I am prepared to fight about this with you.
“The Broadway Melody,” Singin’ In The Rain
If I were not in such a generous and expansive mood, I would also ditch “You Are My Lucky Star,” when Debbie Reynolds has to stand on a ladder and listen to Gene Kelly say things like “I’m such a ham” in self-adoring tones. It doesn’t fit. She’s supposed to be the bright, peppy, modern love interest IN CONTRAST to all that “I love you, I love you, I love you” Dueling Cavalier business.
But I am feeling generous and expansive, so I will just trim the “Broadway Melody” sequence. YES, it’s a great song. YES, it’s funny when R.F. says “I can’t quite picture it” at the end. YES, Cyd Charisse is a great lady with some really tremendous thighs. But it adds nothing! There’s just…a third love interest, now, in the middle of a movie about the movie. And that ballet sequence. I am, as a rule, against balletic interludes in the middle of athletic, high-action musicals, and this is the worst of them all. (Obviously the ballet-dancing they’re doing is, you know, good. The proficiency of Gene Kelly’s balleting is not the problem here.) It’s slow. It drags. It advances the plot 0%. It has to go.
“Dream Ballet,” Oklahoma!
NO MORE BALLET SEQUENCES SHOEHORNED INTO MOVIE MUSICALS THAT ARE NOT ABOUT BALLET. NO MORE FOURTEEN-MINUTE MUSICAL NUMBERS. KEEP IT UNDER SIX MINUTES, LIFE IS SHORT.
“I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today,” Avenue Q
This song is only forty-five seconds long, and awful. How did this not get cut.
“Ballet,” An American In Paris
YOU FUCKING GUESSED IT ANOTHER FUCKING BALLET SEQUENCE WITH GENE KELLY IN A NUDE BODYSTOCKING
“Triplets,” The Band Wagon
Oh, absolutely not.
Tags: fighting, musicals, overlong ballet sequences, things mallory does for no reason
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What about non-ballet songs in musicals that are just there for a star to dance? Like Ann-Margret’s number in State Fair, is that allowed? I remember it being really weird.
Yeah but then you might have to start cutting Harpo’s songs in Marx Brothers movies so YES YES CUT THOSE SUCKERS
I knew the Dream Ballet from Oklahoma! was going to be in here, and if it wasn’t I would fight about it. How useless and it goes on FOR FUCKING EVER.
True story: there was an improve troupe in Philly a few years back that would improvise musicals. So, their run of Rogers and Hammerstein-style shows featured a different plot with different music every night, all prompted by audience suggestion, but they improvised everything to be consistent with classic R&H style. So, yep, there was always a dream ballet in the middle of every made-up show.
Dream ballets = NO
Lovingly parodied dream ballets = YES
And it’s SO CREEPY. UGH. As someone who had to perform Oklahoma!, I was very glad none of us were proficient dancers, let alone had experience in ballet (except for that one guy, but he was ridiculously talented, so).
Favorite musical, used to watch EVERY SINGLE day the summer after 5th grade cause I was SUPER cool … and every time I skipped the GOD DAMN BALLET SEQUENCE … not only was it horrible but it also gave me the heebie jeebies somehow …
But! But! But! Dream Curly is played/danced by James Mitchell, better known as All My Children’s Palmer Cortland, and he is so young and dreamy.
I loved Palmer Cortlandt, but James Mitchell in this sequence is kind of scary.
Am I right in remembering a very similar gawd-awful DB in Carousel?
YES but I don’t think it’s as long.
I am so glad there are others who have experienced the abject horror of the Oklahoma! dream sequence. Played on loop that thing could be a form of torture – Hell, Seeing it once is torture enough! I thought I was alone in my seething hatred but as usual the toasties prove me wrong 🙂
One thing I truly advise against is falling asleep whilst watching said dream sequence for I speak from experience when I say there is a real risk you will drift off into your own. The dance will Chassé seamlessly from the screen to your subconscious and before you know it you are lost in a ballet dream sequence that NEVER ENDS. The pirouettes force you round in circles again and again and again. Layers of voile drift across your vision and the strings swell to a cresendo that never reaches its peak. Strong, graceful arms throw you from one dramatic backdrop to another but you just keep dancing dancing dancing. . . The “Dream Ballet” is a dangerous, dangerous thing.
