(This article was written for the November/December 2007 issue of The Ryder)
Gotta Sing!: A Celebration of Movie Musicals
We take it for granted that "the hills are alive with the sound of music". Just over 80 years ago, movies had no sound, let along songs; any music accompanying a film was usually played by a live combo at the screening. That all changed in 1927 with the release of The Jazz Singer. Now available on DVD, The Jazz Singer was the first "talkie" – a feature-length movie where the audience heard dialogue through synchronized sound as opposed to reading it on title cards. This movie also featured musical numbers, leading the way to a new genre – the movie musical.
Walt Disney combined the novelty of the movie musical with the popularity of cartoons and created an empire. Ever since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs release in 1937, Disney released animated musical features on a regular basis until the late 1990s when the company started making non-musical computer-animated features (Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Cars).
As for live-action films, the 1930s brought us The Wizard of Oz, then Gene Kelly showed up in the 40s and 50s with his string of hits including On the Town, An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain. West Side Story wowed audiences in 1961 and Grease rolled into theaters in 1978. After Fame in 1980, well-received live-action musicals disappeared from cinemas until 2001. That year, Moulin Rouge! took popular Top-10 songs, turned them on their side, and reintroduced audiences to movies filled with songs. When Chicago won the Academy Award for Best Picture the next year, movie musicals were back.
Since Chicago, there have been several other musicals pulled from the stage and turned into movies including Rent, The Producers, Dreamgirls and Hairspray. This summer, Hairspray became the third highest grossing movie musical of all time while Rent and The Producers hardly made a dent at the box office, even though they are two of the most popular Broadway shows in the past decade. Why is it that some movie musicals are so popular while others fail to attract the same millions of people who flock to see the same show in New York City? One answer is star-power of the cast.
Both the movie versions of Rent and The Producers starred most of their original Broadway casts. Those casts included actors the cinema-going audiences were either not extremely familiar with (Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp of Rent), or were famous but unable to open a movie (Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick of The Producers). Hairspray gave the audiences what they wanted – big stars with voices to match. Everyone loved John Travolta in Grease, but he hadn’t been in another movie musical until Hairspray – where he played a plus-size woman whose Baltimore accent is as thick as her thighs. Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfieffer and High School Musical star Zac Efron were just a handful of Travolta’s talented co-stars that lured people to the theaters in droves.
Chicago’s cast also consisted of talented actors who many people were unaware that they were triple threats. My curiosity brought me to a screening on opening day, wondering if Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere could sing and dance. Amazing choreography and song performances led me back to the movie theater three more times. I have a feeling the same is going to happen December 21st with the release of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s fifth collaboration, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the morbid tale of a wronged man who takes revenge on people by slitting their throats and then having his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, bake them into meat pies. Though the current trailer for the movie only has a few seconds of Depp singing, Sweeney Todd is a full-out musical. Perhaps DreamWorks and Warner Brothers don’t want to scare audience away with a trailer full of singing and instead want people to see the Sleepy Hollow-meets-Big Fish sets and costumes Burton is using, as well as the sense of fear that Sweeney Todd is back and wants vengeance. Either way, count me in – I saw Sweeney Todd revived on Broadway a couple years ago, loved it, and am now dying to see what Burton, Depp, and co-stars Helena Bohnam Carter, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen will bring to the table.
In honor of my excitement for Sweeney Todd, I am sharing with you my Top 10 favorite movie musicals of all time. Disclaimer: Though there are many movies where people sing songs, we are going to focus on films where there are more than just a couple songs, and at least two of the musical numbers must be when one or more characters spontaneously burst into song. Therefore, music biopics like Walk the Line, or faux-biopics like That Thing You Do! are not included as they are about musicians and their songs and musical sequences are necessary for the plot, but are not spontaneous in the slightest.
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939) – directed by Victor Fleming
According to imdb.com, "a recent study claimed this is the most watched movie in film history." Everyone knows "Somewhere over the Rainbow"– The American Film Institute recognized it as the number one movie song of all time. But, as soon as Dorothy landed in Oz and opened the doors to that Technicolor wonderfulness, we all realized we weren’t in Kansas anymore. I remember singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead," "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and "We’re Off to see the Wizard" with my siblings during mini productions of this musical in our living room.
9. The Little Mermaid (1989) – directed by Ron Clements and John Musker
On a whole, I’m not a fan of the Disney cartoons, but The Little Mermaid is an exception. I was in kindergarten when this movie was released, and I loved singing along with Ariel and Sebastian. My sister got to play a piece of seaweed in a school production of this musical a few years later and I was jealous that she got to be part of that world while I had to sit there and watch. Academy Award nominee "Kiss the Girl" was a sweet little Disney number with the lagoon animals (and Scuttle) lend their talents as supporting vocals, but it was the up-tempo "Under the Sea" which took home the Oscar for Best Song.
8. Guys and Dolls (1955) – directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
How about that Marlon Brando! Though his singing voice was nowhere near as strong as Frank Sinatra’s, Brando held his own as he danced down in Havana then warbled his way through "Luck Be a Lady". It was well known that Sinatra was bitter about Brando getting the lead, so Sinatra would refer to his costar as "Mumbles". This is another musical whose songs have been reenacted multiple times by my sister and I on our long road trips to New York City, especially "Fugue for Tinhorns" and "Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat".
