I find it interesting to look at the way that movie genres go in and out of vogue. In the early days of cinema, for example, you couldn't get away from Westerns. They were easy and cheap to shoot, so the studios made thousands of them. Then audiences' tastes changed (or were perceived to) and Westerns disappeared. Or take film-noir: noir is the only genre defined by its vogue. If you make a movie today that's black and white and involves shadows and double-crosses and femme fatales and so on, it's still not a noir if it was made after Touch of Evil.

But of all the cinematic genre rise and fall stories, perhaps no rise was as precipitous (or fall as drastic) as the movie musical. From the late 1950s until the late 1960s, the musical dominated the Oscars and box offices. In that time,

Gigi, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Oliver! all won Best Picture. In addition,
The Music Man, Mary Poppins, Funny Girl, and Hello, Dolly! were all nominated.

Now my question to you is, are any of these movies remotely great? I mean, sure, My Fair Lady has some amusing moments, but almost all of them come from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, which (lack of Rex Harrison notwithstanding) is half as long and twice as good. And Mary Poppins is fun and all, but I don't think I would (or did) give any of these films even 3.5 stars, let alone 4.

So it seems to me that this era of filmmaking was one of our worst. It was the flabby monstrosity that had to collapse in on itself in order to clear the way for greatness to rise from the French New Wave and then the glorious golden age of the directors in the 1970s. And for that I thank it, but it's still pretty embarrassing as an age in our cinematic history.

Thoughts?

My Fair Lady's overshadowed by its way superior source material. Of the ones on that list the only one that could be considered close to great would be West Side Story. Mary Poppins is fun. The others are all either extremely dated or were immensely overpraised in their day (The Sound Of Music). It might surprise some people to hear this. But in a way those were that era's equivalent of the big budget nothings (Transformers, Battleship) we have today.

The musical as a genre is hard to do well. In order to fit in the musical numbers the story has to be simple and a lot of times we end up with one or two dimensional characters. Or in the case of musicals translated from Broadway they end up trying to duplicate what made it a success on the stage without realizing that this is a completely different medium. That's why the film adaptation of Rent failed: aside from the fact that it came out seven or eight years after the show's popularity peaked the movie tried too hard to duplicate the play not translate it into a cinematic form that could have kept moviegoers interested. Even on the better ones (Dreamgirls) there's bound to be at least some artistic fall off.

I agree whoelheartedly, I cannot stand musicals and i'm VERY glad that they're not popular anymore(i'd be surprised if Les Miserables is a hit), I don't know why West Side Story is considered "great", I hated every second of it, i'd honestly rather sit through all 4 High School Musical films then go anywhere NEAR that film again.

Mary Poppins and The Music Man, yes, and My Fair Lady and Gigi have their moments of greatness. If you go back a few years, you hit Singin' in the Rain, one of the greatest films, period.

You also have The King and I, South Pacific, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Damn Yankees during the heyday, and Fiddler on the Roof just after. I like Fiddler a lot, the other four not so much, but they were certainly popular

I'd certainly rather watch the musicals than all the Biblical epics that came out about that time.

They still make westerns. The heroes just wear capes instead of hats now.

Musicals are kind of like kung fu movies. If the choreography is inventive and well-represented, it's going to be a decent time for the people who are into that sort of thing.

I'm not sure why musicals specifically, except that everybody was still awed by the fact that you could have sound in a movie and they hadn't fully figured out how to use it as a storytelling device yet.

Musicals were popular on stage long before movies. When sound came in, it was natural for the form to be translated to film. It did take a while to work out how to adapt the musical, and you get some really odd examples around 1929 and 30. (And some classics like Love Me Tonight and The Love Parade.) I think what happened in the fifties was they became spectacles to compete with television, plus the popularity of soundtracks on 33 rpm.

The "spectacle" aspect is definitely part of it. Almost every (if not literally every) one of the movies I cited is 2.5 to 3 hours. Big, monstrous roadshow movies that occasionally "made bank," as my students would say, or in the case of Hello Dolly, Star!, or Camelot, lost studios their fortunes

And musicals are easy to mess up too. Even master directors like Scorsese (New York New York) and Coppola (Finian's Rainbow) cannot count their attempts at the genre among their masterworks.

Singin' In The Rain was already mention, and it is one of the greatest films ever made, bar none. Another that I think is pretty damn good is An American In Paris. And if you go back a little farther, there's Meet Me In St. Louis, another truly great film. So musicals aren't totally bad. It's also worth noting that many of them are meant to be seen on the big screen. West Side Story is a prime example of this.

An American in Paris and Singin in the Rain are both hampered by interminable ballet sequences in their third acts, but I agree that they're good films (if not great ones). Cabaret is also quite good. But none of them came out in this less than golden age

But...the dancing is wonderful...

the 30s had a lot more musicals released than in the 50s or 60s. Using Oscars as a way to judge the genre's 'golden age' is a bit misleading. they used to release a list of box office stars. Shirley Temple towered above everyone in the 30s (in a way that I don't think is fully realized today by film fans), with Astaire & Rogers also ranking high.

Top Hat & Swing Time rank higher on most greatest films lists by critics I've seen than Oliver!, Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, etc.



The 'flabby montrosity' really collapsed to clear the way for disaster flicks of the early 70s.

Oh yes...Top Hat and Swing Time. Classics both.