We all know Gene Kelly can dance. We don’t need to see him dance for 15 minutes to prove it. Even if it does mean we get to see Cyd Charisse vamping up a storm.
In a related note: Tom and Lorenzo are bringing back Musical Mondays for this month and it is glorious. It’s the Christmas present I never dreamed I would get.
We’ve all seen this right?
http://genekellysbutt.tumblr.com/
No, but I know what I’m doing after work.
There goes my afternoon.
alkdflkasjdhflakjsdhalkjsdhfalkjdhflajsdhfalkjsdhflkjasdkfjh ‘scuse me, BRB.
It’s so perky!
I have found the best Tumblr. OMG.
Bless this post.
I had never seen Tom and Lorenzo’s Musical Mondays until yesterday, and fell down a glorious rabbit hole of bitchery and vagina hats.
I adore Musical Mondays and missed them dearly. I think their “White Christmas” review might be my favorite of all time, though their love of the Baroness in “Sound of Music” runs a close second. I admit, I was kind of relieved when they realized they couldn’t actively make light of Fiddler. That would have been an interesting one…
Ahhhhh, my two favorite websites are COLLIDING.
Right? Tis amazing and magical!
THEY ARE???? *runs off to other favorite website lickety-split*
I did not know this and now I’m SO EXCITED. MUSICAL MONDAYS FOREVER.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
But seriously: Musical Mondays?! How have I never heard about this?!
I feel betrayed by you Mallory.
I always skip “On the Street Where You Live” in My Fair Lady. I don’t know if I hate it just because of Jeremy Brett and I don’t know if I care. It’s probably scarred me from ever loving any rendition of it ever. AND I don’t think it’s all that important to the plot. We get it. You love her like a lot. Whatever.
My favorite Disney prince was Phillip, and the same singer dubbed Jeremy Brett in that movie (also, no one told him he’d been dubbed until after the fact, so he saw the movie and was like “I sound rather good!” which I find a hilarious anecdote), so I think that makes me like it? I forgive My Fair Lady of far too many of its sins, though.
Brett could sing beautifully. He just wasn’t the vocal type for the role. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrMBdQm9P10
(Aside — how is Jeremy Brett’s presence putting anyone off anything?!)
how is Jeremy Brett’s presence putting anyone off anything
SERIOUSLY. I try REALLY HARD not to judge other people’s tastes, but I am failing here. He’s just so magnetic, mesmerizing, arresting. GAH. EVERYTHING.
I’m stuck on this point, as well.
I’m OK with Mr. Brett, with the song. But it sure does push my buttons. It’s stalking! It’s the same goddamned logic my own stalker used to camp out across the street from *my* door when I lived alone. It’s creepy as fuck and sends me into really bad memories.
I always skip the whole of My Fair Lady, to be honest
I’ve always loved that song, if only because it’s the only one in the show wherein I can hit all the notes.
(I did not know that that was Jeremy Brett until just now, and I’m kind of mad at myself)
It’s just such a boring song.
I watch that scene, but mostly because he’s Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes singing that song is just funny.
The ballet sequence in American in Paris always cracks me up because the nude hat and body stocking make Gene Kelly look like a penis. I don’t care if they were basing it on a Toulouse-Lautrec painting. PENIS.
I also don’t understand the ballet in Oklahoma. I just…no.
I will fight you about The Triplets, because that shit’s hilarious, even though wtf it has to do with the rest of the movie? Nothing. BUT NONE OF THE OTHER SONGS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT EITHER. More beer! Be in love with Louisa! Go on a Louisiana hayride! Bring on the triplets!
