The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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zedz
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#451 Post by zedz » Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:02 pm

Well I watched Reefer Madness and it was entertaining enough, with some pretty good numbers and a handful of great laughs, but it's not going to get within a chorus line audition of my list. Like a lot of off-off-Broadway shows, it tries to make a campy virtue of the thinness of its material, but it soon gets overloaded and, intoxicated by its own Mickey-and-Judy energy, runs overlong. These shows really are a dime a dozen - this one just happens to have been caught, cheaply and cheerfully, on film - and it's always painfully obvious what their model is. And if I wanted to vote for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I'd vote for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, not its umpteenth knockoff, however energetic.

karmajuice
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#452 Post by karmajuice » Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:47 pm

I'm not participating in this project, but I did happen to watch The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Cabaret recently. I don't have much to say about the former (although I enjoyed Rosenbaum's perspective on the film), but Cabaret left me with mixed impressions.

I feel very differently about the film than you do, Shrew. As a film, I have very little interest in it. I like Minnelli's infectious and obnoxious faux-starlet, but the love triangle/pregnancy plot which comprises the bulk of the film is totally flaccid. The most fascinating aspect of the film is the subtle rise of the Nazi party in the background of their trivial Weimar shenanigans, but the cabaret comments on this rise like a Greek chorus, their numbers gradually shifting to satirize the conditions in Germany, in particular the Nazis. The relationship between those musical numbers and the Nazi party snowballing constitutes the best material in the film (and the two merge with "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", a song which in any other context would appear harmless). The protagonists hold little to no interest for me.

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Shrew
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#453 Post by Shrew » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:35 pm

I think our views aren't actually that different, Karmajuice (though I like most of all the presentation of this dirty pansexual Weimar Germany, if not so much the characters themselves). I think the back and forth between the cabaret and the increasingly dangerous world is the film's strongest point, which finds its essence in that beautiful distorted mirror that begins and ends the film and what it says about the audience. What I meant by it not being a good musical is that I just don't like the way the musical numbers themselves are filmed. It's a bit of odd argument, but I think the musical portions make the film better, while failing to be really great on their own accord.

Edit: And thanks for the link to the Rosenbaum piece on Umbrellas. The trappings of formality in everyday speech is an intriguing approach, though I'm still not sure it always makes for a good musical rhythm or variety, or if it can avoid becoming exasperating.
Last edited by Shrew on Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#454 Post by domino harvey » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:56 pm

Zedz, I'm surprised you liked it as much as you did, given our famously different senses of humor. Had I known you were going for a title I championed, I might have steered you toward something else instead, but at least you came out relatively unscathed (if not particularly impressed)

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zedz
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#455 Post by zedz » Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:11 pm

Well, it certainly wasn't a waste of time, and I'm eager to catch any allegedly great musicals of the last forty years, because I'd like my list to be reasonably diverse. I've actually got 14 or 15 post-60s musicals on my list (depending how I randomly assign the last few rungs on the ladder) - though I'm sure there'll be different opinions as to the musical / non-musical status of a number of those choices.

As for reciprocating, have you watched Forman's Audition? I just remembered to add this to my list a couple of nights ago. It sort of skates in under the wire of eligibility, since it's only one half of a feature (and the first half, though musical, can't really be considered a musical), but it's the bigger half, and runs just over 45 minutes, which has traditionally been our cut-off between shorts and features, so I'm happily including it on my list.

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knives
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#456 Post by knives » Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:34 pm

I dropped that one because I can't really consider it not a documentary even if there's a level of bull to that claim.

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zedz
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#457 Post by zedz » Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:04 pm

Well, Forman and Passer were commissioned to make a documentary, but they didn't. It was also supposed to be a short and wasn't.

karmajuice
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#458 Post by karmajuice » Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:22 am

Shrew: I can agree with you on the filming of the musical numbers. With the exception of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", they're very stage bound, and both the editing and staging are often awkward. Fortunately the performances themselves are so charming I didn't mind very much.
Also, while I liked Rosenbaum's appreciation, I don't find it entirely convincing. The sing-song dialogue didn't grate with me, but the pacing and structure bothered me. The melancholy of the end didn't quite come off, in large part because too much time is dedicated to the banal logistics of her pregnancy rather than their adolescent romance.

Also, everyone should watch Audition regardless of whether it qualifies.

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knives
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#459 Post by knives » Thu Dec 15, 2011 3:34 am

Oh, Rosalinda! has Anton Walhbrook recreating Die Fledermaus in an UN setting that might very well top Dr. Strangelove in OTT hilarity and satire. How is this the one that's not on DVD yet? The film finds the Archers at their artificial best. The design will just leave you gobsmacked with even the most intimately played with sets looking like matte paintings. The painterly cartoonishness isn't left there either as the actors jump and stretch like a Lubitsch movie run on high speed all of this contrasting with the gorgeous music which is actually rather untouched from the source material even if the lyrics are new. It keeps that deep operatic tone throughout which really should have been a mess with everything else, but somehow (my money's on magic), it just benefits the film adding layers of humour while also keeping the intimacy in the romance real.

They do one up on that too by having this musical take place in a non musical world. What I mean by that is that when they are singing they are actually singing within the logic of the world and it gets commented on and even a few eyebrows are raised over it (the dinner scene as a result is fall on the floor hilarious), but otherwise it is staged as a regular Freed-esque musical. I'm not sure what it adds besides more sources for comedy, but it's a fascinating choice that sets it from the crowd a little.

That's not to suggest that the film is all aesthetics either. This is another one that I assume was very close to Pressburger's heart and goes well with his themes. It's primarily about the occupations of Austria and Berlin, but really could apply to many similar situations that have arisen since and really needs to be seen. I'm not entirely prepared to speak on this part, but to spit in the face of everything I've already said the film takes it's position not through talking. Rather it goes about a documentary like approach reminiscent of The Third Man of all things. It just shows how the situation punishes the occupiers and occupied without having any character even saying anything bad about the situation. It's just self evident.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#460 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Dec 15, 2011 3:52 am

Has a better transfer turned up recently? Because I remember this particular Archer being in pretty bad shape.

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knives
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#461 Post by knives » Thu Dec 15, 2011 3:54 am

I saw a rip from channel 4 so it was OAR, but it could use a restoration. I watched it with Powell's earlier His Lordship which was in a worse transfer so as is it didn't bother me though it certainly shows it's age.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#462 Post by Cold Bishop » Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:38 am

The Busby Berkeley Musicals

With the dawn of sound came the dance of musical. When the mania for talkies flooded Hollywood, it seemed like it rushed downstream from Broadway, the output of musical features reaching the triple-digits by the time the twenties roared into the thirties. Yet, when the modern mind thinks on the musical (if it thinks of it at all), the conception is that of the Freed Unit. Undoubtedly, no one had a stronger influence in guiding the genre (perhaps any genre) than Arthur Freed and Co. At MGM, they created a fine-tuned vision of the musical-comedy, taking the greatest talent behind and before the camera, and creating the perfect synthesis of light romance, lush visuals, bravura performance and hearty Americana. So strong was the influence, that even rival studios followed suit in imitation, and the direction of the Freed Musical was the direction of the genre until it's quiet demise in the Sixties. Yet, the Freed Unit doesn't come into play until 1939, with the one-two punch of Babes in Arms and Wizard of Oz (mere footnotes of what it was to later accomplish). Before then, we have nearly the entirety of the Thirties, and if the decade was not the genre's most fruitful and accomplished, in may be nonetheless its most interesting.