7. Chicago (2002) – directed by Rob Marshall
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie multiple times and every time it ended with Catherine Zeta-Jones belting out "No, I’m no one’s wife/But oh I love my life/And All That Jazz/That Jazz!" I got goose bumps. I am not a fan of Renee Zellweger, but boy was I blown away by Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly. I knew Catherine Zeta-Jones was a hoofer when she was younger, but her singing and dancing really impressed me during "I Can’t Do it Alone." The juxtaposition of the marionettes and Billy Flynn dominating Roxie Hart’s meeting with the press made "We Both Reached for the Gun" a memorable number. Taye Diggs, cast as the Bandleader, was severely underused.
6. The Sound of Music (1965) – directed by Robert Wise
Greatly improved with a little fast-forwarding through "Climb Ev’ry Mountain" and stopping altogether before those horrible Nazis try and capture the von Trapps. I always wanted to sing the high notes like Julie Andrews in "I Have Confidence" and "Do Re Mi" but I know now that’s just a pipe dream. During middle school, a friend and I would try to play "The Lonely Goatherd" on her flute, also with little success. As happy as this movie makes me, when Captain von Trapp and company sing "Edelweiss" before he is supposed to join the German Navy, my heart just breaks. Such a happy song at such a sad moment in his life – this really shows how music in movies can evoke more feelings than the spoken word.
5. West Side Story (1961) – directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise
This musical version of Romeo and Juliet is equally as powerful as Shakespeare’s play because of the songs. Tony and Maria loved each other, which is so beautifully exposed in "Tonight" and "One Hand One Heart". The personalities of the gangs are shown in "Jet Song" (Jets) and "America" (Sharks) and everybody’s voice gets heard in the best song in the whole movie – "Tonight Quintet". We played a West Side Story-themed show when I was a junior in the high school marching band and even though we had to play these songs every single day for four months in a row, I will never tire of this movie or its songs. Composer Leonard Bernstein did much to advance music education in this country, something very dear to me as my sister and several of our close friends are music educators. In 1987, Bernstein used part of his winnings from the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize to establish the Leonard Bernstein Scholarship Fund here at Indiana University, which is awarded annually to deserving music students.
4. Hairspray (2007) – directed by Adam Shankman
The movie and its music were so colorful and oozed happiness, even though they dealt with heavy subjects such as racism and body image. Being based off of John Waters movie Hairspray and the subsequent Broadway musical of the same name, this version of Hairspray combined some big talent from a very diverse cast, including newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad. The finale of "You Can’t Stop the Beat" was some of the most energetic singing and dancing I had seen on screen in awhile. The single and double-disc DVD, as well as a double-disc soundtrack were released on November 20th.
3. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) – directed by Mel Stuart
You might think this is an odd choice to be considered among musicals like West Side Story and The Sound of Music. Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka; accept no substitutes. The songs are not as amazing as those written by Sondheim or Rogers and Hammerstein, but "The Candy Man," "I’ve Got a Golden Ticket," "Pure Imagination," "I Want it Now" and all those ditties from the Oompa Loompas are permanently embedded in my mind. Though my family and friends use the phrase "Cheer Up, Charlie" to make me smile on a regular basis, this is the lamest movie musical song of all time and should always be fast-forwarded through. Always.
2. Singin’ in the Rain (1952) – directed by Stanley Dolan and Gene Kelly
Set during the time when synchronized sound was introduced into motion pictures, Singin’ in the Rain is a winning combination of comedy, beautiful music and amazing dance routines. Donald O’Connor’s performance of "Make ‘Em Laugh" and his "Moses Supposes" duet with Kelly made for two of the funniest scenes in the film, but it’s Gene Kelly’s execution of the title song that the movie is best known for. With an umbrella in hand and the help of a streetlight, Kelly sang and danced through the rain and into our hearts – what a glorious feeling, indeed.
1. Moulin Rouge! (2001) – directed by Baz Luhrmann
Moulin Rouge! features already well-known pop songs and weaves them into a manic yet heartbreaking movie musical. This movie is a good example of the "backstage" movie musical – when the characters in the movie are putting on a musical production of their own, creating a "show within a show". "Your Song" is an endearing scene as Christian used his "modern poetry" to woo Satine. "Come What May" is a beautiful song that makes me smile every time I hear it, as my dad and I would sing along to it on the long drive home from college. "El Tango de Roxanne" is so haunting, with the passionate choreography of the can-can girls and rakes, the physical assault of the Duke on Satine and the guttural screams of Christian out his garret window. Such a sad part of the film, but so powerful with the combination of imagery and singing – I love it!
Disagree with my list? Think up your own Top 10 and share it with your friends. Get people excited about what movie musicals you are passionate about and then drag them with you to see Sweeney Todd this December!
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For the record, this was not my actual Top 10... I left out How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Newsies and Alice in Wonderland to include a few others that more people would know...
Also, since I wrote this, I've seen Sweeney Todd and it was glorious!! I was laughing so hard because it was so gory and disgusting. Johnny Depp was awesome - he made such a great Sweeney Todd, with his crazy hair and Jack Sparrow-sounding singing.
I saw the Patti LuPone/Michael Cerveris version on Broadway a few years ago and it was one of the most memorable Broadway experiences I've had... such a great musical.
Musicals (both on stage and on screen) make me smile.
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