Holy crap, I completely forgot Louisiana Hayride. You’re going to cut Triplet and leave that piece of tripe, wtf?
Hear hear. Also, the Shoeshine sequence…lots of racist overtones there. Leroy Daniels dances the shit out of his part, but yeah. 🙁
I always thought he looked like a giant dancing condom. It could really put a girl off safe sex.
His actual junk is also pretty prominent in that suit. Doesn’t help.
I was so ready to fight about this, but nope, I agree completely.
Especially because I was Dream Ballet Laurey in 8th grade and not Ado Annie and that was an Unacceptable Time.
Gene Kelly’s posterior is a thing of joy and beauty forever and I will brook no slander against it. That nude body stocking deserves a goddamn lifetime achievement award in the field of Being Seriously Fine.
COSIGNED. Seriously… dat ass.
The AiP ballet scene has been, and will always be, a source of joy for me… LOVE.
I remember that I had never given much thought to men’s butts in high school, but then I saw An American in Paris when I was seventeen and Gene Kelly’s ass opened a brand new, beautiful world to me.
I have always loved this movie, and the ballet sequence, and the first dance at my wedding was Our Love is Here to Stay (Ella Fitzgerald version, natch). So, Team Gene Kelly’s Butt, obviously.
You know about the Tumblr for it, yeah?
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME!
What a lovely thing! Thank you so much, that bookmark is going right beside the one with Charlie Hunam’s butt.
OMG I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS
Truth. Such a butt.
That is the only one of these sequences I’ve never seen so I thought that as a leading ladyscientist in the field of Dat Ass Studies I should give it a whirl. Unfortunately I’m at work so had to keep it on mute. That introductory minute of grooving is SERIOUSLY peculiar without music.
In defense of the Dream Ballet, all of the rest of Oklahoma! is dumb.
Yes. Yes it is.
My favorite thing I’ve ever next-day found in my google searches is an angry, frustrated “DOES EVERYONE ADMIT OKLAHOMA MUSICAL IS TERRIBLE”
Everyone who doesn’t is a liar.
I’m surprised repeated renditions of “Pretty Little Surrey” wasn’t listed in the CIA torture report, honestly.
Can on my hear Harry and Sally singing Surry With A Fringe On Top – in front of Ira!!!
Even “Pore Jud is Daid?” The song about trying to pimp the creeper into committing suicide? It’s a shame he won’t keep, but it’s summer and we’re running out of ice!
NO! Why would you even? (And yes, I have written long scholarly articles on Oklahoma!).
I stand behind my assertion that Oklahoma is reactionary hogwash and a cynical pantomime of Americana whose only merit is in formalizing a musical tradition that we were all better off without, anyway.
Unlike The Music Man, which is brilliant.
I love The Music Man. Note to self: find it streaming somewhere.
I would read those.
I agree. I really don’t care for Oklahoma! but I do love Hugh Jackman’s version of “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” from the 1999 cast recording. Only his version, though. The fact that we had to watch that performance repeatedly in my 9th grade Drama class may have brainwashed me into loving it, but I stand by it as being 100% charming (Jackman’s performance, not necessarily the song on its own).
It may be too obvious (also definitely don’t want to find out if it’s on youtube), but family members gathered around to watch White Christmas one year, and apparently someone at the studio decided not to cut “I’d Rather See a Minstrel Show” from the re-issue. 🙁
Yeah, that’s pretty awkward these days. 🙁
White Christmas: the Christmas movie that climaxes with a wistful song about the plight of retired generals.
I’ve never seen a version of White Christmas without the Minstrel Show song, but I’d fully support that. I had no idea what a minstrel show was when I watched this movie 7,000 times as a kid, but that scene is painfully difficult to watch as an adult (even though the child in me still wants Vera Ellen’s red sequined gloves).