The appeal of the Post-Freed Musical is one of Classicism, of a genre at it's most well-defined, the height of its self-expression. The appeal of the Thirties is quite different: it is one of experimentation, of laxity, a genre still trying to figure itself out, not quite chained down by convention or format. Yes, there are many films which neglected this freedom, often ending in crudeness or monotony; but for a select few other films, it led to some of the most exciting entries of the genre. Of course, the Musical was never truly wild; it always had its foundation and precedents - chief among them, the tradition of the Broadway stage, the vaudeville "routine", the songs of Tin Pan Alley - but it's easy to overlook how much of the genre was still up in the air. The most obvious symptom of this was the constant fluctuation of the genre's popularity. There were years where it must have seemed that the musical was not a genre, but the very future of sound film (a conception that would come true in Bollywood); there were others where it seemed the genre was dead before it even pulled itself out of its crib. Both driving and driven by the constant flux was the main question of that first decade: how do we make a Musical narrative? The main concern of that early decade was discovering how exactly to integrate the musical number with the fiction story. If that was decided, there was still the matter of how to film the musical number and which of the many elements - singing, dancing, orchestration, choreography, artifice or sheer pageantry - to emphasize.

The Musical of the Thirties is dominated by three formally and artistically significant movements in the evolution and definition of the genre. First among these are the musicals of Ernst Lubitsch, whose lasting influence is the popularization of the book/fantasy musical, the integration of music and narrative that would prove the most lasting. It also cemented the romantic comedy as the narrative structure of the genre. Interestingly enough, Lubitsch would seem to grow quickly tired of the genre, purposely pruning numbers in favor of the comedy as the five-film cycle progressed; The Merry Widow is arguably a comedy-with-music as opposed to a musical-comedy. It then may be no surprise, unjustifiably perhaps, although no doubt owing to Lubitsch's later reputation, that these films are usually remembered more for being fine comedies than being fine musicals (and it is the non-Lubtisch "rip-off", Love Me Tonight, that coincidentally stands as the bastard pinnacle of the cycle).

It is the following two movements, rather, standing almost as polar opposites, that best evoke the still-unconquered spirit of the thirties' musical: the musicals of Busby Berkeley and those of Fred Astaire. Perhaps this requires further definition: while Berkeley worked on many musicals, the Busby Berkeley Musical namely describes the seven backstages musical inaugurated by 42nd Street and ending with the last and least of The Gold Digger... films (some people include an eighth, Fashions of 1934; I've yet to see it). While it's true he worked on many other films, here we have a narrative and thematic unity absent from the rest. His hand is more present in each of these films, with larger chunks of each film devoted to his work, and consequently, him devoting a larger chunk of his genius to each. Likewise, while its true Fred Astaire would continue on well past the thirties, to possibly even better films (The Band Wagon), there is no doubt that the Astaire-Roger films comprise a uniformity and purity of vision, and are guided by his voice, to an extent that he would rarely attain again (The Band Wagon is a great example of this change, where Astaire footwork operates alongside the strong hand of Freed-Edens, Michael Kidd and Vincente Minnelli).

The similarities between the two cycles underline the exploratory impulse in those early Musicals, in the problem of creating a musical narrative; the differences highlight the range of approaches that one could take in solving that dilemma. The Musical, by its very nature, is one of the most collaborative of all genres. Yet, these cycle are both definitely auteurist. But, they're not auteurist in the way we usually conceive of it, in the cult of the director. When people talk about the genius of these films, they're not speaking of the genius of Mervin LeRoy or Mark Sandrich, of Lloyd Bacon or George Stevens. They're speaking of the genius of Berkley and Astaire, of choreographer and actor, the hired help. At a time when the studio system was fortifying its rigid hierarchy of power, these two managed to parlay the demand for their talent into the inconceivable: complete creative control of all their musical numbers, away from the demands of the director or screenwriter or even producer. By 1934, Berkeley has his own unit at the studio, where he had weeks to film and perfect his pieces. Astaire never gets as elaborate, but with Hermes Pan and Hal Borne he developed a dream team he brought with him from film to film. Berkeley, as such, was glad to work separately from the main productions, leading to the compartmentalized structure of his films, where the number often operates as a film-within-the-film (perhaps the montages of Slavko Vorkapić are the closest point of comparison; the lack of freedom also serve as a warning, as the "vorkapich"'s were often long elaborate sequences which were then edited down to seconds-long transitions). Astaire, on the other hand, took an express interest in the overall film, and by the time of Follow the Fleet, he has a definite hand in the narrative structure of the films.

Yet, the primary focus of their powers is on the musical number, and they use it towards the same goal: to create a truly cinematic musical, which makes use of all the means that the medium puts at one's disposal. Here is where their divergent personalities become clear. The Berkeley Musicals are the work of the choreographer as auteur, and as such, the energy of his numbers are expended always behind the camera. No performer is ever truly allowed preference over the ensemble, dance is displaced in favor of complex drill formations, and the primary means of expression is through inventive framing, elaborate camera movements and montage. The Astaire Musical is the performer as auteur, and as such, performance is everything, and individual personality is heightened in each number. His cinema is wide unadorned framing, simple camera movements and long unbroken shots. The pageantry and extra dancers are kept to a minimum (the exceptions are usually the low-points of the cycle). Gimmicks and high-concepts aren't absent, but the focus is still on the simplicity and elegance of the individual or partner dance. The numbers are filled with movement, but it's the movement within the frame, not of or between it. "Either the camera will dance, or I will." The lasting image of the Berkeley musical is the elaborate top shot, where a group of dancers are abstracted into a kaleidoscope; Astaire lasting image is simply one of an expertly executed tap or the ballroom dance. Berkeley is Ford, Astaire is Hawks.

Of course, this argument is more than a bit fallacious, positing them as rivals, when the truth is one that one cycle followed the other. You can almost divide the decade in half between the two, Berkeley dominating the first half, the Astaire-Rogers films dominating the second. The overlap between popularity, mid-decade, highlights them struggling against the other's reputation: as the popularity of the Berkeley unit wanes, his numbers become more and more unadorned, the elaborate routines slowly become absent, and its interesting to note how visually plain his films get by the time he starts directing them. By the forties, he's part of the Freed stable. Astaire's early films, however, contend with the influence of the Berkeley musicals, usually in the way of the two elaborate closing numbers of the earlier films("The Continental", "The Piccolino"), both of which are incredibly anti-climactic. In general, both those films peak halfway through ("Night and Day", "Cheek to Cheek"), and they actually edit down "The Piccolino" after poor testing; learning their lessons, the next two films wisely close with a simple, elegant and moving partner dance.

However, the waning and rising popularity of these films may not be the result of simply changing tastes. There is another factor that separates the two cycles, and one that is strongly felt in Berkeley's decline: the Berkeley Musical is a Pre-Code Musical. The films are marked, and are fueled, by a healthy, guiltless sexuality. The saying goes that Astaire gave Rogers class, and Rogers gave him sex appeal... but they omit the fact that Berkely gave him Rogers. The only time sex is immoral is when it's repressed, hypocritical or predatory. "I'm young and healthy, and you've got charms; It would really be a sin not to have you in my arms." Rather, Berkeley treats sex not just as a fact of life, but one of its highest privileges. Sex is the birthright of every young and able-bodied person, male or female, in his cinema; the only crime is to abstain or deny it, because "in a year or two, maybe we will be too old." The main element of the Berkeley number is the healthy female body, paraded and displayed at the height of its beauty and allure. The abstraction of the human body, so crucial to Berkeley's choreography and mise-en-scene, reaching its climax in the kaleidescope, comes not in the negation of the human form, but in its complete fetishization. In fact, no one, save maybe Sternberg, made more fetishistic films than Berkeley. The "parade of faces" in his films, the string of close-ups of gorgeous female faces that often appear, are as sexually-charged and arousing as when his camera journey through a tunnel of female legs, and there is a distinct orifice-like qualities to his kaleidoscopes which seems to have been ignored by psychoanalytical film critics. Astaire's cinema isn't sexless or repressed - the early pre-code films are more pronounced with their sensuality, such as the end of "Night and Day" when Ginger Rogers takes a cigarette like a spent of lover - but quickly, and by necessity, they put sex subservient to fairy-tale romance. Sex is there, but its sublimated in passionate dances which punctuate the chaste, idyllic romances. It is not surprising that the films always end with marriage, or the promise thereof, preceding anything illicit. In Berkeley, marriage is there, but it's not the only desirable outcome of romance, nor is it a barrier from sex.

