The Musicals List REDUX

[tarpilot]

IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME Robert Z. Leonard, 1949
I suppose it would be unfair to expect something as gloriously unhinged as Leonard’s noir masterpiece The Bribe from the same year, as that more and more seems to have been a complete anomaly in his career, but this musical crack at The Shop Around the Corner is just incredibly shiftless in every way. The lone saving graces are Buster Keaton, who gets a couple of halfway-amusing slapstick moments in a thankless bit part, and S.Z. Sakall, whom I simply enjoy watching in anything. I don’t think Judy was ever as DOA for me as she is here. Also, John Fricke’s intro is one of the creepiest goddamn things I’ve ever seen.

HIGH SOCIETY Charles Walters, 1956
Blech. I’m far less partial to The Philadelphia Story than The Shop Around the Corner, but what a trainwreck. And I thought My Fair Lady was as unwatchable as lavish star-vehicle musicals got.

THE PAJAMA GAME Stanley Donen & George Abbott, 1957
Perhaps it was the unremitting awfulness of High Society and its perverse gloss, but I couldn’t help being charmed by the on-location grunge and Fosse’s marvellous choreography here, particularly “Once a Year Day” and “Steam Heat”. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered my video store’s copy is the original cropped mess from ‘99. I will definitely be watching it properly to confirm, but even in its butchered form it’s a lock for me.

LET’S MAKE LOVE George Cukor 1960
Largely as flat as its reputation and the songs are terrible, but Monroe’s performance is one of her most interesting, I think. Definitely not making my list, but more than worth a watch for Marilyn devotees (though I imagine they need no encouragement for even her worst efforts).

[domino harvey]

Yikes, that's a real murderer's row of musicals right there

[tarpilot]

Tell me about it. I really did enjoy The Pajama Game a great deal, but I'm half-expecting its lustre to lessen significantly without "hey, it's not High Society!" ringing in my ears

[knives]

Hair
Not too far from a horror movie really. If we're supposed to be on the side of these buffoons they're not doing a good job at it. These are really horrible people who I really grew to hate over the course of this movie. I could sort of see the point of the dinner seen, but starting with the car abduction scene these characters just seemed like whiny little self centered brats. I could keep on going on, but everything from the first section of the film only made them more increasingly stupid and unworthy of any sympathy. The worst part is that it's clear that Forman absolutely loves these shits so he has characters who should know better just love these characters. If not for some truly amazing songs that first section would be totally intolerable. Get a job you assholes. Saying red and yellow people doesn't help your cause either. Actually in general this film has some serious racial (they no joke have a joke about how big black guys' penises are, though to be fair they talk about how skinny (?) white guys are) issues. It's shockingly obtuse for a film claiming to be so progressive.

Eventually fortunately the film realizes the absurdity (or as it says ridiculousness) of it's own characters' behavior especially the completely worthless Berger and cracks down on them forcing reality right at them. There seems to be no better way to make even the biggest douchnozzle sympathetic than have them face war which the film does with it's drafting plot that kicks up during the second hour. Unfortunately the draft only seriously occurs to one character and it's the only sympathetic one in the lead cast. Also you're not really taking out the glamour of war if you do really awesome musical numbers to the bootcamp scenes. Real counter intuitive to itself this film is. Actually in the second half the film does everything in it's power to cut down on these clowns and really brings home how terrible these people are which when mixed with the musical makes for some real bad tonal mixups. The black guy's wife's song is basically the only part that seems to hit a proper note with what I think the film is trying to do. Though it's really hard to figure out what it does want since every element seems at odds with itself.

42nd Street
I'm not sure if I would call this the best of the '30s Berkeley I've seen so far but it comes fairly close. The main section is fairly generic, but the performances are so good and there are enough witty lines to keep things afloat. Warner Baxter gives a really good performance and I'm beginning to really like him even if he was part of the intolerable In Old Arizona. The film doesn't really bump into great though until Berkeley's portion which might be the best number I've seen so far for this project. It's really exhilarating and might be enough to put this on my list.

