The Brand New All Encompassing Movie Musical Thread

[touchingcloth]

I thought it was a fun production of a pretty terrible musical. I'm not a big fan of those early juke boxy shows in general, or Cole Porter in particular, the exceptions being Singin' in the Rain, or anything Berlin/Astaire.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I rewatched Hamilton last night, and remembered just how great it is, and also how much better filmed stage performances often are than dedicated movie adaptations of musicals. The entrance of Washington works amazingly well on stage, I'm not sure any screenplay could make it quite as thrilling.

I really enjoyed it too, but just yesterday I was talking to my Sister about it and she mentioned how a friend who saw it at the West End walked out halfway through because she hated it so much. Which is something I can't understand, I know the friend in question, she's smart and loves music, and given the cost of West End plays you'd think you'd stick it out even if you're not liking it but apparently not. Anyhow, I certainly no longer plan to seduce her when her husband and all of her children die.

Speaking of filmed stage performaces, Anything Goes with Sutton Foster and Citizen Smith, as well as Barbara Good and Gary Wilmot, was on BBC2 tonight and is on iPlayer here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0012y8y

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware of it at all and I'll definitely give it a go some point soon.

[touchingcloth]

I've just watched My Fair Lady on Channel 5, and it's somehow at once the gayest and most misogynistic film I've ever seen. 3 hours of Rex Harrison gaslighting (the far, far younger) Audrey Hepburn while he and his phonetician mate gad about trying on ladies dresses and calling Audrey "an insect". Deeply unpleasant and just outright weird stuff, but some lovely tunes.

I really enjoyed it too, but just yesterday I was talking to my Sister about it and she mentioned how a friend who saw it at the West End walked out halfway through because she hated it so much. Which is something I can't understand, I know the friend in question, she's smart and loves music, and given the cost of West End plays you'd think you'd stick it out even if you're not liking it but apparently not. Anyhow, I certainly no longer plan to seduce her when her husband and all of her children die.

That's weird. I can see it not being someone's favourite musical, but it feels like if you have any sort of experience of musicals at all it's just on many levels objectively great, and worth staying in your seat just to experience a slice of history as much as to not waste your ticket price. I'm not crazy on Oklhoma! for instance, but I can't see myself going to a performance and walking out on it.

I've been re-listening to the soundtrack today, and there are just so many great bits on it. Perhaps My favourite use of an internal rhyme in any musical is in Yorktown


When we finally drive the British away
Lafayette is there waiting in Chesapeake Bay
How did we know that this plan would work?
We had a spy on the inside, that's right: Hercules Mulligan

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've just watched My Fair Lady on Channel 5, and it's somehow at once the gayest and most misogynistic film I've ever seen. 3 hours of Rex Harrison gaslighting (the far, far younger) Audrey Hepburn while he and his phonetician mate gad about trying on ladies dresses and calling Audrey "an insect". Deeply unpleasant and just outright weird stuff, but some lovely tunes.

I've had that sitting on an external hard drive for years now, with it's length putting me off, but your comments mean it'll probably only be something I watch when I run out of musicals to see.

That's weird. I can see it not being someone's favourite musical, but it feels like if you have any sort of experience of musicals at all it's just on many levels objectively great, and worth staying in your seat just to experience a slice of history as much as to not waste your ticket price. I'm not crazy on Oklhoma! for instance, but I can't see myself going to a performance and walking out on it.

I've been re-listening to the soundtrack today, and there are just so many great bits on it. Perhaps My favourite use of an internal rhyme in any musical is in Yorktown


When we finally drive the British away
Lafayette is there waiting in Chesapeake Bay
How did we know that this plan would work?
We had a spy on the inside, that's right: Hercules Mulligan

I just don't get it either, and she's not the kind to walk out just so she could boast about doing so as she's a pretty down to earth sort, so something must have rubbed her up the wrong way, but I doubt I'll ever understand it.