There is another major factor which both link and seperate the musicals of Berkeley and Astaire: class. Both cycles are exploration and satires on class. The difference is where each chooses to mount their exploration. The Astaire-Roger films belong to the "upper-classes", they take place in world of ritzy nightclubs, swank hotels and expensive vacations. Astaire's uniform is his famed combination of top hat, cane and tails. The major appeal for a Depression audience is undoubtedly the position of privilege it allowed, into a world of wealth and glamor which only existed in their dreams and in films. Berkeley, on the other hand, made "working-class" musicals: his settings were urban tenement buildings, often with two or three people to a room; less-than-four-star hotels in which the bellboy exchange knowing winks about what happened behind closed doors; and chief of all, sweat-soaked rehearsal spaces. If there's a uniform to his films, it's the t-shirts, tights and shorts his dancers wear as they are pushed to exhaustion. Both films are certainly escapist, there's no doubting it, but the act of escaping is part of the Berkeley musicals: we start out with working people struggling to get-by (albeit, an often sanitized vision of that struggle), and we watch them as they pull themselves up to success, climaxing in the eye-popping fantasies of the musical numbers that close the films. With Astaire, the struggle of working-people is erased before the first reel starts, the fantasy is complete.

Here we get to the point where the Berkeley films thematically pull away from the Astaire films: these musicals don't ignore the Great Depression. Rather, they create a fantasy where we watch working folk overcome it. There's been much said about the "collectivist" spirit of these films, in their ensemble casts, and in their choreography, in which the group bands together for a higher purpose. But it is also true that each films begins with a "crisis", one which mimics the Depression itself. This is most explicit in 42nd Street, where Warner Baxter's Julian Marsh, a veritable Broadway genius, is forced to fight his way back top after bad investments wipe out his fortune. It is apparent in Gold Diggers of 1933, where the sure-hit is suddenly wiped out by the police and bankruptcy, and the group struggles to mount a new show that will appeal to a Depression-era audience. Footlight Parade cleverly substitutes the Depression for a smaller crisis that happened shortly before: the sudden rise of Talkies. The crisis nonetheless functions the same: at the turn of the decade, the crisis wipes out a way of life for working folks, and James Cagney is forced to use his ingenuity to adapt and rebuild his business. As the cycle (and decade) goes on, it begins to ignore the "crisis", and the films suffer as a result. However, it's not entirely absent. Dames is about a man with a sure-fire success, who nonetheless finds himself denied the capital by the people who control the money; in a rare leap into the "upper-class", we find Hugh Herbert's millionaire, comically sheltered away from even the middle-classes. Gold Diggers of 1935 revolves around a group of working people (hotel employees) trying to get by under unjust labor conditions (no wages, managers who steal tips); it's unfortunate it makes so little of this scenario.

If we accept these films containing a distinct approach to sex and class, we also must admit it shares a distinct approach at the point where these two elements meet: sexual politics are always of a concern to these films. Is it any mistake that the entire cycle begins with a scene of sexual compromise and exploitation? If these films are preoccupied with working people, and fixated on the female form, the films provide a special privilege to working girls. They dominate these films, and even the most lasting of his male stock players, Dick Powell, never gets as meaty or memorable a role as the his revolving door of comediennes. If the male principals are often thoroughly unscrupulous (the Guy Kibbee roles) or prodigiously talented (Baxter, Cagney, Powell), it is his women who have to bear the task of struggling to make ends-meet. Berkeley doesn't ignore the way that for a women, working hard is never enough; she's always forced to trade on her sexuality in one form or another. But unlike other prurient films at the time, you rarely sense Berkeley judging these women for it; often, you sense sympathy.. Gold digger may be an offensive term, but in these films, they are the heroines (exception: the conniving Claire Dodd, but that's as much for her airs and hypocrisy. Also, Ruby Keeler, who, despite one scene where she fights off a drunk, always remains "America's Sweetheart".) Even the audition scenes, often conducted by favorable characters, are filled with scenes of women being inspected for their legs and figures; talent, unfortunately, is not enough here. What he does in these films, albeit in small doses, reminds me very much of what Dorothy Arzner does in Working Girls, showing the way the personal and professional are never separate for modern women, and for them, it is always necessary to navigate work, love, sex and class within the same arena.

For the sake of these write-ups, and with the hope that I can sway a few votes before the deadline, I will focus on the first five films of the cycle: 42nd Street, The Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, Dames, The Gold Diggers of 1935. I may revisit the later films eventually along with a few non-cycle Berkeley films, but it is my memory that they're rather slight (even the last two of these films are pushing it). Before, I'd like to give a mention to the early musicals that fall out of these three cycles: Lewis Milestone's Hallelujah, I'm a Bum, a social-realist fairty tale which looks backwards at Threepenny Opera and forwards towards Pennies from Heaven. King Vidor's Hallelujah, the folkiest of folk musicals, which points the way towards an uncharted direction for the genre which would have been more Harry Smith than George Gershwin. The early onslaught of musical extravaganzas were often unbearable, but they often have their charms, such as the exquisite camp in the last few reels of DeMille's Madam Satan. Show Boat, of course, the definitive version of the stage hit. You and Me, much like Applause, isn't enough a musical to qualify, but it's worth a look for the Kurt Weill contribution. I wish I could have delved into the German operetta's more, but as for foreign musicals, both Threepenny Opera and La Dolorosa would make my hypothetical list. As always, I'd love more recommendations.


42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)

The first of the backstage musicals, it is also the least of the first three. While made right after each other, it is amazing just how much more inventive and comfortable the numbers in the next two films start getting. Of course, this doesn't extend only to the musical numbers: the bulk of the narrative is also a bit more slight than what was to come. I guess the main problem is that Bacon isn't able to pull together the various strands of the ensemble together as well as the later films do. Here, we have essentially three stories, 1) Bebe Daniels trying to become a big star, while contending with a lecherous manager (Guy Kibbee) and her love for her former partner (George Brent) 2) A dying Warner Baxter trying to put his finances back in order by putting on the show of his career 3) And of course, the subplot where Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler try to make it both professionally and personally. While the various strands cross over at points - Baxter trying to contend with Kibbee's outragous demands, Daniels jealousy over a potential romance between Brent and Keeler, Keeler ultimately being forced to save Baxter's show - I don't feel that they come together as well as they do in other films. The Daniels/Brent storyline is a snoozefest, undone by two uncharasmatic performances unfortunately doing exactly what the roles called for (it is interesting to note the way's it anticipates Marcel Carné's Jenny, especially in Brent's reluctance to be a gigolo and that attack by gangsters). The Keeler/Powell storyline is exactly what you'd expect, and as usual, it rises or falls based on what else is supporting it. Berkeley's "gold diggers" make an appearance in the form of Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel, but they're relegated to the sidelines; the film livens up when they're around, which isn't nearly enough. Baxter's storyling has glimpses of good things, including the most effective moment of the film: everyone remembers his speech to Keeler, but the best "dramatic" scene of the film is the prologue, Baxter standing outside as people leave, collapsing in utter exhaustion, barely able to enjoy his triumph. It's surprisingly effective considering it's rather unearned: after the opening, the film leaves behind his storyline outside of his directing of rehearsals. Knowing these films, there are probably cut scenes lying around somewhere, but the film would have been well-served maintaining the focus on him. With his tyrannical personality and desperate perfectionism, he's a harbinger of things to come: John Barrymore's maniacal ham in Twentieth Century, as well as Anton Walbrook's ruthless impresario in The Red Shoes.

