams as the comic-book
sailor man with bulging arms
director Alan Parker's dance musical Fame (1980), with six nominations and two wins (Best Score and
Best Song)
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1981) - another Broadway musical adaptation from the 1978
stage production
Herbert Ross' original and somewhat somber Pennies From Heaven (1981), with stars Steve Martin
and Bernadette Peters lip-synching to their songs, reproduced some of Busby Berkeley's spectacular
production numbers of the 30s - with little box-office success
•
•
•
director John Huston's big-budget, all-star Annie (1982), adapted from the 1977 hit Broadway musical,
misused the talents of Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, and Albert Finney
in the awful musical romance Yes, Giorgio (1982), opera star Luciano Pavarotti sang arias
Richard Attenborough's A Chorus Line (1985), a film version of Michael Bennett's longest-running
Broadway musical, was a less-than sparkling and misguided rendition, with the cut of the classic
popular song "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love", replaced with a song written for the film the Oscar-nominated "Surprise, Surprise"
Younger directors experimented with re-creating the splendor of 1930s musicals, with limited success:
•
•
•
director Peter Bogdanovich's stinker - the embarrassing At Long Last Love (1975) - starring his
miscast then-girlfriend Cybill Shepherd and Burt Reynolds and others 'singing' sixteen Cole Porter
standard tunes!
director Robert Altman's country-western music classic Nashville (1975)
Martin Scorsese's big-band era musical New York, New York (1977), a tragic, romantic musical
starring Robert DeNiro and Liza Minnelli
Best Picture-Nominated Musicals in the 1970s:
Hollywood musicals generated 50 Academy Award nominations in the 70s. There were only
three musicals nominated for Best Picture in the 1970s, and none of them won the top Oscar.
Two of them, directed by dynamic choreographer-director-screenwriter Bob Fosse, received
high praise for their cinematic innovation, bold approach and dramatic quality:
•
•
•
director Norman Jewison's Fiddler on the Roof (1971), with eight nominations and
three wins (Best Cinematography, Best Score and Best Sound), was adapted from the
1964 stage production
the award-winning, striking, stylish Cabaret (1972) set in pre-Nazi Germany, from
director Bob Fosse, with Liza Minnelli (in a tragic-comic role as sexually-ambiguous
night-club singer Sally Bowles) and Joel Grey. Cabaret was originally a 1966
Broadway musical; with ten nominations and eight Academy Awards; Fosse won the Best Director
Oscar over Francis Ford Coppola (nominated for the Best Picture winner The Godfather (1972))
and Fosse's experimental, semi-autobiographical All That Jazz (1979) featured Roy Scheider in the
lead role as gifted but driven, hard-drinking and self-indulgent New York choreographer Joe Gideon
("It's show time, folks"); it ended with an exhausted Fosse's open heart surgery staged as a musical,
reminiscent of the extravagant numbers during Busby Berkeley's era; the highly-praised film garnered
nine nominations and four Oscars - it was one of the few Oscar-nominated musicals that originated on
the screen rather than on Broadway. [It would be another 22 years for the next live-action musical to be
nominated for Best Picture: Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge (2001)]
Alan Parker succeeded with Fame (1980), a story of struggling young dancers - so popular that it helped launch
a television show. Director Michael Apted's Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) with Best Actress-winning Sissy
Spacek was a quasi-musical/biopic about country music singer Loretta Lynn. Pink Panther-director Blake
Edwards' Victor/Victoria (1982) with a Henry Mancini score featured the director's wife Julie Andrews in a
1930's Parisian story "of a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman." [In 1996, Victor/Victoria
was transformed into a Broadway musical, again directed by Edwards and starring Andrews.]
Barbra Streisand's directorial debut film Yentl (1983), the story of a young Jewish woman disguised as a boy,
won only one Oscar (Best Original Song Score) from its five nominations. And the 1984 Best Picture Oscar
victor, Amadeus (1984), was a drama/musical about child prodigy Mozart. An off-Broadway musical called
Little Shop of Horrors (1986) that was based on horror film director Roger Corman's 1961 low budget cult
favorite, was also successful.
Rock 'N' Roll Films:
Inventive rock 'n' roll films and rock musicals have become a popular musical sub-genre. The
first mainstream feature film to use rock music (Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock) - during
the opening credits - was in Richard Brooks' Blackboard Jungle (1955). The original
musical film was becoming an endangered species, pushed out by rock 'n' roll songwriters and new tastes among
the record-purchasing public. The hip-swiveling king of rock 'n' roll, singer Elvis Presley broke into films,
making a total of thirty-three films in his career from the mid-50's to 1970. Although most of them were
forgettable, formulaic, low-budget, sappy 'boy-meets-girl' pictures sprinkled with hit songs, Jailhouse Rock
(1957) captured the real magnetism of the music star. Elvis' hit film tunes included "Love Me Tender" and
"Can't Help Falling in Love."