The Pajama Game (1957) - Sid Sorokin (John Raitt) is hired as a new supervisor at a pajama factory and falls for the head of the grievance committee, Babe Williams (Doris Day), but soon the two will clash as the workers want a pay rise. I was expecting a light hearted musical comedy and it is that most of the time, but it's also a lot smarter than I predicted, contains some incredibly catchy songs, and sometimes even has a pleasingly strange sense of humour. The song Hernando's Hideaway features some awesome candle fun, while one of the guys who works there is a jealous knife throwing type, and a good few of the other supporting characters are memorable too, all of which adds up to something I was really impressed by, and as it's directed by Stanley Donen and George Abbott with choreography by Bob Fosse it also always looks great as well. 8.0/10

[touchingcloth]

My Fair Lady's length is astonishing, phwoar. 20 minutes longer than West Side Story (1961), and 10 minutes longer than Hamilton, but without an overture, intermission, or curtain call. It's not the simplest plot ever, but they could easily have trimmed it down by half an hour.

One of those musicals where it's definitely worth having a listen to the soundtrack all the way through because all of the numbers were memorable, but it just didn't hang together as a whole. The kindest and most accurate thing I can say about it is that it's of its time.

[Dex Sawash]

Wife decided to give away our Wednesday tickets to musical of A Christmas Story but I feel confident that it would have been absolute shit 3/10

I'll probably get covid off the tv remote at home Wednesday anyway 5.4/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Gang's All Here (1943) - Busby Berkley directed this musical where a slutty soldier seduces a chorus girl before heading off to fight in the South Pacific, without mentioning that he already has a girlfriend back home. The two women inevitably meet, comedy contrivances ensue, with a bit of melodrama towards the end as well, but it stretches out a thin plotline to breaking point and then the ending isn't really that satisfying. Considering the film's director I was surprised that there were only a couple of notable dance sequences, all of the songs are from performers on a stage and only one is that memorable, and the only great thing about the film is supporting character Mrs Potter (Charlotte Greenwood) who has a good few funny scenes but isn't in it enough. 5.7/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Tokyo Dragon Chef (2020) - From Yoshihiro Nishimura, the director of Tokyo Gore Police and Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl comes this very low budget comedy musical about two separate ex-Yakuza duos who set up rival Ramen restaurants. You'd think this was someone's debut movie rather than their 13th feature, but it's just silly and amusing enough to make it worth watching, it cost 99p to rent from Amazon which feels about right to me, and if I'd paid any more I might have moaned a bit. 6.6/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Gypsy (1962) - Overbearing showbiz mother Rose (Rosalind Russell) makes her daughters Louise (Natalie Wood) and Dainty June (Ann Jillian) perform on the vaudeville circuit, refuses to marry her long standing beau Herbie (Karl Malden) and is completely in denial that vaudeville is dying out and that her kids are growing up, and growing feisty too. Packed full of fantastic songs with some very funny lyrics (with it being my favourite Sondheim so far), the performances are fantastic, Rose's final song is especially incredible, and this is right up there with my very favourite musicals. 8.9/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Fiddler On The Roof (1971) - Epic musical about a Jewish family in pre-revolution Russia, and as I'm sure everyone guessed, as they were Jewish absolutely nothing horrible happened to them and they all lived happily ever after. Still, the first hour and a half is a light hearted romantic comedy at least where Tevye (Topol) just about ekes out a living with his wife and five daughters, one of whom wants to marry a young guy and not the local butcher, which makes no sense at all as who wouldn't want to be Mrs Lazar Wolf?

Spoiler alert

There's hints of the darkness soon to come during this part but it's not until almost two hours in that anti-Semitism really rears its ugly head, but even considering this I wasn't quite prepared for the bleak ending, sure there's a couple of slight hints of optimism but for a mainstream musical it's surprisingly brutal.

[close]

File under: I'm glad I've seen it, but I doubt I'll ever watch it again. 7.6/10

Edit: Fuck me, I didn't realise that was Ruth Madoc as Lazar Wolf's dead wife, she was fantastic in that weird old dream sequence too. I didn't spot Roger Lloyd-Pack either, but when he was briefly on screen I thought the actor was a Nathan Fielder look-a-like.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Golden Eighties (1986) - French people work in a clothing store and a hairdressers and flirt and / or cheat on their partners and it's slightly amusing some of the time, but there's nothing that frustrates me more than a musical with long chunks without any songs, before there's two or three back to back, then another long wait until the next and this is extremely guilty of such a crime. If the script and plot are strong it's just about forgivable but this is one of the flimsiest romcoms with thinly drawn characters and average dialogue that I've seen, it picks up during the musical numbers but there's just not enough of them to make it worthwhile. 5.3/10.