Of course, the musical numbers are the meat-and-potatoes here, and the movie solidifies the formula that would carry the entire cycle. For starters, the back-heavy structure is already in effect, with Berkeley waiting until the very end to hit us with three back-to-back musical numbers. This, of course, is probably in response to to the problem of directorial authority - let Lloyd Bacon have his film, and then Berkeley can have his - but it creates a definite sense of catharsis after the backstage shenanigans, and Berkeley would (largely) follow the model to the end. It also sets up the archetype for all the musical numbers, namely thery're always divided into three distinct types 1) A number of romantic courtship, usually between Keeler and Powell (although not here). It's innocent and naive on the surface, but usually gently winking at the healthy sexuality that mark these films. 2) A number of pure abstraction, usually an excuse for Berkeley to trot his usual experiments in drill formations, human kaleidoscopes and bravura technique. 3) Close with something lurid, powerful and (especially after the Code) strange.

There's a very interesting progression at play in this first film. The search for the cinematic musical is plain here. Each number escalates further than the last, it "folds-out" more and more outside the realm of the stage and further into the realm of the cinematic. It's almost as if Berkeley is making a step-by-step lesson on how to film a movie musical. There are actually four numbers: exactly half-way through the film, we're treated with Bebe Daniels performing "You're Getting to Be a Habit to Me". It's interesting that this happens during rehearsals, since that's exactly how Bacon treats it (I'm assuming Berkeley wasn't needed for this). It's thrown out half-shod: you could be cynical and think it's mainly there to remind the audience that this is a musical, or as a contractual obligation to the wooden Bebe Daniels. I'd like to think its Bacon and Berkeley taking the piss out of the "default" way of filming a musical number at that point. The entire number is filmed from the point of an audience looking up at the stage. Camera movement is limited to moving left and right to follow Daniels and the dancers (who aren't even dressed), panning in and out and the occasional edit. The whole thing is completely artless and unadorned. There's not even a set. And, as if the number isn't enough to hold our attention, Bacon cuts way before its even over: to dancers rehearsing for the "real" numbers, appropriately.

Then those numbers come: when Ruby Keeler is thrown onto the stage, and she and Clarence Nordstrom are seen off, the film is at the vantage point of the earlier number. Then Baxter yells to "hit the lights", and the camera pans back. It's a simple enough movement, but compared to the creakiness of the earlier number, it makes a huge difference. Suddenly, the train opens, and while the camera pulls back to reveal the orchestra, we know that we're now in movie-land. It's interesting to note that this first number largely honors the properties of the proscenium stage; it never crosses the line. What separates it from the earlier number is the elaborate nature of the set, and the energy that Berkeley extends into filming the number, the camera movement and editing taking a larger role in capturing the rhythm of the piece. There's no reason you couldn't recreate this number on stage. However, something like the "parade of faces", as the camera pans and cuts between the girls in various compartments, or even the pan on Keeler's arm at the very end, wouldn't have the same effect without the emphasis of the camera. Now, having filmed a stage number, Berkeley really starts cutting loose.

"Young and Healthy" again starts off on stage, the orchestra in view, Dick Powell running out from the wings. Then the camera cranes-in, until all that's left is the white of Powell's suit and the black behind him. He runs back into the darkness and the camera follows him. The most unlikely thing is there: the gorgeous Toby Wing, perhaps Hollywood's most famous extra, sitting on a bench. Powell sings to her. Suddenly, they're pulled towards the black; is the bench sinking? The ground rising? We cut to the first overhead shot. Suddenly the ground moves. Cut. Heads emerge from the black. They're surround by male dancers. They disappear into the black. Cut. Suddenly, Wing is pulled away, and a rotating parade of beauties takes her place. The white against black here isn't just great visuals, it's the foundation of the number, in which anything can emerge from the background. Powell and Wing kiss. They break. Suddenly a line of women is marching towards us. We pull back, there's more lines, and they're arranging themselves as they whirl around. Once again, there's no reason this number couldn't be filmed on stage. On imagines Berkeley must have done many like it before. But it would lose so much without the camera, the angles it allows, the immersion into the black it creates, the tightness of the editing. The famous kaleidoscope wouldn't ever be seen if on stage, and to prove it, Berkeley occasionally breaks the illusion. He cuts away to a shot from the audience, orchestra in view, and we suddenly realize how much we're robbed from the view, how much the camera liberates us. For a coup de grâce, he journeys through the spread-eagled legs of his chorus line into the beaming faces of his stars... as seductive an argument for the power of cinema as you'll ever get.

Retracing steps. Ruby Keeler emerges from behind a black curtain, not unlike Powell. She sings. The curtains pull back, but the set is a flat two-dimensional background of buildings. We're still in the world of the stage. Keeler sings some more. She taps as the cameras move to her feet. There's one tap, harder than the rest, and suddenly a cut. We're displaced. The background has retreated; the 2-d picture is there, but it's further back, and separating us is now a row of "real" buildings and even a subway station. The ground moves, and we realize that Keeler isn't on a stage at all, but the roof of a taxi. She climbs down and pulls away as people emerge from the station and the stage comes alive. We cut away to more buildings, these filled with people, not just on the bottom floor, but up top too. We cut and pan some more, suddenly cars emerge from a toll station, even a horse. With each cut, each pan, Berkeley obliterates the stage. He conducts and achieves things that could never be done under the proscenium. The crowd are no longer background dancers; they transform into real people on the streets, with their own stories, like the Indian statue that comes to life. One story emerges from the rest, and a woman is murdered. What was fantasy now takes us to the edge of ugly reality.

Then, as quickly as it began, it retreats. The crowd turns back to uniform dancers. The buildings float away. The two-dimensional background reappears. Like a sorcerer reversing his spell, Berkeley has everything he animated return to the artifice from whence it came. Not only does the cardboard set reappear, but the human dancers turn into cardboard. Suddenly we pan to Powell and Keeler, buried within the set, and they end the illusion for good. Powell whispers something nothing into her ear, she accepts, and the Abestos curtain is pulled down and were returned to the world of the stage. It's a smashing success. Chief of all for Busby Berkeley. He doesn't slump down in exhaustion like Julian Marsh, however. He's come out a star. This is only the beginning. What Berkeley begins here will only be perfected in the films to come. But only because the mission statement laid out here. He has freed the genre from 42nd St., and in doing so, created a true cinematic musical.

Next up: The Gold Diggers of 1933 and Footlight Parade.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#463 Post by domino harvey » Sun Dec 18, 2011 4:34 pm

Reminder that lists are due by end of business tomorrow. Only five lists in yet with only 51 qualifying films thus far. Your vote counts, &c

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#464 Post by swo17 » Sun Dec 18, 2011 6:19 pm

Well in that case, I'll see what I can come up with.

EDIT: Sorry, I can only come up with about 30 titles that I'm comfortable including in a list. Though I'm sure this will change after going through the '50s project.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#465 Post by knives » Sun Dec 18, 2011 8:08 pm

domino harvey wrote:Reminder that lists are due by end of business tomorrow. Only five lists in yet with only 51 qualifying films thus far. Your vote counts, &c
Ouch, that stings something awful. Hopefully people are just forgetful of deadlines.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#466 Post by knives » Sun Dec 18, 2011 8:25 pm

You mean the Minnelli Yolanda, correct? That's unfortunately the only one of his musicals I didn't have the opportunity to get to. I'll certainly try to get to it before the end of the '40s list though.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#467 Post by zedz » Sun Dec 18, 2011 8:45 pm

Further to Cold Bishop's Berkeley post, I found room near the bottom of my list for the last gasp of pure Berkeleyana, The Gang's All Here. Much of it is pretty rote, a historically interesting amalgamation of the two musical forms he'd done the most with: the professional backstage musical and the amateur let's-put-the-show-on-right-here musical of the Rooney / Garland films. But there are some great over-the-top musical numbers (Carmen Miranda was made for a Berkeley number), with the concluding one a kind of greatest hits of Berkeley's career - in Technicolour, with the practical effects augmented by optical ones. It's not exactly a dramatically satisfying ending to the film, but it's nevertheless a tour-de-force and makes you wish that he'd had the chance to do his thing in colour more often.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#468 Post by Gropius » Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:46 pm

Cold Bishop wrote:(some people include an eighth, Fashions of 1934; I've yet to see it).
This one (dir. Dieterle) is actually pretty good as a film, with William Powell and Bette Davis in a shady fashion partnership, but as I recall there's only one big musical number (involving ostrich feathers), so it's only peripherally a musical.