I’ve always preferred Holiday Inn to White Christmas, which ironically has a better rendition of Bing singing White Christmas. However, it *also* has a cringe-inducing minstrel number that requires fast-forwarding.
I agree that Holiday Inn is way better! Did you know that the hit song from that movie was supposed to be “It’s Not My Watch You’re Holding”? SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, people liked the song “White Christmas” much better.
I have seen Holiday Inn approximately one billion times and I barely know the words to “It’s Not My Watch You’re Holding.” That was just not destined to be a hit.
Holiday Inn also has Fred Astaire dancing, so it is the obvious winner. But that musical number is actually just the worst. I came to this post hoping someone else would mention how badly it needs to be cut.
I tried to watch White Christmas either last year or the year before and felt like I was being tortured. I finally stopped…sometime after they hit Vermont. I can’t remember how far past that I got; I was too busy trying to figure out why it’s a classic.
That is definitely the number I’d cut. LOVE the movie – don’t know why others on this thread hate it after the train, but I would always fast forward through the Minstrel Number.
Huh. You’re right. Balletic interludes are the worst.
Yes thank you ALL OF THEM. eeesh.
X1000.
I mean, I was a musicals obsessed kid, but @#%%#ing balletic interludes.
BEST OF CALLS on The Bandwagon. That triplets number is fully why I find the movie-geek support for The Bandwagon, sometimes even at the expense of Singin’ in the Rain, baffling at best and borderline insane at worst. Nothing with adult babies can be better than anything without adult babies. But it can never be cut; even if every copy of the movie is burned (or judiciously edited), it will live forever in my nightmares.
Absolutely agree on the two Gene Kelly ones. How about “Thank God for Little Girls” from Gigi? I know theories have been presented to try to make that song less sinister, but dear god. Terrifying.
I can’t ever watch GIGI again because the whole thing is a giant cringe.
Actually, I’ve given up Leslie Caron movies 100% because I made the mistake of seeing THE GLASS SLIPPER a few months ago and it was this giant nightmare of long, drawn-out ballet dream sequences and I keep thinking of it when I think of her, and it’s horrible.
This is, in fact, a deep problem with a large number of Leslie Caron movies.
That song turned me into a lifelong Maurice Chevalier hater. Nope, nope, can’t watch anything with him in it.
I started to watch some version of THE MERRY WIDOW a couple of months back (I think it was during TCM’s Pre-Code theme month?) and guess who’s a central character but young Maurice Chevalier!
I nope’d so hard and so fast.
Then I found out the movie is basically an opera so 100% slow boring songs and I regret the decision even less.
Even the less sinister read on that song is “I can’t wait until these girls are old enough for me to sleep with,” so.
Also from Gigi, “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight” just because they clearly drugged the shit out of that cat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXywvNDtjKY
But … Cyd Charisse’s thighs. And I’m pretty sure the way she takes off nerd Gene Kelly’s glasses was instrumental to my sexual awakening
YES. I don’t think my parents fully understood why I loved the flapper dancing sequence so much as a kid. Hell, I didn’t fully understand how I could be so friggin attracted to both principle dancers at once. Yowza.
Yes, Cyd Charisse in the green dress and shoes, with that hot jazz version of “Broadway Melody” playing all the while! I’ve always wanted to be her in that moment, holding Gene Kelly’s Hat on my extended foot.
Yes. That one moment – yes.
So true. Also, her feet. Those arches, man.
“Oklahoma!” is why we can’t have nice things.
I just went back and reread the plot after not seeing it for years, and holy shit, yeah.
I like the idea of watching musicals a lot more than actually watching them (two exceptions: Singin’ in the Rain and Diamond Horseshoe). The solution is to watch the “That’s Entertainment” documentaries. It’s all the best numbers and showpieces strung together by interviews from MGM stars.
And Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire do a dance number together in one of them! It always makes me teary to watch that bit.