[famethrowa]

Who didn't hear the song COMING TO AMERICA must have been lost without so much of a map in the middle of the Adirondacks. New York never been a backdrop for too romantic a comedy has that inbred sadness just to make a killing with just one switchblade . This Broadway look on itself does what the stage promises. Compared to ROMEO and JULIA the new version comes across more like the breathless even mad dance of some juvenile phantasy the dime store used to hawk to teenage girls with all the romance of an icecream sandwich on rye. Left to say that Boris Leven made sure there were hints at color in the Mexican birdcage behind an array of strung often too tightly wound clotheslines around the lovers wrists who see only heaven where there should be Hell's Kitchen. Some of the shots in WESTSIDE STORY could be a bottlecap Coke commercial whats missing though amidst the racy Racism without which the story would grind to a halt midbalcony is the Story in WESTSIDE STORY. Its a Saul Chaplin Walter Mirisch cooked up smash hit and that credit goes to the dancers. Its neither a story nor is it about the grime of the racous Brooklyn.

Its a phantasy held together by the two ends of apronstrings dangling before the viewer.

What made this of all films so challenging to revisit remains the unbroken law that phantasy has its own laws. The new version is much a teaching tool with the filmschools left to their own discretion. An idea certainly FW MURNAU had long ago.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've just watched My Fair Lady on Channel 5, and it's somehow at once the gayest and most misogynistic film I've ever seen. 3 hours of Rex Harrison gaslighting (the far, far younger) Audrey Hepburn while he and his phonetician mate gad about trying on ladies dresses and calling Audrey "an insect". Deeply unpleasant and just outright weird stuff, but some lovely tunes.

I ended up watching it today as I was in the mood for an over the top "classic" musical, and completely agree with your comments. It's so strange how Henry is absolutely horrendous to pretty much everyone he meets, the film recognises this and has his own mother repeatedly call him out on his behaviour,

Spoiler alert

while Eliza seems to be pretty aware just how repugnant his treatment has been, and yet she still ends up going back to him at the end. I guess that's Stockholm syndrome for you, and in the version in my head Henry realises that Colonel Pickering's the man for him, Eliza becomes a successful business owner in her own right and never sees Higgins again, and that would be a much happier ending that the one we got.

[close]

Yet despite all my complaints I loved the soundtrack an enormous amount, there's a lot of great dialogue and the supporting characters are fun, and though what it has to say about the classes and the sexes is incredibly muddled, I'd still rate it 7.6/10, though if I was ever to recommend it to anyone it'd be with a huge amount of caveats.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Oh What A Lovely War (1969) - Richard Attenborough's World War One set musical showcases the horror of the trenches and the sickening idiocy of those organising the war back in England, all accompanied by many of the songs sung at the time. It's one of the best war films I've seen as it portrays the ugly brutality impressively, while the songs are filled with black humour and highlights one of the ways the soldiers coped with their ongoing misery. 8.0/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) - Biopic of singer, dancer, actor, writer and composer George M. Cohan (James Cagney) from the day he was born right up until when he's in his sixties and the president asks to speak to him in the White House. Cohan's ego and arrogance occasionally gets him in to trouble and an attempt at a serious play flops, but otherwise this is upbeat stuff and the second half is all but a greatest hits collection of moments from his plays that I'd love to see in full, even if a couple of them are borderline jingoistic. It takes the piss a bit having the then 43 year old Cagney play Cohan in his early twenties, and this is a musical where all the songs are performed on a stage, audition or rehearsal, but there's a lot of them and they're all very entertaining so I'll not set fire to anyone in anger due to this just this once, even though Cagney isn't exactly the best of singers. 8.4/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Easter Parade (1948) - Don Hewes (Fred Astaire) and dancing partner Nadine Hale (Ann Miller) are a big success but she decides to go solo, causing a drunk Hewes to declare he can get any girl to replace her, choosing Hannah Brown (Judy Garland) after meeting her for about thirty seconds. Plot wise this plays out exactly how you'd think it would, but it's a bright, colourful, sweet affair with some cracking songs and only a little bit too much dancing. 7.9/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Doctor Dolittle (1967) - Ex human Doctor and occasional Pushmi-Pullyu  abuser John Dolittle (Rex Harrison) hangs around the small town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh where everyone seems to hate him, and in one bizarre scene he clearly wants to fuck Sophie the Seal but as polite society won't allow him to he throws her off a cliff (albeit so she can swim off to her husband at the North Pole), yet we're still supposed to be shocked when he's sent off to an insane asylum. It's an episodic film for the first half and could have done with a stronger narrative, but at least the second is an improvement on that front as

