Singing The Century
Jun 27 '01 (Updated Jul 01 '01)
The Bottom Line Let Mrs. Norman Maine explain it all for you as she counts down the best of the best.
I decided to celebrate my one hundredth epinion with something a little different. Rather than giving you an update on my illustrious career and appraisal of my home theater viewing, I thought I would let you into the world of a true musical diva.
As most of you know, I am one of the great stars of the American screen musical. Who could ever forget my star spangled tap dance in that great story about the magician's daughter, 'Inherit the Wand' or my incredible Salome in Cecil B. DeMille's epic musical 'Headless John'. I therefore, approach screen musicals with a true professional's discerning eye. It takes more than pretty chorines in matching costumes to make me suspend my disbelief. A good screen musical must create a world, draw the audience into that world, establish rules of design, music and dance which propel theme and narrative, and leave the audience wanting more.
I have therefore decided to compile Mrs. Norman Maine's guide to the ten best movie musicals of the twentieth century. Good taste and modesty prevent me from including any of my own films in the lot, although a number of them surely belong in the winner's circle. I am listing them in chronological order. You will notice that I'm not including any of the great silent musicals in my final listings. Call me a fool but I believe a soundtrack is de rigeur for the proper experience, although my friends at Gallaudet may disagree. This list represents my own personal biases, but, if you cannot trust a legend, who can you trust?
MNM'S TOP TEN MUSICALS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
1. Dames (1934) Prior to the films of Busby Berkeley at Warner Brothers in the early 30s, film musicals were static. The need for primitive sound recording technology made most musical numbers presentational to the camera, as if it were an audience member in the loge watching a stage show framed in a proscenium arch. This is not how a human being experiences live musical theater. When sitting in an audience, our perceptions and focus dart all over the place, taking in this stage picture, that cute chorus boy's derierre, the movement of the set. This is why filmed stage shows look so horribly flat. We take film and stage in in completely different ways. Berkeley recognized this and invented a new visual language for the film musical with huge sets, stunning camera moves, geometric patterns, and all the rest of the tricks his name brings to mind. Of the dozen or so films of his from the period, Dames is his masterpiece. Like most of his other films, its a backstage story. (The early 30s, like today, did not allow for characters to break into song in unmusical situations - all the numbers are diegetic. The characters are perfectly aware they're singing and it makes sense in context, happening as part of a stage musical or a private love duet.) Like most of the rest of this series, Ruby Keeler is the innocent heroine, in love with Dick Powell who is a would be composer. Keeler's parents (Guy Kibbee and Zasu Pitts providing most of the comic relief), trying to inherit $10 million from a bluenose cousin, try to prevent the romance with predictable results. Joan Blondell is also on hand as the wise cracking showgirl friend. This one slipped in just under the wire for the Hayes code so there's some risque humor and its wittier than what came later. The production numbers are phenomenal, especially 'I Only Have Eyes For You' where the chorines all become Ruby Keelers (wittily parodied in Gremlins II and the title number which makes stunning use of black and white photography and costumes.
2. Show Boat (1936) There are three film versions of the first great American stage musical, Florenz Ziegfeld's Show Boat written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein in 1927. The first, a silent, is rarely seen. This second, directed by James Whale of Frankenstein fame, is the definitive. It captures the grandeur and sweep of the epic story without the tarting up of production numbers that marred so many of the musicals of the forties and fifties. Show Boat is four decades of American social history tied up in the ill fated romance of Magnolia Hawkes, daughter of Cap'n Andy who runs a floating stage from river town to river town on the Mississippi, and Gaylord Ravenal, the river gambler turned actor. It encompasses themes of life, love and loss as Old Man River keeps on rolling along. The talented cast, led by a young Irene Dunne as Magnolia, and including Paul Robeson as Joe and Helen Morgan as Julie, bring real human presence to the story, as well as poignancy to the musical moments. James Whale, aided by John Mescall's luminous black and white cinematography brings the film to life in painterly images in what is likely his finest work.
