The Musicals List REDUX

[Never Cursed]

Anchors Aweigh: Take a shot every time they say "Iturbi!"

Gene Kelly and George Sidney evidently knew how musicals worked and what their component parts were, so why is absolutely none of that knowledge, save for some excellent choreography, on display here? My best guess: they knew that Kathryn Grayson, Pamela Britton, José Iturbi, and especially a green and palpably uncomfortable Frank Sinatra were total goldbricks and they decided to make the film the Gene Kelly Show as much as possible (a solid third of the dialogue when Kelly's not on screen can be summarized "where's Gene Kelly?") and oversaturate it with him directing himself doing his own ideas, which are juvenile and silly without being amusing or interesting and fly in the face of the rapid-fire sex jokes of the first half. Kelly gets three dream numbers, all equally masterfully crafted, unnecessary, and contributory to the film's far-too-long runtime. Get rid of all three and the film would run two hours, but then its second hour would have nothing to distinguish it whatsoever save a disorienting series of backstage misadventures that somehow make the MGM backlot circa 1945 look boring (because they only bother to film José Iturbi vehicles on it). Where is the follow-through in this film? So many elements (Kelly's "Lola" sweetheart, Sinatra's past as a choir-boy and Kelly's promise not to spill the beans, Dean Stockwell's naval ambitions, not that we needed any of him at all) are, sometimes painstakingly, set up and then dropped without notice. Other parts, such as Britton's Brooklyn waitress, appear to have been added at the last minute when someone woke up and realized that Sinatra needed to actually participate in the musical he co-leads. No one could even bother to give this poor character a name (she's credited as "Girl from Brooklyn"), leading to one incredible late-film scene where Sinatra and Kelly anticipate It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and talk about how great "The Waitress" is and how Sinatra can't wait to marry "The Waitress." Did I mention that José Iturbi is in this? "José Iturbi." "José Iturbi." "Iturbi." "José Iturbi."

I'm going to continue making my way through Kelly's musical filmography, as I've loved almost everything else I've seen with him in it (I'll be voting for all his co-directed work with Donen, Rochefort, and The Pirate, more movies, I think, than any other actor), but I'd appreciate it if someone could let me know if I should prioritize anything else he's in besides Take Me Out To The Ball Game. Ditto for Sidney, of whom I have seen one great musical (The Harvey Girls) and one terrible musical with a great number (Viva Las Vegas, "My Rival"). I have Kiss Me Kate ready to go and assume I will like it

[Matt]

Have you seen Kelly's debut, For Me and My Gal? He and Garland are a delightful match, and it's a sweet, small-scale musical. The scene where they perform the title song is just a simple little song and dance in an empty cafe, but it's probably one of my favorite musical numbers of all time.

George Sidney's Show Boat is not a great movie, but it has a lot going for it in terms of musical performances. I think the same is true of Kiss Me Kate. But The Harvey Girls is, for me, his best musical by far.

[knives]

Bye Bye Birdie and Annie Get Your Gun are also worth checking out.

[domino harvey]

Kiss Me Kate is an all-timer. Annie Get Your Gun has its moments (you have to be Hutton-friendly though). Jupiter’s Darling is the most interesting of the aquatic Williams musicals. I like Thousands Cheer but I don’t think you would based on these comments. And not a musical but Scaramouche is the best swashbuckler of them all

Make sure you add Kelly’s solo directorial musical Invitation to the Dance, which is three individual ballets. But the straight dope is that you should really see them all (you’re going to skip Summer Stock? I think not)

And I’ll recommend a musical for an element of the film you didn’t ask for: I have always loved the small scale Sinatra musical It Happened in Brooklyn and perhaps it will help inoculate you to Grayson as well (who I like, but as I recall from the last time we did this, I may be the only one here who does!)