[colinr0380]

If you'll let me lower the tone a little, I've just revisited Rock & Rule, which fits into the small genre of 'animated movies in which a love song saves the world' films along with Macross: Do You Remember Love. I think the primary characteristic of a muscial at this point is probably that they include great sequences that often stand apart from the film, and Rock & Rule is no exception, but it is worth a watch, especially for its bizarrely skewed vision of a Disney musical turned bad - where all the cute songs have turned into Lou Reed and Debbie Harry and the characters are mutations in the aftermath of an apocalyptic war.

Our lead characters are an aspiring band, whose female member is at first at odds with our hero lead singer over who gets to sing the songs, and who then gets seduced/kidnapped by the bad guy (who I guess is meant to be a thinly-veiled Mick Jagger caricature!) The mid-section plays has the classic 'band disintegrates as one member is seduced by a solo career' structure, except with raising a demon rather than signing a record contract in Angel's future, as she is targeted as the embodiment of an inter-dimensional key who is being used to tap into a Lovecraftian meat-monster universe with her amplified voice!

It is not really hugely coherent, more a series of set pieces and excuses to create scenes around a musical number (one of the more incongruous scenes involves the Earth, Wind and Fire song set inside a disco), but taken on those terms it is quite amusing, if rather broadly played. I think I might throw it in the lower reaches of my list!

[Cold Bishop]

I'm still plotting my official entry into the List Project (I have a rough draft of two pieces on the Busby Berkeley Musicals and I Love Melvin that I was hoping to start with, but who knows when I'll finish them), but with a month to go, I may as well throwout two of my spotlight titles, one old and one new.

Dance, Girl, Dance (Dorothy Arzner, 1940)
I always thought Working Girls could make an amazing musical if anyone had the talent and vision to take a remake on. This film, Arzner's penultimate, and by many critics account, her greatest, comes pretty close, taking the archetypical structure of that work, and applying it to the backstage musical. It's proto-feminist and powerful, directed with Arzner's usual subtle mastery, Lucille Ball was never better, and above all else it's an Arzner film on DVD! I'm interested in revisiting it myself: I recall liking it more as a drama than as an actual musical, and it's probably closer to something like Stage Door than 42nd Street. But it's certainly a musical... and a great film. It will also carry over to the 1940s list, so it's multi-tasking.

The Boy Friend (Ken Russell, 1971)
Taking on dominoharvey's challenge for good musicals after the 1960s... everyone will probably immediately go towards Tommy for this list; suffice to say, I'm not a fan. This however is a wonderful adaptation of Sandy Wilson's musical, and much like At Long Last Love, an attempt to truly recreate the feel of the classic musicals of the Golden Age. It's also a Ken Russell film for people who usually can't stand Ken Russell films. His grotesque and unsettling excess is toned down in a film that was rated G on release. And his flamboyant extravagance is probably well-served in taking on the Hollywood spectacles on the 1930s. Then again, maybe not: the reviews for this were as scathing as those that greeted The Music Lovers and The Devils. But, unlike that latter film (or the Bogdanovich), Russell's original edit has been at least restored to it's original length and scope-frame on the recent Warner Archives disc.

[zedz]

I've only just watched the (beautiful) new Second Run disc, and thought I should note that there's no good reason why Red Psalm shouldn't count as a musical for the purposes of this project. Sure, it's wildly different in tone and intent from most musicals, but it's a movie in which the main characters break into song and dance every five minutes or so, and it's even more thoroughly choreographed than a Busby Berkeley film.

[knives]

IMDB counts it as a musical so there's really no reason to not consider it. By the same token I'll beg people to consider The Wicker Man, Marat/ Sade, and All That Jazz. I'll also probably be voting for the last two entries in the Flamenco trilogy which definitely fit the parameters outlined by Dom. Just to get all of the begging out of the way the two Indian musicals I've seen, Aar-Paar and Lagaan, have a strong chance of making my list and I desperately encourage people to check them out to the degree of making Aar-Paar my spotlight.

[tarpilot]

Will definitely check out that Russell. My list will have at least a few (decidedly unconventional) post-60s: Up, Down, Fragile, Altman's Popeye, Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy, and maybe the Tsais.

[antnield]

...and I desperately encourage people to check them out to the degree of making Aar-Paar my spotlight.