The Beatles' improvisational and imaginative first film was producer Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night
(1964), made at the peak of "Beatlemania" popularity. It captured a surrealistic day and a half in the lives of the
"Fab Four" Beatles from Liverpool, and heralded a new kind of musical. Their music was also featured in
Yellow Submarine (1968), an animated musical feast. Two great rock documentaries focused on the life of
singer/writer Bob Dylan: D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back (1967) followed his 1965 tour of England,
including appearances by Joan Baez and Donovan, and Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home (2005) focused
on the first six years of Dylan's career.
Jim Henson's The Muppets:
Puppetmaster Jim Henson's loveable creatures, the Muppets (from Sesame Street and The Muppet Show (19761981)), including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and a host of others, crossed over to family-oriented feature
films in the late 70s. Inevitably, the films in the original trilogy included energetic and silly musical numbers:
•
•
•
director James Frawley's The Muppet Movie (1979), with the Oscar-nominated "Rainbow
Connection" song
The Great Muppet Caper (1981), Henson's feature film directorial debut film
director Frank Oz's The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
A Revival of Dance Pictures:
Dance pictures were revived in the late 1970s by director John Badham's classic dance film
Saturday Night Fever (1977) that starred John Travolta (with the film's sole nomination for
Best Actor) as a vulgar, blue-collar Brooklyn paint-store clerk - transformed into a pulsating,
white-suited disco king Tony Manero who struts across a dance floor of rainbow-colored
squares. The famous disco film featured a popular Bee Gees soundtrack (un-nominated by
AMPAS!). Dance champion Denny Terrio and choreographer Lester Wilson trained
Travolta, who was a teen idol and starring on TV's Welcome Back, Kotter (as Vinnie
Barbarino), to swivel his hips on the dance floor. The film, costing about $3.5 million, made
almost $300 million for Paramount Studios.
The next year, Travolta co-starred with Australian singer Olivia Newton-John in Randal
Kleiser's popular, spirited, nostalgic 50s film Grease (1978) with smutty dialogue - it was a
former 1972 hit Broadway musical that brought two big hit songs: "Summer Nights" and "You're The One That
I Want", to the charts. (The film's only nomination was Best Song for "Hopelessly Devoted to You.") It was
about two lovers, Australian transfer student Sandy (Newton-John) and American greaser Danny Zucko
(Travolta), who enjoyed a summertime romance but had to adapt to new roles back in their high school cliques,
the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies. Its popularity made it one of the highest grossing movie musicals ever. Olivia
Newton-John's follow-up film was a disaster -- the musical roller disco fantasy Xanadu (1980), in which she
starred as a Greek muse in Los Angeles alongside co-star Gene Kelly.
Patricia Birch's lesser sequel, Grease 2 (1982), her debut film as director (she had choreographed the original
film) maintained the same locale, Rydell High School, but brought a new cast including Michelle Pfeiffer and
Maxwell Caulfield. A run of hippie/religious musicals included Godspell (1973) - adapted from the successful
Broadway musical, Norman Jewison's Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) (with an Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim
Rice score), and Milos Forman's version of Broadway's Age-of-Aquarius hippie stage hit Hair (1979). One of
the most enduring cult musicals of all time was The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - adapted from a 1973
stage production. It was a bizarre midnight movie favorite that built a reputation for audience participation
during screenings. Herbert Ross' energetic rock/dance film Footloose (1984) with Kevin Bacon was a
culturally-significant film with a pounding, hit soundtrack. Similarly, the sleeper hit film Dirty Dancing (1987)
with Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze provided nostalgia, great dance routines, sexy young stars, and a
coming-of-age story. The film sparked a short-lived revival of the sexy Latin dance - the lambada - with such
exploitative films as Joel Silberg's Lambada (1989), and The Forbidden Dance (1990), starring Laura Elena
(Martinez) Herring (the first Latina to win Miss USA - in 1985).
Arnold Glimcher's The Mambo Kings (1992) celebrated Latin American music with its story of two Cuban
brothers Nestor and Cesar Castillo (Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante) in a NYC mambo band in the early
1950s. Martin Brest's dramatic Scent of a Woman (1992), with a Best Actor-winning role for Al Pacino as
blind, irascible army veteran Frank Slade, was most notable for his passionate tango scene with Donna
(Gabrielle Anwar). Australian director Baz Luhrmann's first film, Strictly Ballroom (1992) told the story of
ballroom dancer Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio) and his Hispanic partner Fran (Tara Morice) who refused to
follow the conventional rules of a Dance Federation during the film's final Pan-Pacific dance competition.