[Never Cursed]

I'm fine with revues, they just have to have some kind of point or purpose beyond "here's some numbers" - like, the premise of Thousands Cheer is that it basically turns into a USO show in the second half, right? That sounds fine. At least one musical with elements of a revue will be on my list. The problem with Anchors Aweigh's seriality in the endless second half is that there's nothing to latch onto beyond Kelly's talent, which is enormous but expressed in a manner tonally inconsistent with the first part of the film, and the Technicolor photography. I found "I Begged Her" and especially "If You Knew Susie" more entertaining than any of Kelly's solo dances in the movie, and it's the number where the film comes closest to working as a musical. I still love Kelly enough that I'll see everything he did, this is just the first stumbling block in the road!

Thanks for the recs - all of the titles mentioned above except Jupiter's Darling and It Happened in Brooklyn were on my radar, for what it's worth

[soundchaser]

As an anti-recommendation, I'll say that I didn't like Take Me Out to the Ball Game much at all - a criminal waste of Betty Garrett is its main sin, but it has problems with characterization and fairly boring numbers beyond that. (Sorry domino; I know you're a fan.) Just don't prioritize it over Summer Stock!

[knives]

Alternatively it’s one of my favorites for its unrealism and amusing sense of character.

[Matt]

Grayson as well (who I like, but as I recall from the last time we did this, I may be the only one here who does!)

I like her just fine as an actor when she’s appropriate for the role or paired with someone with whom she has good chemistry (Howard Keel, Mario Lanza). I like her especially in That Midnight Kiss and Kiss Me Kate.

What I don’t particularly like is the nasal quality of her singing voice (which is otherwise lovely in a sort of Jeanette Macdonald operetta style). It’s particularly noticeable and grating in “I Hate Men” from Kiss Me Kate, like she’s singing through a cold.

[Never Cursed]

What I don’t particularly like is the nasal quality of her singing voice (which is otherwise lovely in a sort of Jeanette Macdonald operetta style). It’s particularly noticeable and grating in “I Hate Men” from Kiss Me Kate, like she’s singing through a cold.

Yeah, I can also believe that she's good in other films, but especially in the climactic number of Anchors Aweigh, her singing is so loud and shrill that I actually had to take my headphones off while watching. Doesn't surprise me that she was essentially created as a Deanna Durbin replacement - the real surprise is that domino likes her in spite of this knowledge!

[soundchaser]

Thinking about unorthodox picks - does anyone but me consider Damsels in Distress a musical? It’s got a few of the hallmarks, including a duo of full-blown dance numbers at the end, but it also features some diegetic tunes that fit the same purpose. I’m thinking specifically of the line dance and subsequent “Small Town Saturday Night” scene here. Plus, it’s structured around tap dancing in a very Altman-show-musical kinda way (two parallel ideas leading to the final two numbers), there’s a sense that society (or Violet’s society, at least) relies on a coupling, etc.

I know the real answer is “Vote for it!,” but just curious to see if anyone buys my thinking.

[domino harvey]

For me, nah, but I see where you’re coming from

[domino harvey]

Some recent viewings to tide me over until the redux begins:

Rhapsody in Blue (Irving Rapper 1945) Biopic of George Gershwin which, like many Hollywood tales of composers in this era, is so heavily fictionalized that the names may as well be different. However, this is better than a lot of more well-known examples and while the film is long (almost three hours?!), it’s entertaining enough. Robert Alda is admittedly not really able to hold this together as the lead, Charles Coburn is merely on hand to do cigar smoke tricks (something he was known for in real life), and Joan Leslie shows a bit of her vaudeville upbringing but not nearly as well as she does in Thank Your Lucky Stars.

the Sky’s the Limit (Edward H Griffith 1943) Air Force pilot Fred Astaire goes on leave and spends much of it harassing the admittedly amiable war booster Joan Leslie while concealing that he’s in the military. This is a stupid conceit and the film has no real justification for it, but an even odder aspect here (beyond this being a musical costarring… Robert Ryan?!) is that Astaire is playing against type as a total dick. There’s always been a polite superiority to his screen persona, but here he’s just an asshole. I admit this is novel in theory, but in practice it’s tiring and we are removed from the charm of his technical prowess by being at arm’s length. The “One For My Baby and One for the Road” number, for instance, is hard to get invested in because Astaire is literally just trashing someone else’s bar for kicks. But admittedly the biggest misstep here does not involve Astaire at all: Robert Benchley is given a good five minute chunk in this film to do a comedy bit that is without exaggeration the least funny, most interminable thing I’ve ever seen in a film of this era. What studio head let this movie go out with this scene intact? No wonder they sold RKO to Hughes, they were already making bad decisions….