I also submit the minstrel show number in White Christmas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_loMMpJEABI
and “Tiny Scout” from An Affair to Remember:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQR9hSx1xZM
Minstral show number = sooooo awkward at the end, with this big finish, and then Susan and the General and the maid just sit there and clap awkwardly in that big empty ski lodge (I think we’ve established that the lodge is…ideal).
Let’s add in both the “Choreography” and “Abraham” sequences from that movie, because the former is stupid, and the latter is the homage to the horribly racist blackface routine from “Holiday Inn.”
I love musicals but I really really really hate extended dance sequences of any sort, whether they’re tap or ballet or whatever. Which is weird! Because I like those things when they’re separate from musicals! But they never advance the story and they generally have barely any singing and it’s just frustrating because I want to get back to either story or singing, you know, whichever.
that’s what I was thinking as I was watching all the stupid stupid Fred/Ginger movies, but then I saw Eleanor Powell and Buddy Ebsen in one of the BROADWAY MELODIES and I got distracted by how hilarious and fun their dancing was and those movies are really just excuses to showcase some athletically interesting tap numbers anyway. The plot doesn’t matter.
That scene can be cut if we replace Gene Kelly’s character with Cyd Charisse’s gams (which likely have more acting range and emotive qualities than Cyd Charisse herself).
Sound of Music: The Lonely Goatherd
CREEEED AAAARMS
Ha! That was always my favorite song as a kid because for some reason I loved the yodeling. Loved it like mad.
I sing it to myself occasionally when the mood strikes me. I adored it.
Now, Edelweiss can go. Blah blah beloved staple blah blah character development but OH MY GOD THAT SONG IS SO SLOW AND BORING. Give me Climb Ev’ry Mountain please.
I would have banned Climb Every Mountain when I was a kid, but now I love it and it gives me chills. And I’ll keep The Lonely Goatherd because <3. But I’m meh about Edelweiss, which is, you know, not actually a traditional Austrian song.
Now that I will fight you on. I maybe sing that song to my daughter. (I totally sing that song to my daughter. So much fun to sing!)
My mom sang that to me as my special lullaby (all of us kids had one), so I have such sentimental feelings about it, and I I will stand with you in this fight.
When I was a kid, my mom always wanted to watch Sound of Music when it was on TV (which was at least twice a month at peak times of the year, especially the holidays for some reason) and I always fell asleep before the end. When I finally watched it all the way through, many many years later, I was like “Wait, Nazis? Where did they come from? What happened to the lighthearted singing?”
ME TOO! We had the Sound of Music on VHS and it was split on 2 tapes and the first one ended with the Von Trapp wedding and I thought that was the end of the movie until I was in high school. “Whoa, Nazis!?” indeed.
I had the same experience!
I had a similar experience with Gone with the Wind – I always fell asleep (or was sent to bed) well before the end, so years later I was like, “wait, they’re burning Atlanta? I don’t remember this.”
YES YES YES to that ridiculous The Broadway Melody — an especial misjudgment in such a fast-paced, zippy movie such as “Singing in the Rain”
I always felt that whatever fink dropped that in the book did Betty & Adolph a great disservice- but they shoehorned it into the plot in a way that almost made sense despite it.
I always have trouble remembering that Broadway Melody was not, in fact, a number in American in Paris, because god, but that movie is full of boring dream ballets. Amazingly well-crafted ballets, displaying astonishing athletic prowess, but soooo boooooooooring.
Agree with all of these. Also, “Shriner’s Ballet” from Bye Bye Birdie should be burned with fire.
It’s not a dance but I always want to fast forward “Something Good” from the Sound of Music because it’s terrible.
I love the message/etc. of the song, but it does totally drag. Pretty sure that was always when I wandered out for a snack when I watched the movie as a little girl
Oh my god yes. By that point of the movie I am at music overload and wish Maria would express some feelings without song.
