Posted on 04/30/2013 7:54:52 PM PDT by EveningStar
All that is wrong with the movie musical can be summed up in two words; Barbra Streisand.
From the Golddiggers and Big Broadcast to South Pacific and My Fair Lady, the art form was fine until those four horrid movies she made; Hello Dolly, Funny Girl, Funny Lady and Yentl.
Eccchh.
I’m pretty sure I’ve hated every single “musical” from about the mid-1960s onward!
Yentl, what a freak show.
‘Funny Girl’ was terrific. The first half anyway. Once the songs run out it’s downhill.
Fiddler on the Roof? Cabaret? Oliver!?
Nope. Not my sort of thing. That whole ‘modern’ musical style. Too gay. I’ll take the Deanna Durbin films instead. Or, even a Monogram cheapie like “Swing Parade of 1946.” Or, even better, “The Big Broadcast” (1932), with Bing Crosby, the Boswell Sisters, Cab Calloway, and Arthur Tracy.
Thank you. That was great.
Former neighbor of W.C. Fields. IIRC he used to shoot at her swans when he heard her singing.
You’re right.
She can’t be missed. The story said she went into seclusion 64 years ago. Who misses someone who hasn’t made an appearance in 64 years and doesn’t even have her death announced until “a few days ago”. Sounds like she out-Garboed Garbo.
Same here.
I like Footloose.
And the singing episode of Buffy.
The voice of an angel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT_b_MWrJQU Ave Maria brings tears to my eyes.
Are you talking about stage or screen musicals? ‘Oliver!’ premiered on stage in 1960. Fiddler in 1964. The films were made later. I didn’t even mention all the Sondheim stage musicals which blow away the ones you mentioned.
Screen musicals. As a genre. I don’t really like the modern Broadway-esque approach of screen musicals, from the type of vocal stylistics to often the way the music is integrated into the plots. It does not appeal to me at all. I find such films invariably grating.
Older-style musicals? Yes. I like many of them. “42nd Street” and the Berkely films. Bing Crosby’s older Paramount movies, like “Waikiki Wedding” or “Anything Goes.” Early-40s films with wartime swing-band elements. Not quite as keen on MGM, but I do like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “An American in Paris.” The aforementioned Deanna Durbin films from Universal.
But by the mid-50s and into the 60s, probably starting with “Oklahoma,” musicals started getting too damn faggy. And I just don’t like the type of music.
The best screen musicals were the ones that MGM made in the ‘40s and ‘50s. ‘Meet Me in St Louis’ ‘Singin in the Rain’, ‘The Band Wagon’. Stuff like ‘Oklahoma!’, Carousel, and South Pacific were overblown cinematic adaptations of great Broadway shows.
I believe there are 5 actors from Gone With the Wind that are still alive. And one or two are older than DeHavilland.
She wasn’t a recluse, she just didn’t want to be in the industry anymore.
Yep, there are still a few 30s film vets around, but the list is dwindling rapidly. Mary Carlisle (who I once met) is still living. I think Marsha Hunt is too. Adrian Booth, who was a leading-lady in b-westerns, goes back to the late-30s, and she’s still alive. Then there are the kid actors, including mega-star Shirley Temple.
And you’re right about Durbin. I never heard about her being a recluse. Just that she married a Frenchman, moved to France, and never really had any interest in anything Hollywood-oriented ever since.
Carla Laemmle is also still alive. She is the niece of the founder of Universal Studios and had the first speaking lines in the 1930 film of Dracula with Lugosi.
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