THE BEST MUSICAL FILMS OF ALL TIME

Reproduced from the book "Best Musicians, Singers, Albums and Entertainment Personalities of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries", Volume V of World Who's Who in Jazz, Cabaret, Music and Entertainment.

Photos from L to R: 1-Alice Fay and Tyrone Power in Irwing Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche with Ethel Merman and Jack Haley. Alice Faye nee Alice Jeanne Leppert, was one of the greatest and brightest musical stars of the 1930s and 40s. In the film “Hello Frisco, Hell” (1943), she introduced the OSCAR winning song “You'll Never Know” that was especially written for her. She was born on September 05, 1902 in Wahoo, Nebraska, and died on December 22, 1979. Career highlights: All About Eve, 42nd Street, How Green Was My Valley.

Photo:  2-Poster of “The Music Man” starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, directed by Morton DaCosta.When Warner Brothers bought the screen rights, they wanted a star with a bigger name in the lead role; their first choices were Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant. But Preston was destined to play Professor Harold Hill.

 

The 1960’s witnessed the end of the big musical golden age, because of the rising cost of production, the drastic change in audience tastes and age. Today’s cinema audience consists of young people,  been brought up with MTV and films filled with violence, Kungfu Karate stuff and infested with cheap sexual scenes, drugs, guns with hysterical shapes, forms and use. Consequently, there is no more room for polite, heart-felt films with substance, family oriented themes, rich with musical numbers, acts and delightful songs. That beautiful era is gone, despite huge successes of current films with singing and dancing like “Moulin Rouge” and “Chicago”. There was a time when movies like “The Sound of Music”, “My Fair Lady”; “Cabaret”; “Oliver” attracted audiences in the millions around the globe and won avalanches of Oscars. Thanks to Mr. Robert Osborne and TCM channel, we still have the means and opportunities to watch and enjoy those rare treasures.