You Can’t Run Away From It (Dick Powell 1956) Dick Powell directs his wife and Jack Lemmon in a musical remake of Capra’s It Happened One Night. I’m agnostic on the original but surely making a film like this is doomed from conception onward, right? Beyond just shooting like 90% of the original script, Lemmon in particular is frequently annoying here and Allyson is way too old for the role. Frankly, Lemmon has better chemistry with Allyn Joslyn than Allyson. I will note that things initially look up when Stubby Kaye delivers the enjoyable first musical number, until we realize we’ve seen this movie already and he isn’t going to be in it after that. It is kind of amusing that beyond that one, they clearly wrote every number to exploit the parts people remember from Capra’s movie (there’s a song about hitchhiking, there’s a song about the sheet, and so on). I will note that the film has some gorgeous mid century location shooting of bus stops &c, including an unusual vending machine that even DancingBacons has yet to encounter.

Fun fact: you may already own this film and not realize it. Sony included it in the initial UHD release of It Happened One Night from the Columbia box as a bonus feature, though I don’t think it carried over to the disc in the Capra set? Nevertheless, I saw it via the standalone Blu-ray that Sony recently put out and it’s going for all of seven dollars on Amazon right now, should you want to indulge to check my work.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I want to quickly sing the praises of Mark Zakharov’s wonderful An Ordinary Miracle before the redux begins because it truly is a delight. The music is obviously great and Zakharov uses one of the main themes towards the end in a really brilliant way but what I really fell in love with was Zakharov’s overwhelming sense of self pure, infectious love for his characters and storytelling in general that radiates off the screen and makes me gleam with pure joy even as the story inevitably shifts towards the fated pessimistic ending as it deals with the question of whether the author is right in ruining the fates of these characters for the sake of art. I won’t say anymore but if you’re starving for a musical made beyond Hollywood, this is a really excellent one choice with and I implore everyone to give this one a chance!

[therewillbeblus]

Maybe I'll write something more after reading Altman's book and getting more genre context, but Pablo Larraín's Ema is likely one of the only films on my Musical list that won't be on many others' prospective lists. I wrote some thoughts in its dedicated thread and embellished on them here. While the film includes a few actual musical numbers, its narrative force exists in the spirit of the Musical, with the titular character's full-throated expressiveness contrasting with "normal" behavior, and gradually influencing others to tap into this other dimension.

I'd love to get more exposure to this masterpiece. Mubi and Music Box Films released it on blu-ray in the UK and U.S., respectively

[senseabove]

And I'll throw my thoughts in there too, which have only been affirmed by several revisits since then. Ema at least won't be an orphan if I'm around.

[brundlefly]

Ema's now streaming on many platforms. It got added to Netflix at the beginning of this month and I took advantage to revisit it with a partner. Her jaw was on the floor throughout. I still think of it more in terms of noir, but of course it fits here as well. All that color!

[therewillbeblus]

I still think of it more in terms of noir

I'd love to hear you expand on this reading! If looking at it along the noir spectrum, I'd see Ema as an anti-noir, since Ema rejects fatalism completely and goes on to demonstrate that she's right and the systems reinforcing that idea are wrong

[brundlefly]

I still think of it more in terms of noir

I'd love to hear you expand on this reading! If looking at it along the noir spectrum, I'd see Ema as an anti-noir, since Ema rejects fatalism completely and goes on to demonstrate that she's right and the systems reinforcing that idea are wrong

Spoiler

Can totally get behind "Anti-noir" as a takeaway, and doubt I could lay out a case that it ticks enough boxes to qualify as a classic noir; but I think a lot of the delight in this movie comes from assuming Ema is operating as a destructive force (she openly announces herself as such) and then finding she's more phoenix than femme fatale. The result is joyously, shockingly affirmative, everything goes according to plan and everybody seems to win. But an agent of true change, she has to terrify the status quo, and while we can be fascinated by her and sympathize with her, I think it helps the film to also fear her. For pure viewer enjoyment/encouragement, I'd pitch it as the thing it's pretending to be as it projects her as mix of cold calculation and hot impulse, consumed by selfish conflagration, seducing a family unit apart, cruelly insulting her husband's manhood -- just to preserve the movie's initial effect.