Although The Mask (1994) was basically a fanciful comedy, the film featured a memorable dance routine
("Cuban Pete") by the mild-mannered, geeky bank teller (Jim Carrey) while wearing his magical mask to
successfully woo the beautiful Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz in her screen debut).
Rock Musicals:
The three best films that documented the counter-cultural era of the 60s and 70s were the
concert picture rockumentaries:
•
•
•
Woodstock: Three Days of Peace & Music (1970), the three-hour long epic of the
four-day 1969 upper state New York rock concert
Gimme Shelter (1970), chronicling the Rolling Stones' late 1969 appearance at a
violent free concert at Altamont
The Last Waltz (1978), Martin Scorsese's film of The Band's final concert
appearance with other musical guests
Tommy (1975) was highlighted with music by The Who. Technically, director Alan Parker's
visually impressive and highly-stylized rock musical Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982) wasn't a true musical but a
very long music video. The mockumentary This is Spinal Tap (1984), director Rob Reiner's debut film, was a
marvelous satire-spoof on the subgenre of rockumentaries - it followed the career and US concert tour of a
fictional British heavy-metal band called Spinal Tap.
Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth's and director Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense (1984), featuring
the influential rock band Talking Heads, was considered by many critics as the best rock concert film of alltime, featuring lead singer/guitarist David Byrne. The film won the National Society of Film Critics' Best
Documentary Feature Award - a rare occurrence for a concert film. In its documentation of the group during
three nights in December, 1983 at Hollywood's Pantages Theater, the film was notable for being the first made
entirely with direct-to-digital audio techniques. It captured many memorable moments without intrusive
upstaging by the photography (it was basically devoid of audience shots, quick-cuts, artificial lighting, etc.),
including Byrne's solo performance of "Psycho Killer" on a bare stage in the film's opening, played with an
acoustic guitar to the simple accompaniment of a portable boom box (providing synthetic percussion
drumming).
Animated Musicals from Disney Revived:
Animated musical blockbusters from Disney's studios also succeeded with high-quality feature films that kept
musical scores alive:
•
•
•
The Little Mermaid (1989), based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale with the popular songs
"Part of Your World," "Kiss the Girl," the Oscar for Best Original Score (Alan Menken) and Best
Song-winning "Under the Sea"
Beauty and the Beast (1991), the classic French romantic fable that was the first Best Picturenominated animated musical feature film, with the Oscar for Best Original Score (Alan Menken), a
Best Song-winning title tune, and others including "Gaston", "Be Our Guest"; its success was recreated
when it was adapted into a Broadway show
Aladdin (1992), with the Oscar for Best Original Score (Alan Menken), the Best Song-winning "A
Whole New World", and Robin Williams as the voice of the Genie
•
•
•
•
The Lion King (1994), with a pop music score by Elton John and Tim Rice, including the Oscar for
Best Original Score (Hans Zimmer), the Best Song-winning "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," also
"Circle of Life" and "Hakuna Matata"; later became a Broadway hit musical
Pocahontas (1995), with Academy Awards for Best Original Score (Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz)
and Best Song-winning "Colors of the Wind"
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Tarzan (1999), with Best Song-winning "You'll Be In My Heart"
Dreamworks' attempted to compete with the Disney animated musicals with Prince of Egypt (1998), and won
the Academy Award for Best Song (Stephen Schwartz) for "When You Believe." Another unbelievable
animated musical was director Trey Parker's tasteless and independent South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
(1999), based upon a cable-TV series with foul-mouthed characters, had an obscene title song ("Blame Canada")
that was nominated for Best Original Song.
Modern Day Musicals:
Live-action musicals seemed to almost fade in the 1990s. There was only one successful live-action musical in
the 90s - director Alan Parker's musical drama Evita (1996), adapted from the 1976 theater version by Andrew
Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, with Madonna (singing the Oscar-winning Best Original Song "You Must Love
Me"). There were just a few other musicals to be mentioned in the 90s:
•
•
Woody Allen's musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You (1996), with non-singing stars such as
Goldie Hawn, Edward Norton, and Alan Alda belting out songs
the dramatic musical biography of Tejano recording artist Selena (1997) with pop-star diva Jennifer
Lopez in the lead, breakthrough role
It would take the new millennium to bring more well-received musicals, but the first few struggled to find
audiences: Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare-inspired musical comedy Love's Labour's Lost (2000), Lars von
Trier's dramatic musical Dancer in the Dark (2000) with Bjork, and John Cameron Mitchell's rock musical
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). Baz Luhrmann's eye-catching and dazzling, Best Picture-nominated
Moulin Rouge (2001) (the first live-action musical to be nominated for Best Picture since All That Jazz
(1979)), and choreographer Rob Marshall's debut feature film and Best Picture winner Chicago (2002) proved
that adaptations of modern stage musicals (a rock-opera bio in this case) or inventive fantasy musicals were still
possible. Marshall's film was a musical drama and a screen adaptation of the 1975 Broadway hit musical
Chicago from John Kander and Fred Ebb, originally directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, and revived on
Broadway in 1996.
