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Priscilla
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Priscilla

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PostSubject: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptySun 10 Aug 2014, 11:48

Sky Arts gave a 13 episode history of the musical film genre - 'Hollywood Singing and Dancing' which was absorbing, informative and even thought provoking. Few excerpts were shown though many films were named and many more than I had realised made. The  many waves of development and reasons for them gave for a fascinating history. ... and enough material out thee to have a musical only channel. Anyone admittin to having  favourite musicals? One of mine was a flop - Ken Russel's 'The Boy Friend' - and the dance sequences in 'Seven Brides...' were so very good.
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PaulRyckier
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PaulRyckier

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptySun 10 Aug 2014, 22:55

Priscilla,

don't say I didn't my best...
The definitive list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_films_by_year
From that I saw:
1937: Snow white (Disney)
1940: Fantasia (Disney)
          Pinochio    "
1941: Road to Zanzibar
1950: Cinderella
1951: Alice in wonderland
          An American in Paris
          The great Caruso
          Show boat
1952: The greatest show on earth
1953: Calamity Jane
          Desert song (not sure what version I saw along the years there were several versions) (I saw it also once on stage
          in London)
          Peter Pan
1954: French can can
1955: Oklahoma!
1956: The King and I
1959: Sleeping beauty
1961: West Side story
1964: Mary Poppins
         My fair lady
1965: The sound of music
1966: The singing nun (because it was about a Belgian one)
1967: Doctor Dolittle
         Jungle book
1969: Oh What a lovely war
1970: The aristocats
1971: Bedknobs and broomsticks
1994: The lion king
1995: Pocahontas
2000: Fantasia 2000

Priscilla, why these...? Because that are the ones shown in Ostend Belgium at the time...the three latest ones I saw on disc...

Kind regards from your friend Paul nearing also the age when needing some assistance from the wider society...Lucky that we don't live in Syria, Irak for the moment...or Liberia...or choose from a wide range of other examples...
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PaulRyckier
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PaulRyckier

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyMon 11 Aug 2014, 22:31

Priscilla,

did some research for the "Desert Song"
and found this:
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls005354858?ref_=ttpl_rls_1

And there were three versions of the film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Desert_Song_(1929_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Desert_Song_(1943_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Desert_Song_(1953_film)
I saw the 1953 film...
And unbelievable I found the musicals back that I saw in London during a visit of one week...in 1967...first time in my life in an English theatre...first time in my life in England...what an experience...and finding it all back push old experiences again remembering the in my eyes of then the "special" atmosphere of an English mucical theatre...

And yes due to this references I saw in 1967 at the Piccadily theatre the musical "Oliver" and in the same week "Desert Song" in the Palace theatre...
http://overthefootlights.co.uk/1967-1968.pdf
The WWW search robots...what a "machines"...


And in my message of yesterday I forgot to mention the start in our Belgian "cinémas" of the Cinemascope beginning the Fifties? What and experience...we in the middle nearly surrounded by the big screen, the sound running around the hall by the several loud speakers placed in every corner of the hall...I still feel after all those years the excitement, especially with the musicals...


From the 1953 "Desert Song":






Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.
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Gilgamesh of Uruk
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Gilgamesh of Uruk

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyMon 11 Aug 2014, 22:40

Paul : I remember being taken as an end of term treat to see "My Fair Lady" and "The Sound of Music" in different years, to the nearest Cinemascope cinema. Don't suppose any school these days would regard a film musical as appropriate fare for 18-y-o boys!
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nordmann
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nordmann

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyMon 11 Aug 2014, 22:54

Is this thread only about Hollywood musicals? Shame - there were some great British ones over the years (even before Oliver!).

However Hollywood before the Hayes "code" forced everyone into single beds with no more nude arms or legs and with all profanities exorcised was also very interesting. "Murder at the Vanities" from 1934 had a rake of great songs in it. "Cocktails For Two" - later a huge hit for Spike Jones and his City Slickers - made its debut in that film. As did this curious (but lovely) number ...



(check for a glimpse of an extremely young Lucille Ball towards the end)
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Priscilla
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Priscilla

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyTue 12 Aug 2014, 19:16

The thread title stems from Hollywood claiming the film musical as their founding of the art form. I have no idea about the first British musical - or if many other countries have produced a lively musical...... surely not Russia?