3. The Wizard of Oz (1939). This film has, over the years, morphed from not overly successful children's film to national icon. One would be hard pressed not to find an American younger then 70 who could not quote whole stretches of dialog verbatim. The film, about Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) and her magical journey to Oz and her attempts to return home to Kansas, was received politely, but hardly enthusiastically, during its initial release. Only the rise of television in the 1950s with its annual screenings brought it into prominence. The original novel is a typical children's fantasy - the 'Harry Potter' of its day. The film, however, altered the themes of the novel subtly to put a greater emphasis on the longing for the monochromatic comforts of reality rather than the technicolor wonders of fantasy which allows it to touch all of us. The need for fantasy is innate in humans but, ultimately, we must resolve that with our needs for the ordinary - it's part of the maturing process. Add to this the sparkling score by Harold Arlen, the witty lyrics of Yip Harburg and the heartbreaking performance of the adolescent Judy Garland in the central role, and you have a classic that will speak to each generation in turn.
4. Singin' In The Rain (1952). When Comden and Green, who had had a great success with 'On the Town' on Broadway in the late 40s, went out to Hollywood, they had no idea they were going to create a classic. They joined the Freed unit at MGM which produced many of that studio's better musicals. Freed gave them the back catalog of songs he had written for many of the early film musicals of the 20s with his partner Nacio Herb Brown and invited them to come up with a story. One song, 'Singin' in the Rain', caught their eye and so they knew they had to have a scene where someone sang in the rain but beyond that, they were at a loss. The plot they eventually dreamed up used the context during which the songs were originally created, the tumultuous days during which sound forever changed the motion picture industry. Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) are the great stars of Monumental Pictures' silent epics. All of a sudden, The Jazz Singer opens and talkies are the rage. Their next picture must be a talkie, only Lina sounds like the unholy offspring of Alvin the chipmunk and a stevedore. Don will get Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) to dub Lina's voice. Then the trouble starts. The film is filled with terrific performances (especially Hagen's idiotic Lina), some of the best musical numbers ever put to film (the title song, Donald O'Connor's 'Make 'Em Laugh', the Broadway Ballet), and enough sardonic wit and Hollywood jokes for a dozen movies. Much of the success goes to Gene Kelly, who directed together with his pal Stanley Donen. It was Gene, even more than Fred Astaire, who really taught movies to dance and used dance as a medium for story telling and to emphasize mood. Oddly enough, this film was not considered all that special in the 1950s. An American in Paris, from the same period, was much more admired. It was only when the film was rediscovered by the French in the late 1960s that it gained its current reputation.
5. The Music Man (1962). Hollywood had a reputation for filming relatively reverential versions of the great stage musical successes of the 1940s and 1950s. In many cases, the film versions and images have supplanted the original stage productions. Many of these films, however, are flawed by poor casting, the common practice of dubbing 'pretty' voices, often Marni Nixon, for the more honest and emotive voices of the actors, or fundamental changes in plot, song structure, or order, or edits that destroyed the balance of the piece. One film that did not fall prey to these problems was The Music Man. Warner Brothers allowed Robert Preston to recreate his stage role, replaced Barbara Cook with Shirley Jones, who was nearly her match vocally and a better actress for film, and let original stage director Morton Da Costa bring the piece through more or less intact. The well known story of 'Professor' Harold Hill (Preston), conning the good citizens of turn of the century River City into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys band while romancing the town librarian (Jones) who threatens to expose him, remains a delight. It remains one of the best written librettos in American Musical Comedy and the songs integrate naturally into the story, evoking time and place perfectly. There's also a wonderful gaggle of supporting characters for comic relief, all providing just a little bit more magic.
6. Mary Poppins (1964). This film remains the high water mark for the Disney studio, a glorious blend of live action and animation that has never been matched. Based on P.L. Travers' childrens' books, and taking episodes from several, Bill Walsh fashioned an episodic, but coherent, screenplay about a magical nanny who brings a family together in Edwardian London. The Banks household is in an uproar. Mrs. Banks (Glynis Johns) is too caught up in suffragette activities to tend to her children's needs. Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson) is too busy trying to get ahead in business to notice his family. Into this mix comes Mary Poppins(Julie Andrews), floating down on her umbrella, to right all the wrongs and bring everyone together again, with a little assistance from her friend Bert (Dick Van Dyke), a jack of all trades. The special effects, while spectacular at the time, seem a bit quaint now to our jaded eyes but still work. Julie Andrews brings her glorious four octave voice to the tuneful score by the Sherman brothers and established herself as a film, as well as a stage force. She supercalifragilisticexpialidocioused her way into an Oscar for the role.
