In his article "Odes to joy" in this month's Prospect, David Benedict puts the case for a genre too often dismissed as shallow. Abandoning realism for idealistic fantasy, musicals, he argues, "have the greatest vocabulary for sustained joy." Here he chooses five moments of screen pleasure from the MGM musicals season at the BFI.
1. It’s fair to say that this eye-widening sequence doesn’t exactly make the case for musicals as cinematic masterpieces, but this frankly bizarre number (watch it here) from Dancing Lady (1933) with Joan Crawford in blonde plaits and Fred Astaire’s sole screen appearance in Lederhosen (his screen debut) is certainly something to see.
2. Astaire fared far better in Broadway Melody of 1940, not least because he was partnered by Eleanor Powell. Ginger Rodgers may have been more famous and certainly a better actor, but Powell was the better dancer, arguably the finest ever to grace Hollywood. Here they are dancing Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” at the end of the movie, their breathtaking hard work and split-second timing hidden beneath devil-may-care glamour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWW6QeeVzDc
3. Even without the songs, Singin’ in the Rain (1952) would still be a knockout thanks to the script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the strongest ever written for a musical. The joyous title number is legendary and pretty much inked into the memory of everyone who has seen the picture, but the film is stuffed with numbers that show off the incomparable vocabulary of pleasure provided by movie musicals. My personal favourite is the moment where they suddenly see their way out of their creative crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu6--WBPBHo&feature=related
4. Ann Miller wasn’t just a dancer: she was a force of nature. Tapper extraordinaire, her beaming excitement heats up many a musical, nowhere more so than in Kiss Me Kate (1953), Cole Porter’s masterly revamp of The Taming of The Shrew. Miller’s glee ensures no-one misses out on the single entendre in the song about her sex life, “Tom, Dick or Harry.” Watch it here in 2D and then book to see it at during the BFI season in its original format of 3D. Anorak note: Miller’s athletic blonde partner is none other than Bob Fosse, who famously directed the 8-Oscar-winning Cabaret.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhvSpwbsTAA
5. Half a century before Mad Men, Comden & Green skewered the cynicism of then nascent TV advertising in their underrated It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) which Betty Comden privately admitted was her favourite of their films. Here’s Dolores Gray giving it all she’s got—it’s a lot—in “Thanks A Lot But No Thanks," lyrics by Comden & Green, music by André Previn. Product placement has never been more, how shall I put this, electrifying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IezpJyx1H4s
Read David Benedict's show-stopping defence of musicals, "Odes to joy," here.
1. It’s fair to say that this eye-widening sequence doesn’t exactly make the case for musicals as cinematic masterpieces, but this frankly bizarre number (watch it here) from Dancing Lady (1933) with Joan Crawford in blonde plaits and Fred Astaire’s sole screen appearance in Lederhosen (his screen debut) is certainly something to see.
2. Astaire fared far better in Broadway Melody of 1940, not least because he was partnered by Eleanor Powell. Ginger Rodgers may have been more famous and certainly a better actor, but Powell was the better dancer, arguably the finest ever to grace Hollywood. Here they are dancing Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” at the end of the movie, their breathtaking hard work and split-second timing hidden beneath devil-may-care glamour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWW6QeeVzDc
3. Even without the songs, Singin’ in the Rain (1952) would still be a knockout thanks to the script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the strongest ever written for a musical. The joyous title number is legendary and pretty much inked into the memory of everyone who has seen the picture, but the film is stuffed with numbers that show off the incomparable vocabulary of pleasure provided by movie musicals. My personal favourite is the moment where they suddenly see their way out of their creative crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu6--WBPBHo&feature=related
4. Ann Miller wasn’t just a dancer: she was a force of nature. Tapper extraordinaire, her beaming excitement heats up many a musical, nowhere more so than in Kiss Me Kate (1953), Cole Porter’s masterly revamp of The Taming of The Shrew. Miller’s glee ensures no-one misses out on the single entendre in the song about her sex life, “Tom, Dick or Harry.” Watch it here in 2D and then book to see it at during the BFI season in its original format of 3D. Anorak note: Miller’s athletic blonde partner is none other than Bob Fosse, who famously directed the 8-Oscar-winning Cabaret.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhvSpwbsTAA
5. Half a century before Mad Men, Comden & Green skewered the cynicism of then nascent TV advertising in their underrated It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) which Betty Comden privately admitted was her favourite of their films. Here’s Dolores Gray giving it all she’s got—it’s a lot—in “Thanks A Lot But No Thanks," lyrics by Comden & Green, music by André Previn. Product placement has never been more, how shall I put this, electrifying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IezpJyx1H4s
Read David Benedict's show-stopping defence of musicals, "Odes to joy," here.