The  TV series that was so interesting delved into the changes - ie from stage based stories to  others whilst handling the dialogue suddenly becoming a song and dance act that  overcame this production bump smoothly. Europe of course had opera and pantomime  stage models so was not so self conscious, I guess. I had no idea how many have been made. Elvis, for instance, made over 20 musicals; not memorable for the most part, apparently.
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Gilgamesh of Uruk
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Gilgamesh of Uruk

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyTue 12 Aug 2014, 22:17

Priscilla wrote:
The thread title stems from Hollywood claiming the film musical as their founding of the art form. I have no idea about the first British musical - or if many other countries have produced a lively musical...... surely not Russia?

Bollywood?
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Caro
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Caro

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyTue 12 Aug 2014, 22:21

I have no idea about early musical movie forms, but I feel that many of the Chinese films on the plane home (flying Air Singapore there are lots of these, as well as English and Indian and European ones)  would be musicals. Not so sure about Indian Bollywood ones.

Not great musicals but some of the ones I think immediately transport me to my childhood.  I have seen The Student Prince with Mario Lanza's voice five times, since it was grandmother's favourite film.  (How did we get anywhere to see it so often?)  No, more like six or seven now, having watched it on television since then.  And our holidays are entwined with movies like Tammy and On Moonlight Bay. We seemed to combine seaside holidays with movie-going.  My father's favourite actress was Debbie Reynolds, so that explains Tammy, I suppose. (Though if you tell me Tammy wasn't played by Debbie, it won't surprise me too much.  My memory for these things is sometimes a little distorted.)

Was the Scottish Geordie a musical? I remember that fondly.  And Brigadoon less fondly, since it frightened me for reasons I can't seem to find if I watch it now. 

Most of these movies I have mentioned don't seem to be Hollywood at all. Lots of the ones Paul mentioned came originally from stage shows before movies, but ones (lighter ones?) like Elvis's began as movies.

We have really enjoyed some of those Busby Berkeley's extravaganzas without much plot or characterisation, but with a great deal of song and dance.  Gold Diggers of 33 and 35, for example.
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Triceratops
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Triceratops

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyWed 13 Aug 2014, 12:12

The Busby Berkeley style Klan rally from O Brother Where Art Thou




OBWAT, a Hollywood musical or a movie with a perfectly nuanced soundtrack?

btw, it is based on Homer's Odyssey
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PaulRyckier
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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyWed 13 Aug 2014, 20:13

Triceratops,

perhaps in Belgium the access is otherwise. For me it is blocked because it contains something from universal pictures...But found
 this:




and also the Syrenes...but I too prudish  Wink (Dutch: preuts ) to publish...
But you are right about the soundtrack...

Kind regards. Your friend Paul.

PS: Since I did research on the WWW about "hats"...continually French advertisements of "hats" on "my" Res Historica...because I stay  in Belgique and I sought on French sites... Twisted Evil ?
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PaulRyckier
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PaulRyckier

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyWed 13 Aug 2014, 21:31

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:
Paul : I remember being taken as an end of term treat to see "My Fair Lady" and "The Sound of Music" in different years, to the nearest Cinemascope cinema. Don't suppose any school these days would regard a film musical as appropriate fare for 18-y-o boys!


Gil, yes "My Fair Lady"...was that a musical for me...even at my twenty and so years old...
As the:




And the full movie:



Gil, every week to the cinema...my sister and I...first with our grandmother...three cinemas in our small town near Ghent...even beginning the Fifties still black and white...and I still not able to read the subtitles to the end before the next subtitles...and then with the parents every week in Ostend...the ambiance of sitting in the middle of a group of people with all their typical stifled sounds...the smell of the carpet all around, on the floor, the walls, the chairs...and then the "intermission?"...with the lady with the "Friscos" (ice cream)...special flavour, and all the same in the 11 cinemas of Ostend...some years ago again that flavour in an ice cream...and immediately again the rememberance of the cinemas of the olden times...

Your friend from the olden times and still your friend, Paul.
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Triceratops
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Triceratops

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PostSubject: Re: Hollywood Musicals   Hollywood Musicals EmptyThu 14 Aug 2014, 10:55

PaulRyckier wrote:
Triceratops,


and also the Syrenes...but I too prudish  Wink (Dutch: preuts ) to publish...
But you are right about the soundtrack...

Kind regards. Your friend Paul.


I know what you mean, Paul. When watching the dvd, I usually rewind the Syrens sequence 2 or 3 times.
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