Directors Your favourite Musicals? (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

"I got the horse right here, his name is 'Paul Revere'"...

The Name is Valentine,
The odds are five to nine;
Can do, can do;
The man says the horse can do

 

[Angelo.M]

I know it's Valentine,
The morning work looks fine;
Besides the jockey's brother's a friend of mine...

 

[Dheiner]

But look at Epitaph,
He wins it by a half,
According to this here in the Telegraph...

 

[Angelo.M]

You guys wanna do another revival?

Wait a minute boys,
I hear the feed box noise,
It says the great grandfather was Equipoise...

Am I feeling a Showtunes tourney coming on?

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

The musical I watch the most is Gigi. Man the plot and dialog has become even more hysterical in the intervening years.

"Each time I see a little girl
Of five or six or seven,
I can't resist the joyous urge"



"To smile and say
Thank heaven for little girls"

How did half of the dialog ever pass the Hollywood censors back in the 1950s?

 

[Rain]

Dennis, I think you're the only person other than myself that I've ever seen admit to enjoying Gigi here on HTF.

So here's 10 favourites (no particular order or ranking) that I really dig:

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Cabaret
The Wizard of Oz
Singin' in the Rain
The Pajama Game
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
The Music Man
Olivier!
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
On the Town

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Rain,

I don't think that Gigi would have won the best picture Oscar if it didn't have a universal theme.

You and I both have suffered under parental disapproval if I may guess: you are a gay man and I am a straight man who refused the kind of superficial relationship my controlling alcoholic father tried to pressure me into (I've been celebate for over 25 years).

Gigi is the story of two people that honestly fall in love, in spite of all the social and familial pressures they encounter to have a superficial affair based upon class and money. I would hope to get more young people to see and enjoy this story. The current DVD isn't perfect but it will do as they say.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Dennis, I think you're the only person other than myself that I've ever seen admit to enjoying Gigi here on HTF

Not at all Rain. I rated this :star: :star: (out of four and one that I consider ‘worth seeing’). I wrote the following in the AFI thread:


“My wife claims to know every note and word in the music of Gigi. I, on the other hand am largely indifferent to the music (except for a couple of tunes, notably Thank Heaven for Little Girls), something that surprise me, as I quite like Learner and Lowe.

”There is lots to like, especially the aunts and most especially Hermione Gingold, who easily steals every scene where she is present. Maurice Chevailer is perfect as the jaded roué and Leslie Caron luminious as the ingénue.

”The story taken from a novel by Colette, has a bit more substance than some musicals, but that in a 50’s musical is almost beside the point. What is lacking in this musical is the music.”

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

Grease
Little Shop Of Horrors
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
Willy Wonka
Wizard of Oz
Chicago
Mary Poppins
Little Mermaid
Aladdin



Just for fun, my least favourites:
The Sound Of Music (sorry, even to me it feel wrong to say, but it's true)

 

[george kaplan]

Top 25

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. A Hard Day's Night
3. The Sound of Music
4. Top Hat
5. Grease
6. West Side Story
7. Victor/Victoria
8. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
9. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
10. The Blues Brothers
11. My Fair Lady
12. Fantasia
13. Hello, Dolly!
14. Yellow Submarine
15. In the Good Old Summertime
16. South Pacific
17. Rutles: All You Need is Cash
18. Mary Poppins
19. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
20. Hans Christian Andersen
21. Anchors Aweigh
22. The Music Man
23. Help!
24. Take Me Out to the Ballgame
25. Singin' in the Rain (I put this last because of that godawful ballet at the end. Without that it would be top 5).

 

[Steve Christou]

Singin' in the Rain (I put this last because of that godawful ballet at the end. Without that it would be top 5).

That's a poor excuse to put the greatest musical of all time last on your list George, all you have to do is hit next chapter. Btw I love that entire 10min sequence, the color is amazing. Wizard of Oz no.1 on your list and Sound of Music up there too? We def don't have the same taste in musicals Mr.Kaplan.