7. Oliver! (1968) It was long a truism that the British were incapable of making a musical work. This, of course, was before Andrew Lloyd Weber. Oliver! was the exception that proved the rule. Based on Dickens' Oliver Twist, Lionel Bart's show was a hit first in London, then in New York. It was brought to the screen by Sir Carol Reed, the great British film director. Reed, together with a brilliant art department, captured the look of the original Cruikshank illustrations in glorious color. He also used the wide screen to full advantage in staging the film and bringing Dickensian London to life. This is not a film for pan and scan. He was well served by choreographer Onna White whose brilliant work on the production numbers, especially 'Consider Yourself' and 'Who Will Buy?' are textbooks of film choreography and musical staging. Oliver! is, of course, the famous story of the orphan (Mark Lester) who dared ask for more and is turned out of the workhouse. He ends up in London where he is taken in by a gang of thieves run by Fagin (Ron Moody) where he is befriended by Nancy (Shani Wallis). Nancy's boyfriend, Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed), provides a terrifying villainous counterpoint, wanting to use young Oliver for his own ends. Despite the 'G' rating, this is not a film to just plunk the kids down in front of (don't get me started on the idiocies of the MPAA). There are truly frightening moments, adult themes and the villain bludgeons the heroine to death on screen.
8.Cabaret(1972) This film is such a brilliant piece of cinema that it seems hardly to have aged over the last three decades. Returning to the diegetic style of the 1930s, director Bob Fosse took Kander and Ebb's conventional book musical and made it into a social commentary, not just on the rise of Nazism, but on the dangers of neglecting the collective for individual hedonism, a theme that still resonates. Bad things still happen when good people do nothing. The story is the tale of third rate cabaret singer, Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli) who becomes involved with British expatriate writer Brian Roberts (Michael York) in the waning days of the Weimar republic in Berlin. The Kit Kat Klub, where most of the musical numbers happen, is a seedy joint under the control of a lascivious emcee (Joel Grey) where musical acts comment on the protagonists lives and changing social conditions. Fosse's phenomenal staging and intercutting between the cabaret and life almos single handedly destroyed the book musical in film. After this, audiences were no longer as accepting of characters breaking unknowing into song and dance.
9.Hair (1979) Criminally neglected at the time of its original release, Hair has, in retrospect, become one of the most important films about the long national nightmare of the 60s and the Vietnam War. Milos Forman, one of film's great directors, took the loose stage show and had a slight, but servicable plot drafted by playwright Michael Weller. The story concerns Claude Bukowski (John Savage) who comes to New York for a visit, prior to being drafted. There he meets Berger (Treat Williams), a hippie in Central Park and learns about the counter culture. Later, his new hippie friends decide to spring him from basic training with unexpectedly tragic results. Under Forman's sure hand, the musical numbers become a pungent commentary on American attitudes towards dress, mores, sex, drugs, religion and politics. He and choreographer Twyla Tharp come up with haunting image after image, making great use of New York locations. His staging of the finale (The Flesh Failures/Let The Sun Shine In) is one of the most stunning indictments of the waste of war and the indifference of government to the governed and its all done without a shot being fired.
10. Beauty And The Beast (1991) Just when the musical seemed completely dead, Disney pulled another rabbit out of the hat with this compelling, romantic, strangely adult adaptaion of the familiar fairytale. Young Belle, to atone for a sin of her fathers, must sojourn in the enchanted castle of the Beast where both must learn important lessons about life and each other. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's lushly romantic score and the use of computer modeled animation led to sequences of stunning beauty and visual complexity and to the first best picture nomination for an animated feature. The title song, which will never be sung with more emotion than by Angela Lansbury, has become a standard and the script by Linda Woolverton is a primer on how to assemble a solid book musical. Audiences lapped it up because the animation allowed them to suspend disbelief in ways that live action no longer does.
For further viewing, my runner-up list - films that just missed the cut...
My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, Meet Me In Saint Louis, The King and I, Fiddler On The Roof, Top Hat, Gold Diggers of 1933, The Band Wagon, Gigi, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
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Member: Vicki Lester
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