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Musicals & Broadway: Musical Film

Reference

Perspectives

Listen to Movie Musicals!

Listen to Movie Musicals! provides an overview of musical theater on film for fans of the genre, with a focus on 50 must-hear musicals featured in movies. Listen to Movie Musicals! includes an overview of musical theatre and movie musicals in the United States. The 50 movies chosen for critical analysis include many of the best-known film musicals of the past and present; however, the list also includes several important movie musicals that were popular successes that are not necessarily on the "best-of" lists in other books. This volume also includes a greater focus on the actual music of movie musicals than do most other books, making it a stand-out title on the topic for high school and college readers. Like the other books in this series, this volume includes a background chapter followed by a chapter that contains 50 important essays on must-hear movie musicals of approximately 1,500 words each. Chapters on the impact of movie musicals on popular culture and the legacy of movie musicals further explain the impact of both the movies and their songs. Provides readers with an overview history of musicals and movie musicals in the United States Offers critical analysis of 50 must-hear and must-see movie musicals, including some less commonly known Examines the distinctions between movie musicals and their live, stage versions Discusses the pop culture impact of some of the great movie musicals and their songs

American Film Musical Themes and Forms

The musical has been called "the most popular form of entertainment in the world." This work examines the subjects, themes, and contemporary relevance of Hollywood musicals through their long popularity, placing each show in historical and political context and analyzing it in detail. A chapter is devoted to how Golddiggers of 1933 (1933) and Stand Up and Cheer (1934) deal with the economic crises of the Depressions. Another addresses race issues by examining the prevalence of blackface minstrelsy in the 1930s and 1940s, looking at productions like Swing Time (1936) and Dixie (1943). Rock and roll culture, which started in the 1950s and threatened America with teenage sex and rebellion, is addressed through such hits as Girl Crazy (1943), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), and Grease (1978). The work also explores dance as a signifier of character, the geography of musicals (such as New York or "the South"), fantasy settings, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and the musical biopic (mentioning biographies of such figures as Ziegfeld, Cohan, Rogers and Hart, Cole Porter, and Jerome Kern). A later chapter discusses intertextuality in such shows as Singin' in the Rain (1952), which refers to many earlier musicals; Kiss Me Kate (1953) which refers to Taming of the Shrew; and All That Jazz (1970) which refers to the life and work of Bob Fosse. The work concludes with an examination of the continuing popularity of the musical with such hits as Moulin Rouge (2001) and Chicago (2002). Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Dangerous Rhythm

Singin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Camelot - love them or love to hate them, movie musicals have been a major part of all our lives. They're so glitzy and catchy that it seems impossible that they could have ever gone any other way. But the ease in which they unfold on the screen isdeceptive. Dorothy's dream of finding a land "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut, and even a film as great as The Band Wagon was, at the time, a major flop.In Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter, award winning historian Richard Barrios explores movie musicals from those first hits, The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody, to present-day Oscar winners Chicago and Les Miserables. History, film analysis, and a touch of backstage gossip combine to makeDangerous Rhythm a compelling look at musicals and the powerful, complex bond they forge with their audiences. Going behind the scenes, Barrios uncovers the rocky relationship between Broadway and Hollywood, the unpublicized off-camera struggles of directors, stars, and producers, and all thevarious ways by which some films became our most indelible cultural touchstones - and others ended up as train wrecks.Not content to leave any format untouched, Barrios examines animated musicals and popular music with insight and enthusiasm. Cartoons have been intimately connected with musicals since Steamboat Willie. Disney's short Silly Symphonies grew into the instant classic Snow White, which paved the way forthat modern masterpiece, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Without movie musicals, Barrios argues, MTV would have never existed. On the flip side, without MTV we might have been spared Evita.Informed, energetic, and humorous, Dangerous Rhythm is both an impressive piece of scholarship and a joy to read.

Disintegrating the Musical

From the earliest sound films to the present, American cinema has represented African Americans as decidedly musical. Disintegrating the Musical tracks and analyzes this history of musical representations of African Americans, from blacks and whites in blackface to black-cast musicals to jazz shorts, from sorrow songs to show tunes to bebop and beyond. Arthur Knight focuses on American film's classic sound era, when Hollywood studios made eight all-black-cast musicals--a focus on Afro-America unparalleled in any other genre. It was during this same period that the first black film stars--Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge--emerged, not coincidentally, from the ranks of musical performers. That these films made so much of the connection between African Americans and musicality was somewhat ironic, Knight points out, because they did so in a form (song) and a genre (the musical) celebrating American social integration, community, and the marriage of opposites--even as the films themselves were segregated and played before even more strictly segregated audiences. Disintegrating the Musical covers territory both familiar--Show Boat, Stormy Weather, Porgy and Bess--and obscure--musical films by pioneer black director Oscar Micheaux, Lena Horne's first film The Duke Is Tops, specialty numbers tucked into better-known features, and lost classics like the short Jammin' the Blues. It considers the social and cultural contexts from which these films arose and how African American critics and audiences responded to them. Finally, Disintegrating the Musical shows how this history connects with the present practices of contemporary musical films like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Bamboozled.

Musicals on the Silver Screen

Musicals adapted to the big screen--from West Side Story to The Phantom of the Opera--have enjoyed a staggering amount of success since the 1940s, and this guide is especially tailored to library patrons looking for help selecting the right flick to watch. The book is organized by decade, allowing readers to learn about the nuances of each era of musical movie production, and a description is paired with each film along with an explanation of why it is worth viewing. Watching musicals and learning their history by way of libraries and archives where such films are preserved and made available is heavily emphasized.

Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same

Musical spectacles are excessive and abstract, reconfiguring time and space and creating intense bodily responses. Amy HerzogOCOs engaging work examines those instances where music and movement erupt from within more linear narrative frameworks. The representational strategies found in these films are often formulaic, repeating familiar story lines and stereotypical depictions of race, gender, and class. Yet she finds the musical moment contains a powerful disruptive potential. Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same investigates the tension and the fusion of difference and repetition in films to ask, How does the musical moment work? Herzog looks at an eclectic mix of works, including the Soundie and Scopitone jukebox films, the musicals of French director Jacques Demy, the synchronized swimming spectacles of Esther Williams, and an apocalyptic musical by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang. Several refrains circulate among these texts: their reliance on clich(r)s, their rewriting of cultural narratives, and their hallucinatory treatment of memory and history. Drawing on the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze, she explores all of these dissonances as productive forces, and in doing so demonstrates the transformative power of the unexpected."

Musicals in Film: a Guide to the Genre

This comprehensive guide covers movie musicals from their introduction with the 1927 film The Jazz Singer through 2015 releases. In all, it describes 125 movies, opening up the world of this popular form of entertainment to preteens, teens, and adults alike. An introduction explains the advent of movie musicals; then, in keeping with the book's historical approach, films are presented by decade and year with overviews of advances during particular periods. In this way, the reader not only learns about individual films but can see the big picture of how movie musicals developed and changed over time. For each film covered, the guide offers basic facts--studio, director, songwriters, actors, etc.--as well as a brief plot synopsis. Each entry also offers an explanation of why the movie is noteworthy, how popular it was or wasn't, and the influence the film might have had on later musicals. Sidebars offering brief biographies of important artists appear throughout the book.

The South Pacific Companion

Published to coincide with South Pacific's 2008 return to Broadway, this essential authorized companion to the beloved musical is a lavishly illustrated collection of memorabilia and historical detail, spanning nearly six decades of productions on stage and screen.

The Great Hollywood Musical Pictures

Takes a lively look at some 340 motion pictures from Hollywood's most distinctive genre.

Musical Score

Hollywood Musicals Year by Year

34 favorites from the very first musicals including The Jazz Singer, 42nd Street, Anything Goes, Showboat, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and more. Songs include: Forty-Second Street * I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm * I've Got You Under My Skin * Isn't It Romantic * Let Yourself Go * The Merry Widow Waltz * My Mammy * Smoke Gets in Your Eyes * Someday My Prince Will Come * Thanks for the Memory * and more.

My Fair Lady

(Vocal Score). The complete vocal score to the classic musical with 14 songs: Ascot Gavotte * Embassy Waltz * Get Me to the Church on Time * I Could Have Danced All Night * I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face * Just You Wait * On the Street Where You Live * Ordinary Man * The Rain in Spain * Why Can't the English? * With a Little Bit of Luck * Without You * Wouldn't It Be Loverly * You Did It.

Carousel

(Vocal Score). This exciting revised edition was created to convey in complete and correct form the musical score and lyrics of this beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein musical as performed in the original Broadway production. Includes: Ballet * Blow High, Blow Low * Geraniums in the Winder/Stonecutters Cut It on Stone * The Highest Judge of All * Hornpipe * If I Loved You * June Is Bustin' Out All Over * Mister Snow * Prologue (The Carousel Waltz) * A Real Nice Clambake * Soliloquy * What's the Use of Wond'rin' * When the Children Are Asleep * You'll Never Walk Alone. Features all new engravings, a synopsis of scenes and cast listings.

La La La: A Story of Musicals

Films

The sound of music

Julie Andrews lights up the screen as Maria, the spirited young woman who leaves the convent to become a governess to the seven young children of Captain von Trapp, an autocratic widower whose strict household rules leave no room for music or merriment.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera

Tells the story of a disfigured musical genius who haunts the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera, waging a reign of terror over its occupants. When he falls fatally in love with Christine, the Phantom devotes himself to creating a new star for the Opera, exerting a strange sense of control over the young soprano as he nurtures her extraordinary talents.

Oklahoma!

MacRae portrays Curley, the handsome love-struck cowboy in love with Laura Williams (Jones). Steiger portrays the muscled hired hand who menaces them.

Les misérables

In early 19th century France the paroled prisoner Jean Valjean seeks redemption, regains his social standing, and rises to the rank of mayor. He encounters a beautiful but desperately ill woman named Fantine and cares for her daughter, Cosette, after her death. All the while he is obsessively pursued by the policeman Javert, who vows to make him pay for the crimes of his past.

Singin' in the Rain

Actors are caught in the bumpy transition to talking pictures; a Spoof of the early days of "talkie" films.

West side story

The greatest story ever told in the most acclaimed musical of all time! Experience every sensational song, dazzling dance number and magical movie moment of West Side Story in this 50th Anniversary Edition! This electrifying musical sets the ageless tragedy of Romeo and Juliet against a backdrop of gang warfare in 1950s New York.

Show boat

Musical extravaganza which celebrates the loves and heartbreaks of a Mississippi riverboat troupe, starting with a young girl whose heart is stolen by a dashing gambler.

The Wizard of Oz

When a nasty neighbor tries to have her dog put to sleep, Dorothy takes her dog, Toto, and starts to run away. A tornado appears and carries her to the magical land of Oz. Wishing to return home, she begins to travel to the city of Oz where a great wizard lives. On her way she meets a Scarecrow who needs a brain, a Tin Man who wants a heart, and a Cowardly Lion who desperately needs courage. They all hope the all-mighty Wizard of Oz will help them, but they have to get to the Emerald City before the Wicked Witch of the West catches up with them.

An American in Paris

An ex-GI loves Paris and loves even more an alluring, but engaged, perfume-shop clerk.

My fair lady

A Cockney waif is transformed by a linguistics professor into an elegant lady.

Broadway Goes Hollywood: Musical Comedy in American Cinema

Online Resources