I won't be contributing a list (don't really have the appetite for single-genre orgies), but I did have the opportunity to see Kiss Me Kate in 3D the other night, which was suitably excellent. I think Howard Keel holds his own against other musical leading men, actually, particularly when he's in the Petruchio get-up: less of a dancer than Gene Kelly, but a better singer. The 3D effects were better than anything I've seen from the 2000s 3D revival (although never bothered with Avatar).

Also, talking of Sidney films, The Harvey Girls is worth seeing for, among other things, the young Angela Lansbury's turn as a bad girl getting increasingly fed up with the squeaky clean Garland.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#469 Post by Cold Bishop » Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:33 am

The Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervin LeRoy, 1933)

Hand down, no-question, the best of all the Busby Berkeley musicals. This film is simply a jewel of 1930s cinema, the buzz of 42nd Street parlayed into a command and daring that he would never achieve again. The difference from the earlier film is felt right away. The credits start not unlike that one, the floating-head role-call of each of the film's stars. But when the credits end, we don't fade out into the narrative. A coin is pulled back, another in its place. It clearly reads "1933", and it's no mistake: this is a film about the times. It's pulled back, and he we have the ever-lovely Ginger Rogers staring back at us, singing "We're In the Money", perhaps the most lasting song of all the cycle. We work down the most effective "parade of faces" of them all, each gorgeous face more luminous than the last, back to Rogers. Suddenly, the camera pulls back, and we're thrown into a world of excess, extravagance and kitsch. Coins, coins, everywhere coins! Stuck to the women's dresses, towering over the set, twirling in their arms as if it's raining money! This may be camp if it wasn't so tongue-in-cheek and knowing. It's a parody of American economic might and prosperity, and a cruel one at that. Rogers declares proudly that she never sees a headline about breadlines, and that she can stare her landlord in the eye; little comfort for the people of the audience. Rogers' pig-latin isn't a silly and bizarre piece fun nonsense. Well, it is... but it has its purpose. What better to sum up the complete brazen and irresponsible frivolity of the Jazz Age than devoting an entire section of the song to nonsense, a complete and utter luxury with no utility whatsoever? But the Jazz Age is over, and Old Man Depression has the last laugh. The police bust in, the set is pulled down, the money vanishes. The entire number goes bust like Black Tuesday. The image of cops ransacking the set and shutting down production bring up a flurry of images: financial collapse, bank runs, shuttered business, raids on Hoover camps... and Bonus Army camps. It's the Depression, dearie, and don't you forget it!

That the film actually starts with a musical number is an innovation that can't be overlooked. This film is almost the best Berkeley by default, simply based off its structure. Instead of back-ending the musical numbers, he wisely divides them up and dispenses with them throughout the film. We open with a number, we have another halfway through, then we close with one... and when we think it's over, he hits us with a fourth, and our jaw turns to sea glass. Not only does this provide instant gratification for the musical numbers, it makes the dramatic story more palatable. But the film simply isn't the best because it's structured better; the numbers, while not quite integrated, play against the dramatic narrative and inform it. We cut from the collapse of the first number, and find our three leading ladies trying to scrape by in a room whose rent is well past due. It's all exchanged with clever wisecracks, but there's a palpable sense of desperation that mark these early scenes, and which make them quite effective: the sleeping till noon, the stealing of milk, the sharing of a single dress (not even their own). Joan Blondell, especially, is the ace in the hole to this film, and perfectly sums up its various facets. Her figure and looks are completely blonde bombshell, yet she'll open her mouth and she'll come as hard-boiled as the worst of them. Her big shining eyes can beam like an overexcited child, transform into a come-hither glance that'll stop you in your tracks, then they'll suddenly turn downcast and express a world-weariness well beyond her years. No surprise that she's chosen as the Spirit of the Depression, she's certainly the spirit of these films, and they lose a lot when motherhood calls her away.

If "We're in the Money" leads into the first half of the film, with its focus on the Depression, financial problems and working girls, it nonetheless has to turn into the sex farce that its namesake promises. Just like the first act of the dramatic narrative bounces off the first number, so does the second number announce a shift in the story. "Petting in the Park" operates almost as a prequel to "Shuffle Off to Buffalo," tracing how the lovebirds first met. It starts off on stage, then zooms in on a box of animal crackers, and in that tiny detail, comes to life. I guess the best thing I can say about the number is commend the way Berkeley's surrealistic imagination is given full-reign. The progression of the number is built entirely on the sort of stream-of-conscience twist and turns that I'd expect from the more imaginative cartoons of the era. Suddenly, roller skates. Now, a snow storm. Now, rain. Here, the frightful Billy Barty is the agent of Berkeley's dream-logic as an id-ridden, mischievous infant. This culminates in the scene in which we see the women undress behind the screen curtains, an iconic image on Broadway, and one which Berkeley appropriates for his own aim later in the film. Then, in response to the "date-rapey" overtones of the song, all the women are suddenly outfitted in metal chastity vests, thwarting the men's advances. But, Billy Barty gets the last laugh: he gives Dick Powell a can-opener in the sort of gag I'd expect from a pre-code cartoon.

For a moment, it seems we've put the Depression behind us, and we're back into escapist mode. Here, the sex farce begins. You can hardly blame them; this is, after all, a remake of a 1929 film/1919 play. Berkely and LeRoy, however, wisely condense this section entirely in the second half. They also don't ignore the show-business story, weaving both Powell and Keeler's romance and the need to put on a show into all the duplicity and mistaken identities. And unlike that last film, here, the working, wise-cracking women are put front and center. The class and sexual politics of these films are given their workout here, as upper-class morality meets working-class streetsmarts, all livened up by some great pre-code frankness (that shot of Blondell in her hotel room... wow!) . It's all light stuff, mind you, but it's pulled it off with an ease that the later films would struggle with, and it always remains great fun.

But then we're off again, and to "The Shadow Waltz." It's interesting to note that after all the pre-code shenanigans, Berkeley retreats into his classiest number. For a romantic song in a Berkeley film, it's chaste and tastefully done. But this has a different effect: robbed of sex appeal, Berkeley is able to give full workout to his visual experiments. Speaking of "surrealistic imagination", the round, whirling dresses and contorted swirling staircases almost inarguably bring to mind a Salvidor Dali landscape. At other points, when the cases interlock, one's reminded of Escher. Taking the basic conceit of "Young and Healthy" - white bodies against stark blackness - he pushes it even further. If that film was all about the abstraction of bodies into interlocking and contracting limbs, this does it one better and abstracts them into simply light and shadow. The "neon" violins are a brilliant visual, at times giving the sensation of living animation. The play of the dresses in the kaleidoscope formations give the sensation of contracting pedals in a flower (pointing towards Dames). There's also the play against glass surfaces and reflections, in which our sense of physical reality is distorted until even a concrete image dissolves into water (pointing towards Footlight Parade). This isn't Berkeley fighting against the staid bad habits of film choreography, but fighting against physical representation itself. If Oskar Fischinger directed a musical, it would look something like this.

Then we go backstage, and the sex farce neatly wraps up: Keeler and Powell marry, Kibbee and MacMahon, Blondell and William marry. The romantic coupling become complete, we get our three musical numbers, we get a full night of entertainment. In any other Berkeley, this would be enough to send us home, call it a wrap, with a nice pink ribbon on top. But this isn't just any Berkeley musical. Just when we think it's all over, it comes roaring out the gate with a final number the launches it into the stratosphere.