All of Guru Dutt's films as director are worth seeking out, a number being superior to Aar Paar. Baazi (aka A Game of Chance) is a noir-ish crime drama along the lines of Gilda (it screened on British network telly over the weekend). Baaz (aka The Hawk) is Dutt's Captain Blood, a tremendously entertaining swashbuckler. Pyaasa (Thirst) is pure romantic melodrama and considered by many a masterpiece, although I find that the more personal Kaagaz ke Phool eclipses it. (It's one of cinema's true masterpieces, let alone Bollywood's.) This one is about a married director who falls in love with his leading lady and fall out that results (no spoilers). It was Indian's first 'scope film, but good luck in finding it in its correct ratio. Every DVD I've come across is panned-and-scanned, though that's not enough to diminish its quite considerable powers.

I haven't seen Jaal (The Net) and found Mr. & Mrs. 55 to be comparatively minor in Dutt's remarkable run of films during the fifties.

(After the lack of success at the box office for Kaagaz ke Phool, Dutt never put his name to another picture as director. But it's generally considered that he hand behind the camera in Chaudhvin ka Chand and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. Neither is quite up to the standards of earlier films but nonethless worth a look. Dutt suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1964.)

[knives]

Thanks for the advice. My library also has Pyaasa so I'll definitely rent that soon. Too bad I've spent all of money for a while or else I'd just pick up that set of six films.

[Perkins Cobb]

As a Freed Unit skeptic and a fan, chiefly, of non-traditional musicals, I'm mostly sitting this one out. However ... I've just seen Joseph Despins's The Moon Over the Alley and it's really wonderful. Check out the BFI Flipside release if you haven't already.

[knives]

Tonight's theme is just good enough it seems.
Dancer in the Dark
I guess if nothing else you can't accuse von Trier of not knowing how to make everything all about him. Firstly I want to say the film is technically brilliant with probably the best use of handheld I've seen in 15 or so years. The musical numbers are great and aside from Green Mile guy's wife all the performances are great, but boy did he slip up on the script. I think that's deliberate self sabotage though as the film contradicts itself so often and in so many specific ways it almost can't be an accident especially when when von Trier wants something out of the audience he gets it.

In between those big moments the film is a bit of a dead space that allows too much time to think about the mess the final product is. While supposedly a message film ala El Norte so much of Bjork's problems are entirely her fault (just tell the director that you're going blinder) that it doesn't even work in the unsympathetic, but humanistic way of Umberto D. Though the second half of the movie does improve somewhat on this account (I don't whether I was supposed to be laughing at the shooting the gun sequence though). Rather the film becomes compelling only as a look at von Trier. A neat little auteurist gag that's sadly nothing but. There's a lot of successful things here that are simply far too weighed down by von Trier's insistence to not succeed.

Alexander's Ragtime Band
Talk about low compliments, but this is certainly one of if not the best live action '30s musical I've seen. The plot is strong with likable and interesting leads and a good use of great music. The music really is the star here with a perfect selection of the sort of stuff I wish was being made more often now a days. Admittedly this all comes together to merely a very good film that runs no risk of entering my list, but it's so charming and likable with the sole aim of entertainment that I can't begrudge it low goals especially since it showed me that at least at one point in time Tyrone Power was a great actor. Also Alice Faye doing her best Jean Harlow impression makes for some minor greatness to.

Across the Universe
Hello success via low expectations. This film in all likelihood is a piece of crap, but it's such an earnest well intentioned failure that I have to admit I was a little endeared to the whole affair. It's so cheesy and desperate for success and meaning that I can't put it down like the three legged pony it is. There are some great visuals on display especially in the out of no where except to have it Mr. Kite sequence (how did they not have mean Mr. Mustard cameo) and the performances pleasantly underplay the material, but ultimately it's nothing more than a goof that's enjoyable exclusively because of how damn goofy it is.

[Lighthouse]

Across the Universe
Hello success via low expectations. This film in all likelihood is a piece of crap, but it's such an earnest well intentioned failure that I have to admit I was a little endeared to the whole affair. It's so cheesy and desperate for success and meaning that I can't put it down like the three legged pony it is. There are some great visuals on display especially in the out of no where except to have it Mr. Kite sequence (how did they not have mean Mr. Mustard cameo) and the performances pleasantly underplay the material, but ultimately it's nothing more than a goof that's enjoyable exclusively because of how damn goofy it is.

I like it very much. And the remakes of the songs are often superb.