Maybe I was just using the term to play along and push a movie I love? The more lists on which it can land, the merrier.

[therewillbeblus]

Great reading! I agree with you - one of the great joys of the film is in realizing our impressions were wrong, recognizing that our perspectives are limited, and expanding our consciousness to welcome the positive forces at play, reframing and recontextualizing as Ema demands

[TechnicolorAcid]

I assume the answer’s no but what’s the consensus on something such as Ken Russell’s Mahler being labeled as a musical? Asking because it does build enough sequences around the classical music of Mahler akin to a proto-music video for a case to be made of it being a musical but because the music is often used in a way that’s very reminiscent to a standard score, I don’t feel exactly comfortable with calling it a musical just yet until I can get another opinion on the matter.

[MichaelB]

On the other hand, Lisztomania would surely qualify, as it has bona fide song-and-dance numbers.

(And also Tommy and The Boy Friend, but they’re even less ambiguous.)

[TechnicolorAcid]

On the other hand, Lisztomania would surely qualify, as it has bona fide song-and-dance numbers.

(And also Tommy and The Boy Friend, but they’re even less ambiguous.)

100% agree about Lisztomania being a musical, although I don’t think I’m alone in viewing it as the least good of Russell’s composer films which is very funny to me because I’m of the opinion that his similarly high concept manic rock film Tommy is his masterpiece and will most likely top my list, which he made right before it (I actually have an embarrassing, if not spirited tribute to it here that I wrote a while back).

[soundchaser]

I rewatched Singin' in the Rain last night with my partner (who didn't remember ever seeing it), and I was surprised this time around by just how little it attempts to structurally justify its musical numbers, even when compared with lesser MGM fare of the era. I think it works in spite of that (it will be in my Top 10, if not my Top 5), but you have to wonder how its "throw it in there because Freed wrote it" approach and later ubiquity has influenced how the public thinks about musicals, particularly the way songs are incorporated in a plot.

Aside from that, the opening sequence is still a masterclass in storytelling economy.

[senseabove]

I assume the answer’s no but what’s the consensus on something such as Ken Russell’s Mahler being labeled as a musical? Asking because it does build enough sequences around the classical music of Mahler akin to a proto-music video for a case to be made of it being a musical but because the music is often used in a way that’s very reminiscent to a standard score, I don’t feel exactly comfortable with calling it a musical just yet until I can get another opinion on the matter.

FWIW, the general protocol for genre/category lists like this has been: if you believe it qualifies, vote for it, and make your case in the thread if you want others to as well. Caveat is that, if you're the only vote for it, it'll get orphaned and you're wasting a spot on your list that could have been used to boost an actual contender. Maybe you like it enough that you don't care about that—and there's a case to be made for that position, as the orphan lists are often interesting in their own right. Since "Musical" is about as hard a genre to pin down with consensus as noir, I expect we'll have a lot of edge cases just like yours.

[therewillbeblus]

I rewatched Singin' in the Rain last night with my partner (who didn't remember ever seeing it), and I was surprised this time around by just how little it attempts to structurally justify its musical numbers, even when compared with lesser MGM fare of the era. I think it works in spite of that (it will be in my Top 10, if not my Top 5), but you have to wonder how its "throw it in there because Freed wrote it" approach and later ubiquity has influenced how the public thinks about musicals, particularly the way songs are incorporated in a plot.

Aside from that, the opening sequence is still a masterclass in storytelling economy.

I always think of Singin' in the Rain first and foremost as possibly the greatest comedy of the 50s, before categorizing it as a musical. Its humor just overwhelms me more, though the numbers are great!