"Remember My Forgotten Man" is powerful, gutsy, ferocious. It's not only the ballsiest thing in all the Berkeley musicals, but among the ballsiest in all of 1930s Hollywood. At a time when the maxim was escapism and forgetting your worries, here's a number that dives headfirst into the stink. At a time when studio we're getting reluctant to step their toes into politics (although it only gets worse from here), this tackles it head on, with the wounds of the Bonus Army March still fresh. One must credit the optimism that FDR must have inspired, none the least in the Warner brothers themselves, to have allowed this to go on. As it stands, it's a brilliant slice of social-consciousness, agit-prop and white-knuckle filmmaking. Sure, Joan Blondell ain't much of a singer (cue Marian Anderson), but she doesn't need to be; those big blue eyes says as much as a hundred Berkeley kaleidoscopes . The moment when she stops the cop from beating the veteran still gives goosebumps nearly a century on from WWI. This is the ultimate rebuttal to the opening number and all the frivolous escapism it represented. The opening blindly celebrates prosperity and is proud of its ignorance to breadlines and headlines. Here, we watch as the big parades retreats into a nightmare of battlefield carnage, soup kitchens and abandonment. The black silhouettes reappear, but they don't contain nudie cuties this time, but the phantoms of marching soldiers. The surviving, plain-clothed veterans march underneath, towards the camera. The women, so crucial to the Berkeley musical and such a source of delight, are now at the sidelines greeting the men... or imploring them. They raise their arms, like saluting soldiers, and it's true that they are victims of this too: the "parade of faces" is inverted into something troubling, as we pass from window to window, catching a glimpse of a face stricken with grief and anxiety for their "forgotten man". The abused veterans and downtrodden women finally come together around Joan Blondell, the Spirit of the Depression, wailing, invoking us to "bring him back again". Like the FDR campaign, Berkeley is conflating the plight of the WWI veteran with the plight of the country under the Depression. The number is a violent, passionate call to arms, to make this new deal happen, to turn back the dark tide overcoming the nation, and to regain a bit of the former glory we've forgotten. Eight decades later, we've still yet to remember the forgotten man.

It is both surprising and appropriate that there is no prologue here. We're not allowed to come gently down before we're thrown out of the theater. The End credits come quick and sudden, and the power of the final number remains with us. And with that powerful note, Berkeley not just created his masterpiece, but one of the greatest American films ever made.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#470 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 19, 2011 6:19 pm

Extending the deadline to tomorrow 5PM EST. Several prominent posters in this thread haven't submitted yet and I won't be able to get to tabulating til after work tomorrow anyways, so it's not much of a delay really.

Horror List Thread will be up sometime tonite, though, for the impatient

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#471 Post by Dr Amicus » Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:26 pm

Well, I've just submitted my list and I'm reasonably happy with it. There were still a few gaping holes in my viewing, but I suspect everyone feels that way (let's face it, the thought that the next film might just be a great one is a powerful driver).

And submitting it, I realised I hadn't gotten round to recommending a couple of quirky favourites - I'd intended to rewatch before the deadline (but never did) in the vague hope of having something intelligent to say. Anyway, for the record, both Shock Treatment (Sharman) and Billy The Kid and the Green Baize Vampire (Clarke) are much disliked, but I've always had a soft spot for them. The former is the Rocky Horror sequel - songs aren't as good but it's more coherent, sort of, and unlike its predecessor (which also made my list) doesn't run out of steam by the end. The number of times I've watched it with friends who want to see Rocky Horror 2 - and then respond with a "WTF?" - makes this probably the most watched film on my list. Billy The Kid is a (the only?) Snooker musical complete with a vampire opponent. That it's not typical Clarke fare possibly explains at least part of its weak reputation - but it certainly dates from a period when Channel 4 were behind some quirky and adventurous filmmaking.

Oh, and Mrs. Amicus wants it known that she's in a huff because I didn't include Chicago. Is this grounds for divorce?

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#472 Post by knives » Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:32 pm

You for her? Maybe. Billy the Kid sounds phenomenal though and I wish you did have the time to recommend it sooner. Just goes to show there will always be something to look forward to.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#473 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 19, 2011 11:51 pm

Update on List Project Crisis '11: Nine lists in, 85 films eligible. Number one film is painfully obvious, but, in the words of Jeremy Goodwin, the goal in naming the best isn't to be cunning, is it?

If you're waffling, get a list in by 5PM EST Tuesday. Seacrest out.

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#474 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue Dec 20, 2011 6:28 am

Footlight Parade (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)

It is interesting to see how in the ensuing decade since these films' reached their popularity, the fairy-tale musical has become the primary mode of the genre. Not only that, but the Backstage Musical has fallen largely to disrepute. It's a cheat, a way to tack on musical numbers without thinking of the whole narrative, revues masking themselves as musical-comedies. Likewise, it's a way to make a musical without committing to the genre, as the "realism" of Fame or the sitcom/soap-opera conventions of Glee show. In practice, this may happen more often than not, but in theory, I think it has all the material to make a truly interesting film. Let's think of the Noveau Roman for a second... no, really. The world of Robbe-Grillet and Duras may be a far cry from Berkeley or Rooney-Garland, but at least the potential for overlap is there in the characteristics of the Backstage Musical. For, among the many ideas and innovations of the new novel was the idea of making works that were about their own creation, eschewing psychology and personalization so as to make self-contained, sometimes hermetic works which seemed to generate themselves from between covers. Steven G. Kellman calls them "self-begetting novels". The Backstage Musical, likewise, is one of the most interesting of all cinematic sub-genres as they're precisely and chiefly about movie-making: Not just movie-making in general, but they're about there own creation: the self-begetting movie. We watch the film unfold as the various characters come together and create the very narrative that follows. The characters are creative people straining to use their talent and build a film, like behind the camera. The drama of the narrative is the drama of putting together a film. The final climactic denouement comes in the joy of having accomplished pure cinema.

All this in theory, mind you. I don't know of any Backstage Musical that has taken the implications of the sub-genre to its logical conclusion. Some other films, of course, have done similar things with stories about the theater or filmmaking itself: an almost-musical like The Red Shoes is clearly about cinema. But even then, that film eschews the physical (rehearsal, performance, set-building, writing... the actual processes of creation) for the philosophical (it's contemplation about the passion of creation). Berkeley doesn't get any closer himself, but at it's best moments, his backstage musicals are intoxicated with the joy of creating, and palpable to the sweat and tear that is expended in doing so. Footlight Parade isn't the best of the Backstage Musicals, but it is the best Backstage Musical. Here, the actual act of creation is brought front and center. While good actors have had the reign of impresario in the cycle (Warner Baxter, Adolphe Menjou), none were as charismatic and energetic as James Cagney. If those outsized, tyrannical personalities exist a class above the working folk in the chorus line, here for once the impresario is as blue-collar as the rabble he's overseeing. Appropriately, this is one film where it's no doubt who the true star is.

Yet, for all the things it does right, there is something it does wrong: Berkeley and Bacon choose to make a film about film-making, about the act of mounting a film musical, but then refuse to commit to it. It even starts at the birth of the movie-musical, that is, the death of silent film. But Cagney isn't a filmmaker, he isn't making movies: he's making "prologues". The first ten minutes of the film are the most awkward, as it twists itself in logic to make it's premise work. In hindsight, it seems rather silly. While I don't doubt Broadway was hit by the rise of talking film (shoestring productions, particularly), it was never wiped out, and it still remained a major and viable artistic force throughout the Thirties. Cagney's panic is really that of a filmmaker faced with a changing medium. Likewise, if Berkeley's numbers often stretch the incredulity of the Broadway shows they were suppose to take place on, the very nature of these "prologues" are complete fantasy. Prologues existed but never in this capacity. What Cagney really does throughout the film is clearly design and choreograph film numbers. The insular offices and rehearsal spaces don't look like the stage rehearsals in his other films - there's no stage in sight until a number begins - but look like movie studios; even the exterior shots, supposedly New York, look suspiciously like Burbank. Cagney's entire artistic process isn't that of finely-tuned stage show; he throws off ideas at a rapid pace, conceiving and developing numbers around the simplest (or wildest) of gimmicks. This isn't a stage impresario, but the head of a studio unit. He even deals with the Production Code in the form of Hugh Herbert's censor, a problem that belonged mainly to the screen and not the stage. The film even expands the majority of its run-time to the act of creation, as Cagney turns his small ideas into big, lavish spectacles. There's sub-plots, such as the embezzling or Dick Powell's gigolo, but they're all woven into the backstage work. Only the Clair Dodd love-triangle pulls us away from the rehearsal space and into Blondell's apartment; there's nothing wrong with this storyline, but the film would be better served had in not strayed. I don't want to damn the film too much; it's a fine comedy, and the fact that Berkeley was never that concerned with integration probably prevented it from every coming together. But, if Bacon and Berkeley could have made it truly about a film unit, if they could have taken its "self-begetting" scenario to its conclusion, it may have been the best film of the bunch, instead of the runner-up.