[PillowRock]

My list will have at least a few (decidedly unconventional) post-60s: Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy

While I haven't seen it since the mid-1980s, and don't know of any good current source, I liked the Cinderella musical skin flick better than the Alice. It might be at least partially the difference in when I saw them, by I remember the songs being more fun in Cinderella (and Sy Richardson as the fairy godmother, father, burglar, whatever, was a lot of fun).

[knives]

The Barkley's of Broadway
So I'm spinning back around to these two for this last leg kind of accidentally, but I'll take good coincidences as I can. I came to a realization though as I watched this film. Ginger Rogers has no screen presence to me and is simply useless. In a whole bunch of other films that I've seen her in I figured it was just that it was such a throwaway role, but I remember nothing of her in Top Hat and in this film the screen was simply asleep to me as she meshed her way through. She only awakened as she danced and did the typical musical things, but she simply wasn't there to me. Of course that's the least of the film's problems as everyone seems deflated and disengaged. Not even Walters seems to be caring much and I've come to know him as a man who can shine a turd. Hopefully the two I have for tonight go off better.

Cabin in the Sky
This turned out much better than expected. Minnelli's direction is pretty strong if lacking the colour he does so well and the racist stuff is only about as bad as you'd find in a Michael Bay film so that was a pleasant surprise. The music though is pretty wonderful with some nice variety and purpose. While not the strongest debut by any means it's still really enjoyable and worth watching.

Cherry Town
What the hell is this? Pieces of pure insanity like this which make me wish that foreign musicals were more prominent, It's weird how the film emphasizes the typical Soviet trash while at the same time being so artificial and insane. The story almost seems ripped off from one of those short British docs while the direction is part television stiffness mixed with an indescribable showiness. It actually reminds me of the musical parts to Dancer in the Dark a little, but extended to the 'real' world scenes. Actually that might have made Dancer a better film. I'm not going to go as far as to call it a great film, but it's certainly an interesting one.

Dames
I think this leaves only one more Berkeley film left for me. Ton be honest at this point I think they're all just running together in my head with only his contributions being unique. the one here might be his best and it's certainly one of his most creative, but unfortunately it's attached to probably the weakest film so it all evens out. I like that they gave Pitts more to do here and her character on the whole is enjoyable, but it really is dead until the Berkeley section.

[domino harvey]

You are a bold man dissing Ginger Rogers in a thread Matt will read! I'm mostly indifferent, but she and Cornel Wilde, two somewhat skim milk performers, are essential in It Had to Be You (not a musical)

[knives]

I'll try to catch it before February in that case. It sure sounds interesting enough. I do want to make clear that it's also basically indifference on my part to, but I only just recognized that indifference with this film. Good dancer though.

[Matt]

It's a matter of record that anything I like, knives will be unmoved by and vice-versa. But I'm willing to concede that these films are not the best showcase for Rogers' comedic talents. If you can watch the first 30 minutes of The Major and the Minor, her first scene with Cary Grant in Once Upon a Honeymoon, and the prom segment of Vivacious Lady and still not appreciate her, then we have a problem.

[knives]

Who was she in Vivacious Lady again? The lead woman right? To be honest her's is the only role I don't remember anything about. Though have we proven the vice-versa to be true? It's probably just this one genre.

[Murdoch]

She does look adorable in a monocle, tho

[tarpilot]

Not to mention this is one of the greatest moments in anything ever

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, I feel like I just had a stroke

[knives]

I rented The Emperor Waltz for the project from my library right and guess what happens when I open the disc. It's covered in stickers and completely unplayable. You'd think a library wouldn't have these problems.

[PillowRock]

Thanks for the advice. My library also has Pyaasa so I'll definitely rent that soon. Too bad I've spent all of money for a while or else I'd just pick up that set of six films.

So I got curious recently and went ahead and ordered that Guru Dutt box set from an Amazon Marketplace outfit called "Planet Bollywood".

This is something of a "heads up" about "Planet Bollywood".

They did not send me the box set by Moser Baer that was advertised on the page. Instead, they sent me the same 6 movies in different editions from 4 different publishers. In contrast to what I've read about the Moser Baer editions, 3 or 4 of the ones that I got don't bother to subtitle the songs (regardless of whether or not they are part of the plot). Worse, the DVD version of Pyaasa that they sent me has *no* subtitles at all (despite the fact that all of the menus are in English).