I don't really think I want to dub Top Hat a great film...I mean, it's cute and all, but come on

Swing Time is my favorite of the Astaire/Rogers musicals, and in my opinion, easily the best. It even has my favorite of all Oscar-winning songs. I like Shall We Dance? and Royal Wedding. (The last has Jane Powell rather than Rogers.) Top Hat is fun.

Having just seen Oliver! for the first time this past weekend, my first thought was, "Wow, the Academy must've really loved their choreographed orphans in '68." It's not a horrid film by any means, just a good musical with some catchy tunes...but that's really all it is.

Not having been around in the '60s, I can't gauge for certain how much (if at all) of a cultural juggernaut Oliver! was. But the awards and accolades given to the fine but mostly frivolous (in dramatic weight) films that Mr. Kunz mentioned seems to indicate that a lot of folks fell for the spectacle angle hook, line, and sinker. Hell, even I really enjoyed My Fair Lady when I saw it this past winter, a flick which has the benefit of both a memorable soundtrack and sound source material to support it.

But ultimately, time will be the ultimate judge. These movies were popular in their era and still persist in some form or another to this day (The Music Man, Oliver!, and the like are eternal community theatre mainstays), but we'll see what people rent for a lark and what they rent to analyze to no end with a consortium of chums.

Musicals are kind of like figure skating or gymnastics for me. Whenever I watch a good performance, I have great admiration for the skills demonstrated. However, I really am not that interested going in.

Of the films listed, I've only seen Oliver and My Fair Lady. I saw Oliver shortly after its release and was about the same general age of the children in it. I remember the general experience fondly out of empathy for the kids' plight than for the music. My Fair Ladywas a date movie at a special theater showing 20 years after release. I came away enjoying it immensly and thinking I need to open my mind to more musicals. Never did though.

Oops. I did see Funny Girl during the intial theater run. I had no appreciation for it at that young age and was bored to death.

The musicals that I've liked are:

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
20 centimeters

(anyone else notice a theme there?)

Incidentally, I'm not terribly familiar with most older musicals. I can recall seeing Rent on stage on broadway, and it was a truely mind blowing experience that I can't possibly imagine would work on screen. Particularly not after what Chris Columbus accomplished (or more specifically didn't) with the first two Harry Potter films. I plan on seeing someday when it makes it's way to the top of the Netflix list, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Ultimately, I think most musicals are probably better suited for the stage over the screen. On film, there needs to be something extra in order for it to work or to be believable. For example, 20 Centimeters the main character is narcoleptic and all of the musical sequences obviously take place in her dreams.

I also think the comparison to big budget summer blockbusters is apt, as the success of both types of films would depend a lot on the execution of the technical elements (special effects vs. singing and dancing).
-Jeremy

JamesKunz, sorry if this sounds very critical of your original post, which is a good starting point for discussion. I'm not sure I got the tone of the following post right, so please apologise if it's too rude.

It’s a bit odd, that you omitted all of the celebrated Arthur Freed MGM musicals of the 1950ies ("The Band Wagon", "An American in Paris", "Singin’ in the Rain", "On the Town" etc.) from your original list of movie musicals of the “golden age”. I’ve just recently finished reading Peter Biskind’s “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” (on which I might create a new topic soon, cause it’s an interesting read for film buffs), and he explicitly mentioned that – despite of a few very notable successes such as "The Sound of Music" or "West Side Story" – Hollywood had lost the ability to capture audiences with musicals in the 1960ies, when they (musicals, not audiences) became bloated monstrosities.

The golden age for the movie musical was certainly not the 1960ies, rather the 30ies to 50ies.

Your comparison with film noir doesn’t really work, as film noir isn’t a genre – more precisely, it appears to be very controversial whether it is a genre, a style or a period in American moviemaking. Consequently, it’s not too surprising that only movies made between 1940 and 1960 are considered classic noirs in the strictest sense.

Personally, I generally don’t like musicals, either on stage or on film. Song and dance in musical style just isn’t my cup of tea, I guess. However, I did like the above-mentioned “An American in Paris” and “Singin’ in the Rain” very much. They’re great. And if you include animated movies, I very much like “The Jungle Book” and “Meet the Feebles” as well.

Well basically everything relevant has been mentioned here already. Of course the musical belongs on a stage unless it's something with a true childlike sense of wonder. The great Disney animated features are all musicals. Nothing in these even attempts to reflect reality. That's why The Wizard of Oz works works for me, while West Side Story (the movie) doesn't (for so many reasons). "Serious" storytelling combined with song and dance numbers simply doesn't work. Why on earth would anyone have a dialog with someone and in the midle of a sentence start burstinfg into a song, complete with a symphonic orchestra? In more recent (say: post 1980 including Fame) "musicals" the song and dance part is always explained and somehow made plausible (with varying success) and doesn't appear out of thin air. One of the last musicals with people singing dialogue just for the sake of it (that I know of) is Grease. Calling it terrible does not even begin to describe how I feel about that utter piece of crap. Oh, there is also Xanadu - the less said about that, the better.

The only thing which works in West Side story (IMHO) is Leonard Bernstein's brilliant music (especially the instrumental parts without cheezy vocals - a true 20th Century symphonic masterpiece right up there with Gershwin's Porgy and Bess - again: NOT the movie). That man (Bernstein) was a total musical genius on so many levels. I appreciate the fantastic choreography as well, but not in the context of late 1950s New York City street gangs. I thought the same of Michael beck and his "gang" in the non-musical movie The Warriors (1979): "What the heck: West Side Story without music and dance and the Romeo and Juliet theme?" Even less convincing.