Now, on to the prologues. The film follows the same back-end structure as 42nd Street. Much like that film, it drops a mini-number mid-way through. This one at least looks like a Berkeley creation, but like that earlier number, it's better that they get it out of the way early. It's only crime isn't in anticipating a certain Andrew Lloyd Weber travesty. It's half-baked and halfheartedly presented. I'm almost willing to bet that Berkeley conceived and mounted the number, only to realize it wasn't working during filming; what we're left with in the film feel like the leftover scraps salvaged together. Sure, Ruby Keeler and the dancers are cute in their outfits, and Billy Barty does his usual bit of indecency, but the whole thing lacks punch. When Frank McHugh yells "that's enough!", I'm inclined to agree. I commend Cagney's taste by later cutting the number. In fact, Berkeley may have felt the same way: he would again attempt another cat number in Dames, this time in a much more risqué fashion, with Joan Blondell in the Ruby Keeler role. It's infamous punchline ("Come up and see my pussy sometime") led it to be sacrificed to the rising tide of censorship.

Now, the number of romantic courtship, and this may be the best of them all. How appropriate that "The Honeymoon Hotel" is the culmination of a style, since the whole number is about... ahem... consummation. People remember Berkeley for his power of abstraction, but this goes as strongly in the opposite direction. If "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" was a riff on a very particular scenario, and if "Pettin' in the Park" indulged itself in feveristic flights of fancy, "Honeymoon Hotel" takes the material of those two pieces, and uses it to tell a coherent and complete story. In fact, dancing and choreography, at least in the way we usually conceive of it, is largely absent in a number that is completely narrative. We follow the young lovers from pre-marriage jitters to post-marriage cohabitation, and the number actually manages to effectively capture all the excitement, tenderness, playfulness, apprehension, and embarrassment that comes with it. It also works well as comedy; stuff like the "Telegram for Mr. Smith" gag, or Powell and Keeler hopping out of the elevator, or Powell meeting eyes with his neighbor in embarrassment... it's funny! Billy Barty is at his mischievous and creepy best, Berkeley does the cool trick with the key-cards turning into a picture (one of two distinct uses of animation in the film), and the number gets away with some pretty raunchy stuff. The fact they try to check in before they're married, or that it ends with them under the covers in the same bed, are a complete flaunting against the Code it mocks earlier. That the number ends with a pan into a baby picture isn't a concession to the Code and to the moral crusaders that we're quickly gaining ground after the failure of Prohibition. The baby-picture, in all it's chasteness, is actually a clever and clear visual metaphor for the very unchaste moment of consummation that happens right off the screen. With this one image, Berkeley makes clear that this risqué naughtiness is, in fact, inextricably linked to the "clean", "moral" living that they advocated for.

One question: doesn't "By the Waterfall" make the Esther Williams' musicals redundant? Oh sure, they have their charms, but that Berkeley was recruited to direct them is as wasteful as it is completely unsurprising: they find him literally treading water when he already mastered the form 15 or so years earlier. In fact, this may be Berkeley's ultimate play with human kaleidoscopes, drill formations and living geometry. His pieces often made use of the contrast between lily-white bodies against starkly black surfaces; here, the bodies become literally suspended on all sides, allowing patterns and animations he couldn't dream of in the earlier films. While the second number usually concern themselves with the complete abstraction of the physical realm, this number manages to pull it off while featuring the most ornate and detailed set design in all the musicals. These sets are literally among the masterpieces of 30s set design, and are breathtaking in their rococo opulence. My favorite shot: the reveal of the Art-deco swimming pool, surrounded by statues; suddenly, the lily-white statues spring forth, and dive into the water. In fact, there's an interesting progression at play here for a number concerned about "mother nature". The number starts off immersed in the natural world of the hidden oasis with it's many aqueducts. The swimmers completely dissolves themselves in the water, leading to the many different formations which at different points call to mind living ripples, water lilies and reeds, even a water snake. Then, at the end, they in fact fuse with the stone and marble set-design, when they turn into a living fountain. Second question: is there not a really strong Sapphic overtone to the whole piece? It starts off like an average Powell-Keeler piece. Powell is lulled to sleep, and Keeler finds herself inexplicably drawn by beckoning female voices. When she undresses, she takes special care to make sure Powell doesn't see catch her sneaking away, and she escapes into a women-only paradise. In fact, some of the shots in the water, with bodies interlocking sometimes layers on top of layers, have a slight hint of an orgy, and there's that one formation in which a swimmer paddles through a row of interlocking legs. There's even one shot, perhaps the most strikingly composed of the entire number, completely symmetrical, in which we see swimmers dive into the swimming pool, while in the foreground, two women sit, simply locking eyes. Maybe I'm just turning into a dirty old man, but I almost like to think of the piece as a distant sequel to "Honeymoon Hotel", where Keeler starts to get sexually bored in her union and indulges in her wildest fantasies while Powell is unaware.

Of course, Berkeley makes such interpretations too easy with his fetishistic gaze of the female form. It is then perhaps appropriate that the final number is one fetishistic master saluting another. With "Shanghai Lil", Busby Berkeley collides head-on with Josef von Sternberg, in this tribute/parody/imitation of the high stylist, and Shanghai Express, in particular. With it's shimmering surfaces and perverse undertones, I'd like to think the man would be proud. Granted, I still don't know whether the reveal of Ruby Keeler as Lil is either anticlimactic or a brilliant punchline, but, she sure ain't no Dietrich. If Blondell could sing or dance, she'd be a perfect fetish object for Berkeley's camera. As it is, though, it's still a cracker jack number. The last hurrah before the Production Code broke up the party, it also gives a full work out the freedoms of the time: prostitution, drug addiction, interracial sex, violence, left-wing politics... all things that Hays, Breen and McNicholas heavily frowned upon. I'm still not sure what to make of the numbers sudden shift into agit-prop, and I'm not sure it has much internal logic. But it is the ultimate reversal of the last film: that ended with a pessimistic number about abused veterans. Here, the soldiers are back in uniform, the future is optimistic under the spell of FDR and the NRA, and now the people are mobilizing, to fight the Depression, I assume. It must also be the ultimate wish fulfillment for Berkeley: in this film, not only does his surrogate manage to jump front and center in the show itself (the bait-and-switch on the stairs is one of the great movie moments). In the end, the whole Berkeley ethos comes full circle:Cagney ends up back in uniform, and Berkeley once again devises the military drill formations that would send him to Broadway in the first-place.

