FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #13: The Sound of Music [1965]

“They were strawberries! It’s been so cold lately they turned blue!” My enjoyment of Oscar-winning musical The Sound of Music can best be described as the product of subjective expectation. I finally saw it around the age of twelve or thirteen after hearing of its greatness for years only to be left staring at the television with a quizzical look that said, “That’s it?” Despite the music’s appeal—Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II‘s final collaboration with the latter passing away nine months following its Broadway debut—it seemed to add up…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #12: The King and I [1956]

“Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera” You don’t get much more dated than the 1956 musical edition of The King and I. Through all the pomp and circumstance, it’s the trite storyline of a wannabe-modern king and the British school teacher who thaws his barbaric ways that comes through. All that’s wrong with the Western world is brought to the forefront as this woman alters a culture from the inside out. These exotic places must be taught what it means to be just and moral without thinking about the generations of customs their…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #11: Victor Victoria [1982]

“I’d sleep with you for a meatball” You’re down on your luck, famished, and unable to get a job despite having a voice like no other. What do you do? Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is asking herself that very question when we see her auditioning for Chez Lui—a dump populated by gangsters and hotheads that’s closed almost ever other night due to brawls. This soprano can shatter glass with a high B-flat at whim but her empty stomach barely allows her to walk home. And then, of course, once she’s…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #10: Bugsy Malone [1976]

“I’ve spent my entire life coming back tomorrow” A director with a career infused by music for three decades, Alan Parker’s feature length debut came in the form of Bugsy Malone. Completely populated by kids under seventeen, it’s a gangster film that exists as though in an alternate reality, working on all levels whether treated seriously or as farce. The child actors are in Prohibition-era specific costumes, attend a popular speakeasy run by the biggest crime boss in town, and talk the talk as though they’ve lived the life, seen…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #9: Singin’ in the Rain [1952]

“Dignity, always dignity” With just two Oscar nominations—for supporting actress and musical score—the lack of love for Singin’ in the Rain at its release shouldn’t be too surprising. Crafted by MGM’s Arthur Freed to reuse the songs he and Nacio Herb Brown wrote for a slew of musicals in the 1930s, the film feels like a pastiche from start to finish, its flimsy underlying look behind the scenes at a few silent movie stars making the transition to talkies a simple construct on which to sing and dance. No disrespect…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #8: Yankee Doodle Dandy [1942]

“The first thing I ever had in my hand was an American flag” Shortly after the events at Pearl Harbor thrust America into World War II, a film was released that both paid respect to one of the true patriots of our country and gave the new contingent of men sailing off to fight a bit of the ol’ red, white, and blue. Michael Curtiz’s Yankee Doodle Dandy utilizes George M. Cohan’s final performance on the stage as a bookend to the story of his long and fruitful career. Played…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #7: 42nd Street [1933]

“Jones and Barry are doing a show” For being the American Film Institute’s 13th best musical on its 2006 list, 42nd Street is surprisingly devoid of song. Depicting the behind the scenes comings and goings of a big scale production, the fact its subject is a musical seems more relevant than it being one itself. The first bit of singing from the show within the show’s star, Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels), isn’t until about twenty-five minutes in and it’s not until the final ten minutes where we are treated with…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #6: Hairspray [2007]

“Good Morning Baltimore” Boy does the trailer for Hairspray really forget mentioning exactly what it’s about. Going through its beats, the advertisement talks about its young star Nikki Blonsky and her character Tracy Turnblad’s dreams of overcoming her weight and society’s bigotry to seize her dreams, dance on TV, and get her man. The jokes, the campiness, and the transvestites are present—and what work based on a John Waters film wouldn’t—but everything is displayed out of context. Soundbytes and visuals are shown without explanation and believed to just be a…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #5: Oliver! [1968]

“Who will buy my sweet red roses?” While I’m reasonably sure I have never seen Carol Reed’s Oscar winning Oliver!, I do recall attending a live performance of it during elementary school. If you asked me two and a half hours ago to give a summation or describe my favorite moments, I would have returned the question with a blank stare of ignorance. I couldn’t even really fake it since my only connection to the source material—I never had to read Dickens in school—is Roman Polanski’s successful adaptation from a…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #4: The Music Man [1962]

“You have trouble folks, right here in River City” Could Harold Hill be the best con man in cinema history? A man never for a loss of words, Robert Preston’s rendition of The Music Man puts forth a gentleman of great art, tastes, and disarming charm who is both loathsome and irresistible once you find out the truth behind his schemes. Salesmen despise him—and they aren’t too upstanding themselves—due to jealousy in how he can hawk his wares, no matter what they are, to any unsuspecting citizen in any sleepy…

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FILM MARATHON: Movie Musicals #3: Kiss Me Kate [1953]

“You louse!” I’m a sucker for multi-layered films depicting simultaneous stories at once, juxtaposing onstage performances with the backstage antics of the actors involved. Kiss Me Kate, screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley and music by Cole Porter, shows the theatrical opening inter-workings of a stage musical, by the same name, styled on William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew—or as I like to call it, 10 Things I Hate About You. But the beauty of George Sidney’s work behind the camera is that he allows every single aspect to be shown,…

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