The good news is that Christopher Plummer totally agrees with you. He thought it was preposterous to have to sing with his face so close to Julie Andrews (I personally would never deny myself the chance to be that close to Dame Julie, but w/e). I read something that said doing The Sound of Music is one of Christopher Plummer’s greatest regrets and he would scornfully call it “The Sound of Mucus.”
That is so disappointing to me! I had such a crush on him in that movie.
I always considered it an odd song for a former Catholic nun to be singing. Theologically problematic, given the importance of ex nihilo to Catholic doctrine.
I was thinking every Busby Berkeley number that involves Billy Barty dressed as a little kid/baby.
I will expand that to every Busby Berkeley number ever.
To defend Avenue Q, “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today” makes more sense in the context of the actual plot – if I remember right, it’s sung by the one guy who wants to be a comedian while he’s the warm-up act for another performer, to show that he totally sucks as a comedian. It’s dumb to include it on the soundtrack, though, it could have easily been left out.
I was coming down to say this, too! It is supposed to be awful but is, of course, eminently skippable on the soundtrack.
Can-can gal in the American in Paris sequence is clearly practicing resistance to compulsory heterosexuality:
Oh good Gene Kelly
In a nude bodystocking
while I’m dancing
here with my friends
(dances around him while avoiding eye contact)
I don’t think anyone’s going to fight about this with me, but the (blackface!) “Washington’s Birthday” number from Holiday Inn, which serves no plot purpose (and is often cut from broadcasts of the film), could have been cut without anybody noticing, especially since Washington’s Birthday has fallen out of favor as a holiday.
I actually didn’t see it until I watched a DVD of Holiday Inn in 2011. which was about 15 years after I feel in love with the movie, and now I don’t love it as much any more.
(aaand now I have “Happy Holidays” in my head. Thanks A LOT, Toast!)
aaand now you’ve convinced me that it’s almost time for the annual White Christmas/Holiday Inn watch-a-thon, thanks
so there’s that one Fred/Ginger one (is it “Shall We Dance” or another?) where he does the Mr. Bojangles number at the end that is fucking terrifying and also blackface and i wish that it would be cut out of repeated airings.
Oh yeah that. Apparently that was a “tribute” to his friend BIll Robinson, and there’s a huuuge debate in the dance and film worlds about whether or not it should hang around. The NY Times did a piece on it a couple years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/arts/dance/30as…
(I am of the opinion that it’s a tribute in the same vein as the name of the Washington NFL team, but I am not an expert)
Ooh, I’ll have to read that! The whole number is just so bizarre/disturbing that I have to squint through my fingers until the giant Mr Bojangles thing goes away. Also, I think there’s that ballet dancer who does a backbend en pointe that I can’t look at.
This is like my mom’s FAVORITE MOVIE and I hadn’t seen it until a few years ago, on DVD, with Washington’s Birthday and I was SO uncomfortable. IT’S HER FAVORITE MOVIE?
It’s one of my favorite movies, too. I just skip that part.
I just saw a display of DVDs of Holiday Inn at the store, and was actually surprised to see them sitting there without, like, a warning sticker or something. “Parental Advisory: ACTUAL BLACKFACE MUSICAL NUMBER.” Maybe they were an edited re-release? But I didn’t see any indication either way.
Amen, sister! My mom and I always sat down to watch Holiday Inn when it was broadcast in the late 70’s and 80’s (you know, back when you watched a holiday special the one time it aired, or you missed out ’til next year), and it’s special to me due to that. I never knew about the blackface scene until my first year living on my own. Homesick and trying to create some comfort, I scraped together enough cash to buy the DVD and sat down to watch. All of my warm nostalgia evaporated in one horrifying moment. Now I’m mom to a biracial daughter, and Holiday Inn is NOT part of our Christmas traditions.
Oh man, how awful.