Next up: Dames and The Gold Diggers of 1935

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Re: The Musicals List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Proj

#475 Post by domino harvey » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:55 pm

THE MUSICALS LIST (GENRE PROJECT) TOP 100*

01 Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly 1952) 385
02 the Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli 1953) 308
03 Top Hat (Mark Sandrich 1935) 274
04 Meet Me in St Louis (Vincente Minnelli 1944) 271
05 Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian 1932) 265
06 On the Town (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly 1949) 258
07 Calamity Jane (David Butler 1953) 252
08 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon 1933) 244
09 Good News (Charles Walters 1947) 215
10 Les demoiselles de Rochefort (Jacques Demy 1967) 214

11 West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins 1961) 212
12 the Pirate (Vincente Minnelli 1948) 207
13 Lili (Charles Walters 1953) 205
14 Footlight Parade (Lloyd Bacon 1933) 195
15 My Sister Eileen (Richard Quine 1955) 191
16 the Harvey Girls (George Sidney 1946) 188
17 the Gay Divorcee (Mark Sandrich 1934) 160
18 Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy 1933) 155
19 Kiss Me Kate (George Sidney 1953) 149
20 Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen 1954) 145

21 the Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming 1939) 144
22 the Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy 1964) 143
23 Easter Parade (Charles Walters 1948) 137
24 Swing Time (George Stevens 1936) 134
25 the Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin 1956) 132
25 Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma 1974) 132
27 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks 1953) 129
28 Funny Face (Stanley Donen 1957) 123
28 It's Always Fair Weather (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly 1955) 123
30 Cabaret (Bob Fosse 1972) 122

31 Dames (Ray Enright 1934) 121
32 Annie Get Your Gun (George Sidney 1950) 116
33 Romance on the High Seas (Michael Curtiz 1948) 105
34 the Hole (Tsai Ming-liang 1998) 102
34 Shall We Dance (Mark Sandrich 1937) 102
36 Red Psalm (Miklós Jancsó 1972) 101
37 All That Jazz (Bob Fosse 1979) 97
38 Broadway Melody of 1936 (Roy Del Ruth 1935) 96
39 An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli 1951) 91
40 Nashville (Robert Altman 1975) 90

41 Artists and Models (Frank Tashlin 1955) 88
41 Daddy Long Legs (Jean Negulesco 1955) 88
43 Guys and Dolls (Joseph L Mankiewicz 1955) 85
44 Dumbo (Samuel Armstrong and Norman Ferguson 1941) 81
45 I Love Melvin (Don Weis 1953) 80
45 Take Me Out to the Ball Game (Busby Berkeley 1949) 80
47 Pennies From Heaven (Piers Haggard 1978) 78
48 A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester 1964) 76
49 Cabin in the Sky (Vincente Minnelli 1943) 75
49 the Wicker Man (Robin Hardy 1973) 75

51 Sweet Charity (Bob Fosse 1969) 74
52 Two Weeks With Love (Roy Rowland 1950) 73
53 Hallelujah I'm a Bum (Lewis Milestone 1933) 71
54 Summer Stock (Charles Walters 1950) 68
55 French Cancan (Jean Renoir 1954) 67
56 the Love Parade (Ernst Lubitsch 1929) 64
57 the Pajama Game (Stanley Donen and George Abbott) 63
57 the Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch 1931) 63
59 A Song is Born (Howard Hawks 1948) 62
59 Gold Diggers of 1935 (Busby Berkeley 1935) 62

61 Lil Abner (Melvin Frank 1959) 60
61 the Merry Widow (Ernst Lubitsch 1934) 60
61 Pyaasa (Guru Dutt 1957) 60
64 Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz 1942) 59
65 Pal Joey (George Sidney 1957) 58
66 South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Trey Parker 1999) 56
67 Stormy Weather (Andrew L Stone 1943) 55
68 Give a Girl a Break (Stanley Donen 1953) 54
68 Reefer Madness: the Movie Musical (Andy Fickman 2005) 54
70 Hit the Deck (Roy Rowland 1955) 53

71 Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen 1951) 52
72 Popeye (Robert Altman 1980) 51
73 the Boy Friend (Ken Russell 1971) 47
74 the Gang's All Here (Busby Berkeley 1943) 42
74 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (William Cottrell 1937) 42
76 Hallelujah! (King Vidor 1929) 39
76 Marry Poppins (Robert Stevenson 1964) 39
78 Tommy (Ken Russell 1975) 36
79 Yellow Submarine (George Dunning 1968) 35
80 Bye Bye Birdie (George Sidney 1963) 34

81 Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier 2000) 32
81 Follow the Fleet (Mark Sandrich 1936) 32
83 Cry-Baby (John Waters 1990) 31
83 It's Trad, Dad! (Richard Lester 1962) 31
85 For Me and My Gal (Busby Berkeley 1942) 27
86 Gigi (Vincente Minnelli 1958) 26
86 Om Shanti Om (Farah Khan 2007) 26
86 Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tim Burton 2007) 26
89 Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann 2001) 25
90 Show Boat (James Whale 1936) 23

91 Invitation to the Dance (Gene Kelly 1956) 21
92 Duck Soup (Leo McCarey 1933) 17
93 Everyone Says I Love You (Woody Allen 1996) 15
93 the Muppet Movie (James Frawley 1979) 15
95 Silk Stockings (Rouben Mamoulian 1957) 12
96 Applause (Rouben Mamoulian 1929) 9


(*Only 96 qualifying films out of ten ballots cast)



ORPHANS
A Damsel in Distress, A Mighty Wind, A Night at the Opera, À nous la liberté, A Star is Born (Cukor), A Woman is a Woman, Aar-Paar, Aladdin, Alexander's Ragtime Band, Alice In Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy, the American Astronaut, Anchors Aweigh, Andaz, At Long Last Love, Audition, Aventurera, Awaara, Baaz, Baazi, Der blaue Engel, Beauty and the Beast (Disney), Best Foot Forward, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, Blues in the Night, Bobby, Brigadoon, Broadway Melody of 1938, Broadway Melody of 1940, Can Can, Cannibal: the Musical, Carefree, Carmen (1983), Carmen Jones, Chandni, Chico and Rita, the Cloud Capped Star, Colma, the Commitments, Cool as Ice, the Cotton Club, the Court Jester, Cover Girl, Dance, Girl, Dance, Der Kongreß tanzt, Die Drei von der Tankstelle, Dil Se.., Distant Voices Still Lives, Dilwale Dulhanie, Jayenge, 8 Women, El amor brujo, Evita, the Fabulous Baker Boys, Fiddler on the Roof, Finian's Rainbow, the 5000 Fingers of Dr T, Flashdance, Follow That Bird, the Girl Most Likely, the Girl Next Door, the Glenn Miller Story, Godspell, Gold Diggers of 1937, Grease, the Great Waltz, Große Freiheit Nr. 7, Gypsy, Hairspray (Waters), Hedwig and the Angry Itch, Hello Dolly, Help!, Hellzapoppin, Holiday Inn, Hollywood or Bust!, Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht, In Good Old Summertime, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, It Happened in Brooklyn, Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai, Juke Box Rhythm, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Kabhi Kabhie, Kismet (1955), La Dolorosa, Lagaan, Le Million, Les Girls, Let's Make Love, Love Songs (2007), Lovely to Look At, Lucky Me, Madam Satan, Malu tianshi, Marat / Sade, Melo, Merry Andrew, Monte Carlo, the Moon Over the Alley, Mother India, Murder at the Vanities, New York New York, the Nightmare Before Christmas, No One Knows About Persian Cats, O Lucky Man!, Oh, Rosalinda!, On connaît la chanson, Once, One Hour With You, Paint Your Wagon, Pakeezah, Panama Hattie, Paris Blues, Pinocchio, Presenting Lily Mars, Princess Raccoon, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Queen of Hearts (2009), Red Garters, the Red Shoes, the Road to Morocco, Roberta, Rock-A-Bye Baby, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shall We Dansu?, Shock Treatment, Sholay, Show Boat (Sidney), Sleeping Beauty, Small Town Girl, the Sound of Music, State Fair (1945), Street Angel, Sunnyside Up, Tea For Two, That Midnight Kiss, Thousands Cheer, Three Little Words, Threepenny Opera, Tko pjeva zlo ne misli, Topsy-Turvy, True Stories, Two Tickets to Broadway, U-Carmen, Umrao Jaan, Up Down Fragile, Velvet Goldmine, Víctimas del pecado, the Wayward Cloud, Whitty, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wonderbar, Words and Music, Yaadon ki Baaraat, Ye mei gui zhi lian, Yolanda and the Thief, You Were Never Lovelier, You'll Find Out (Pshew!)

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