All tagged State Fair
Here’s a binge list that I think many of you will love. I went, year by year, and found clips of every Oscar-winning Best Song, from 1934 to the present. It’s one hell of a list, full of great songs an loads of terrific performances. Wherever I could, I tried to find clips from the actual films. Only a few eluded me, so I had to stray outside that format. I enjoyed putting it together for you. In honor of this year’s nominees, let’s take a trip down memory lane.
There are many movie musicals that were not perfect. For one reason or another, they just don't delight audiences the way big hits like Singin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, or West Side Story do. That's perfectly fine; not every outing is going to be a hit. There are, however, several movie musicals that may have missed the mark, but managed to still have moments of beauty and magic. Today's column explores eight movie musicals that deserve a second look.
Those classic Hollywood musicals of the old studio system (particularly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were, for many of us, our glorious introduction to the musical form. Our affection for the iconic moments and memorable songs in these cinematic masterpieces makes them ripe for the picking to transplant to the Broadway stage. Whether-or-not doing so does them any justice is another question altogether. We are often disappointed by the result; how do you effectively take what was artfully and intimately captured through a camera’s lens and reimagine it in the wider, more distant picture of the stage?
Rodgers and Hammerstein are considered major groundbreakers in the world of musical theatre, having established the formula by which musicals are created and judged. The scores of their musicals have become major contributions to the American Songbook, and even a second-rate Rodgers and Hammerstein song can outshine many a first-rate song in another musical.