However, the trend may be short-lived, due to the total box office failures of stage-t0-screen adaptations of such
acclaimed and popular Tony-winning musicals as The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Rent (2005) and The
Producers (2005), as well as other notable musical flops such as From Justin to Kelly (2003) (starring
American Idol singers Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson), Beyond the Sea (2003), Camp (2003) and DeLovely (2004).
Director Bill Condon's Dreamgirls (2006) was a lavish and vibrant screen adaptation of Michael Bennett's
popular Broadway musical about a trio of soul singers The Dreams, in a thinly veiled roman a clef of the real
Motown singing group The Supremes. It acquired eight nominations but came away with only two wins: Best
Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson), and Best Sound Mixing, even though it won at the Golden Globes
awards as the Best Musical or Comedy. Hairspray (2007) - the song-and-dance adaptation of the Broadway
smash hit, with stars Nikki Blonsky and John Travolta, became one of the few movie musicals that grossed over
$100 million, joining Chicago (2002), Dreamgirls (2006), and Grease (1978).
Selection of Greatest Musicals / Dance Films:
AFI's 25 Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time
(marked with an icon
and their ranking number (#))
Greatest Early Musicals / Dance Films:
The Jazz Singer (1927)
Applause (1929)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
Hallelujah! (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
The Love Parade (1929)
Show Boat (1929)
Show of Shows (1929)
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)
Love Me Tonight (1932)
Footlight Parade (1933)
42nd Street (1933)
(#13)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
The Gay Divorcee (1934)
The Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)
Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)
The Little Colonel (1935)
Top Hat (1935)
(#15)
Born to Dance (1936)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Rose Marie (1936)
Show Boat (1936)
(#24)
Swing Time (1936)
Maytime (1937)
One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Fantasia (1940)
Strike Up the Band (1940)
Holiday Inn (1942)
(#3)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Cabin in the Sky (1943)
Girl Crazy (1943)
Stage Door Canteen (1943)
Stormy Weather (1943)
(#18)
(#10)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Anchors Aweigh (1945)
Easter Parade (1948)
The Red Shoes (1948)
On The Town (1949)
(#19)
An American in Paris (1951)
Show Boat (1951)
Singin' In The Rain (1952)
The Band Wagon (1953)
Kiss Me Kate (1953)
(#9)
(#1)
(#17)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
A Star Is Born (1954)
White Christmas (1954)
Guys and Dolls (1955)
Oklahoma! (1955)
Carousel (1956)
High Society (1956)
(#7)
(#23)
(#21)
The King and I (1956)
Funny Face (1957)
Jailhouse Rock (1957)
Gigi (1958)
South Pacific (1958)
(#11)
Greatest Astaire/Rogers Musicals/Dance Films:
Flying Down to Rio (1933)
The Gay Divorcee (1934)
Top Hat (1935)
Follow the Fleet (1936)
Swing Time (1936)
Shall We Dance (1937)
Other Greatest Musicals / Dance Films:
West Side Story (1961)
(#2)
The Music Man (1962)
A Hard Day's Night (1964, UK)
Mary Poppins (1964)
(#6)
My Fair Lady (1964)
(#8)
The Sound of Music (1965)
(#4)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
Camelot (1967)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
Funny Girl (1968)
(#16)
Oliver! (1968)
The Producers (1968)
Hello, Dolly! (1969)
Paint Your Wagon (1969)
Sweet Charity (1969)
Woodstock (1970)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Cabaret (1972)
(#5)
Man of La Mancha (1972)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Grease (1978)
(#20)
All That Jazz (1979)
(#14)
Hair (1979)
Fame (1980)
Pennies From Heaven (1981)
Annie (1982)
Grease 2 (1982)
Flashdance (1983)
Footloose (1984)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
A Chorus Line (1985)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
(#22)
The Commitments (1991)
Strictly Ballroom (1992, Aust.)
Shall We Dance? (1995, Jp.)
Evita (1996)
Selena (1997)
Dance With Me (1998)
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Moulin Rouge (2001)
Chicago (2002)
(#12)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Hairspray (2007)
(#25)