R.Thornhill.

 

[Arman]

Singin' In The Rain
A Hard Day's Night
Dancer in The Dark
Oliver!
Topsy-Turvy
Moulin Rouge
My Fair Lady
Yellow Submarine
Help!
Grease

 

[george kaplan]

Well Steve, for a long time I didn't even buy Singin' in the Rain on dvd. Then I figured, what the hell, I'll just skip that part. Oh, boy, did I ever hear it about director's vision and how dare I, etc. So, if I listed Singin' in the Rain highly and point out that I'm only talking about an excised version, I'd get flack. With the film intact, as the director envisioned, including the ballet scene, it's #25, and that's being damned generous. One part of a film can easily ruin the whole thing.

No we don't. I put music and singing talent above dancing in a musical, and that moves most of the films in your list way down on mine.

 

[Hunter P]

I'm too lazy to condense my favs into a top 10 but I did have to give major props to my man Freddy who is the shiznit.

Sure he wasn't the greatest singer and songs had to be written within his range but the man could dance. Singing, dancing, acting, comedy are all equal elements to a musical's overall entertainment.

Fred's movies had the best songs. Two of his movies (Shall We Dance and Swing Time) had some of my favorite songs of all time in any genre. Take a look at this list of hits and tell me if you are still not impressed:

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" - Shall We Dance
"Shall We Dance" - Shall We Dance
"They All Laughed" - Shall We Dance
"Pick Yourself Up" - Swing Time
"The Way You Look Tonight" - Swing Time (My all time fav)
"A Fine Romance" - Swing Time
"Night and Day" - The Gay Divorcee
"Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" - Top Hat
"Cheek to Cheek" - Top Hat
"White Christmas" - Holiday Inn (Co-starring Bing Crosby. I see this film every Xmas.)
"Be Careful, It's My Heart" - (OK, Bing sung it)
"Come To Holiday Inn" - Holiday Inn (I'm humming this tune now.)
"'S Wonderful" - Funny Face
"Nice Work If You Can Get It" - A Damsel in Distress

And there are a lot more.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I put music and singing talent above dancing in a musical, and that moves most of the films in your list way down on mine.

Clears up a bit George. In the end most musicals’ casting turns out to involve some pretty heavy compromises, as the demands of acting, singing, dancing and on screen looks/persona/chemistry are considered. And often even the music involves a great deal of compromise, because the original casting (frequently for the stage) had a singer or two of limited range—so the composer just had to write music to fit the performer.

Leonard Bernstein, for example envisioned opera singers when he wrote the music for West Side Story. Naturally, none would have fit into Jerome Robbins staging, so that was out for the first casting. And of course in the movie, we have a lead who can’t sing at all and is at best adequate as a dancer. So Maria’s singing is all someone else. But there is a two CD version with Bernstein conducting his own music, selecting Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras to sing Maria and Tony.

It takes a bit of getting used to hearing a Broadway musical sung by voices like this, but it is truly enchanting when you make the mental switch.

 

[Erik.Ha]

Although It's technically an "opera" not a "musical":

Jesus Christ Superstar

 

[george kaplan]

Lew,

I actually have that cd. The funny thing is hearing the uncensored Gee, Officer Krupke coming out of the operatic singers, while the film soundtrack of course has the censored one.

 

[Hunter P]

To add to this, most of these actors were under studio contract to keep churning out movies. Singers had straight dramatic roles. Dancers may have starred in a comedy. Hell, even James Stewart was in a couple of musicals.

Very hard to find the triple (or quadruple) threat talents.

 

[george kaplan]

Did he sing? Bogart was in at least one (It All Came True), but it was a nonsinging role.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Singin' in the Rain (I put this last because of that godawful ballet at the end. Without that it would be top 5).

Kind of harsh for a film that has no ballet sequence at the end. You have SITR confused with An American in Paris, released a year earlier.