Spoiler alert

they head off to find the Great Pink Sea Snail, and when they do it is one of cinema's most horrifying moments

[close]

. It's not a film without other issues either (the portrayal of black characters is especially dubious), and the romance feels fake, but eh, I liked the ridiculous nature of it all most of the time. 7.5/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Guy And Madeleine On A Park Bench (2009) - The first film from Whiplash and La La Land director Damien Chazelle, it's a black and white indie drama which follows around the titular couple, and occasionally decides to be a musical, though it only has three proper musical style songs, and one of those is in French with no subtitles. It's almost surreal as to how fucking dull these characters are, I mean in one scene she ends up hanging around with an ex-cop and they play 20 questions and it drags out for ages without being amusing or interesting, and I just can't understand how Chazelle thought 95% it would be of interest to anyone. There's actually a really great song and dance sequence towards the end but by this point the film had used up any good will I had towards it, and the ending is yet more pointless blandness. 2.0/10

[touchingcloth]

Doctor Dolittle (1967) - Ex human Doctor and occasional Pushmi-Pullyu  abuser John Dolittle (Rex Harrison) hangs around the small town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh where everyone seems to hate him, and in one bizarre scene he clearly wants to fuck Sophie the Seal but as polite society won't allow him to he throws her off a cliff (albeit so she can swim off to her husband at the North Pole), yet we're still supposed to be shocked when he's sent off to an insane asylum. It's an episodic film for the first half and could have done with a stronger narrative, but at least the second is an improvement on that front as

Spoiler alert

they head off to find the Great Pink Sea Snail, and when they do it is one of cinema's most horrifying moments

[close]

. It's not a film without other issues either (the portrayal of black characters is especially dubious), and the romance feels fake, but eh, I liked the ridiculous nature of it all most of the time. 7.5/10

I saw the bold title and noticed the text had a spoiler in it, and was pretty sure I knew what that would be about.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I saw the bold title and noticed the text had a spoiler in it, and was pretty sure I knew what that would be about.

Ha, it really is a once seen, never forgotten moment.

Silk Stockings (1957) - A Cole Porter musical loosely based on the 1939 film Ninotchka, this sees creepy old Fred Astaire singing "I'd love to gain complete control of you" to Cyd Charisse's Ninotchka and somehow seducing her in to loving western ways within 24 hours, even though he's about twenty times older than she is. It's pro-capitalism anti-communism message isn't subtle and it's overlong, but the songs are decent, Charisse is great, plus Peter Lorre has a supporting role which allows him to show off how bad his dancing is and just how good his comedy chops are. 7.4/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1973) - Kirk Douglas, Donald Pleasance and Susan Hampshire star in this made for tv musical where Douglas plays the titular characters while the songs are by Lionel Bart of Oliver! fame, indeed it's been suggested these were cast offs from that film with the lyrics reworked. Either way he didn't do a good enough job as only two are memorable, and one of them is a very silly song about Dr Jekyll buying a brand new bicycle. Acting wise Douglas is fine as Jekyll but he hams it up as the boxing loving, burlesque club attending, brawl starting and generally all rather evil Mr Hyde, while Pleasance is decent enough as the latter's accomplice, but a lot of the time this just feels like an am-dram production, it has it's moments and is worth watching for seeing Douglas in such an unusual role, but even a musical loving idiot like myself can't rate it that highly. 5.8/10

[olliebean]

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1973) - Kirk Douglas, Donald Pleasance and Susan Hampshire star in this made for tv musical where Douglas plays the titular characters while the songs are by Lionel Bart of Oliver! fame, indeed it's been suggested these were cast offs from that film with the lyrics reworked. Either way he didn't do a good enough job as only two are memorable, and one of them is a very silly song about Dr Jekyll buying a brand new bicycle. Acting wise Douglas is fine as Jekyll but he hams it up as the boxing loving, burlesque club attending, brawl starting and generally all rather evil Mr Hyde, while Pleasance is decent enough as the latter's accomplice, but a lot of the time this just feels like an am-dram production, it has it's moments and is worth watching for seeing Douglas in such an unusual role, but even a musical loving idiot like myself can't rate it that highly. 5.8/10

Did you manage to find a better copy than the essentially unwatchable one on YouTube?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Did you manage to find a better copy than the essentially unwatchable one on YouTube?

I did, yeah, it was supposed to be a dvd rip but to me it looked like a vhs copy, and not a great one either, but at least it was watchable which I don't think the youtube one is at all. If you're interested in seeing it, I can upload it somewhere if you like?

[olliebean]

I did, yeah, it was supposed to be a dvd rip but to me it looked like a vhs copy, and not a great one either, but at least it was watchable which I don't think the youtube one is at all. If you're interested in seeing it, I can upload it somewhere if you like?

Thanks for your kind offer, but I've managed to find a fairly decent copy of it now - one with French subtitles, but I can live with that. I found it on a site called rarefilmm, which seems to be a bit of a trove.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've had that site bookmarked for a little while now but keep on forgetting to see what's on there, but I'm glad you've found a way to watch it anyway.

Edit: Just downloaded it out of interest and it's a better copy than the one I had, there's not a huge amount of difference but it's just a bit sharper overall.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Kiss Me Kate (1953) - Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson used to be husband and wife but are now divorced, but that hasn't stopped them starring in a musical version of The Taming Of The Shrew together, and it looks like they might get back together until Keel fucks up. A large amount of this is the play itself though a very different version than normal as Kathryn wants to leave and two hired goons take the stage to stop her, it has a lot of very smart, funny songs, and is just good clean fun in general. 7.4/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Athena (1954) - The poster claims this to be "The MGM musical with young ideas!", as dull lawyer Adam (Edmund Purdom, doing a rather stiff impersonation of Cary Grant) meets numerologist and astrologist Athena (Jane Powell), and fuck me is she annoying. That quickly becomes understandable though as she lives with her new age-ish cult leader Grandfather, her six sisters, and a bunch of blokes who Granddad is training for the Mr Universe contest, and he's full of crazy ideas like smoking being bad for you yet being a vegetarian is a good thing. It's an eccentric movie and then some at times but this doesn't really apply to the songs, there's a couple of cute numbers but nothing that innovative, and oddly Purdom never sings and many of the songs are sung by Athena's sister Minerva (Debbie Reynolds) and the bloke she fancies (Vic Damone). Still, I can't deny being thoroughly entertained, but I'd also completely understand if someone thought this was ridiculously naff. 7.3/10

[Dex Sawash]

Went to see staged Oklahoma last night, had seen bits of the film on tv when flipping channels. Expected a big goofy romp like Music Man with maybe some consent issues. It was pretty dull and none of it was fun. In the first act Mary Worth the main male character

Spoiler alert

councils a friend to commit suicide

[close]

and we left at halftime as my wife wanted no part of that (neither did I, really). Thought it was some ill-considered reboot but a quick plot review of Wikipedia out by the bogs cements the decision for us to fuck off the remainder of $200ish worth of tickets.

Couple of weeks until wife has Pretty Woman tickets. She has drafted in Gloria for that one, Granting me a Hugh relief.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Went to see staged Oklahoma last night, had seen bits of the film on tv when flipping channels. Expected a big goofy romp like Music Man with maybe some consent issues. It was pretty dull and none of it was fun. In the first act Mary Worth the main male character

Spoiler alert

councils a friend to commit suicide

[close]

and we left at halftime as my wife wanted no part of that (neither did I, really). Thought it was some ill-considered reboot but a quick plot review of Wikipedia out by the bogs cements the decision for us to fuck off the remainder of $200ish worth of tickets.

Couple of weeks until wife has Pretty Woman tickets. She has drafted in Gloria for that one, Granting me a Hugh relief.

I've not seen Oklahoma, I did start watching the Hugh Jackman and Maureen Lipman version but about fifteen minutes in I was bored so turned it off, and it sounds like I made the right decision. Though when the day comes that I run out of musicals to watch (at my current rate that'll be about 2029) I may change my mind.

And I've heard bad things about Pretty Woman unfortunately, I was thinking about seeing it but this Time Out review put me off completely, so it definitely sounds like you had a lucky escape: https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/pretty-woman-the-musical-review

[famethrowa]

I've known Oklahoma all my life, on screen and stage, there's a few unsettling concepts in there and scary stuff, probably mainly down to Rod Steiger's great turn as villain Jud. The dream part where the porn women come to life and dance around is quite horrifying, and it's weird to have all this fear and mayhem backed by such jaunty tunes. Apparently James Dean did a decent audition for the Jud part but couldn't sing.