You should revive the tradition and watch the Simpsons parody of it instead. 100% fewer blackface numbers! http://seekcartoon.com/watch/27541-the-simpsons-s…
“When Black Folks lived in slavery/ who was it set the darkie free/ ABRAHAAAAAAM”
It is horribly and irrevocably seared into my memories, and I wish I could take that part of my brain out and scrub it, because ALL THE NOPES THAT WERE EVER CREATED.
oh man apparently my subconscious is very merciful, because I have misremembered it to the point that I thought it was Washington’s birthday, not Lincolns.
Anyway, gross, gross gross.
Washington’s birthday is the one when they’re all inexplicably dressed in 1789 French costumes, and Bing changes the tempo from the minuet to the jazzy number whenever Fred gets handy with Linda Mason. “I’m Linda Mason.”
Right you are! You see that I haven’t seen this movie since I watched the DVD.
The more I think about it, the odder it is that there are three musical numbers (and thus three weekends!) for February, when there really only needs to be one for the sake of the plot.
Look, remembering the “ABRAHAAAAAM” bit is bad enough, I don’t need you reminding me of the other lyrics! D:
I’m so sorry! I just tried to edit it and I can’t. I should have thought better before posting the lyric.
Aaah, I didn’t mean that I was actually angry, sorry to worry you! And I think comments become un-edit-able once they’ve been replied to.
And even though I get why, the ballet dancers are TOTALLY DIFFERENT PEOPLE and it freaks me out. I used to watch Oklahoma! on VHS and fast forward through that damn ballet every time.
Yes, but no, but yes, but no. On all of them. I mean, I feel you. Growing up watching movie musicals, we always skipped the dream ballets. And we had to manually fast-forward those VHS tapes, so you know the devotion was real. But now, as someone who studies and teaches musicals and movie musicals, those dream ballets, especially Broadway Melody, are so cool to write and think and talk and teach about! I see the light! Except that I guess I’d still rather READ about the Oklahoma! dream ballet than WATCH the dream ballet, so…
ALSO! Can we talk more about Lucky Star? Ugh, the worst. Yes, one of the most teachable scenes in the movie, but UGH THE WORST. Cut that first. And there are so many dream ballets unnamed here – Carousel, Silk Stockings, On the Town… Why were these so trendy? Where was the innovator who would lead us out of this dark land of dream ballets?
Ok, Lucky Star is for sure painful to watch. “I’m such a ham” – ugh, I shiver. But I did read somewhere (that well-known source) that actually, Debbie Reynold’s character was changed pretty significantly for the film, while Lucky Star was left as it was in the original stage production. Kathy Seldon was written to be a Don Lockwood superfan who is, legit, ‘all starstruck’ to be getting attention from a tabloid darling. But once they finished shooting, or possibly midway through shooting, they decided that was creepy, or whatever the 1950s word for ‘creepy’ would be, and wrote her to be pluckier. On extended cut original soundtracks, there’s a Kathy Seldon version of ‘Lucky Star’ that is even more painful, if you can believe it, than the one that made the final cut. In the scene, she would have sung it to herself, and I think it even includes some gushy monologue about how she’s always seen his picture in the fan magazines and now he’s here in her life!
In short, I will take the Don-to-Kathy version of Lucky Star over that mess any day.
This is the Lucky Star scene that was cut if you’re interested (worth it just to hear her describe his character’s outfit like she’s in a babysitter’s club book): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi1cp7nNKpA
(Full disclosure;.. I kind of love that song. Both versions. But SITR imprinted on me early and I think it’s perfect, weird dream-casino and everything)
I LOVE that song – fully and unabashadly, but maybe because it’s so firmly in my range and all the jumps are so fun to sing. And I’ve always loved that floaty dress she wore and that it was from her character’s run as an extra in another piece.
The dream ballets seem to have stopped by the time Steven Schwartz was working on Pippin and Godspell, and the other biblical musicals didn’t have them (as far as I can remember) ie: Joseph and JC Superstar. So something changed in the late 1950s that made the “ballet as inner life and dreams” thing less useful, and produced, instead, choreography through the whole show that supported the music and singing.
Maybe.
Oh wait – no dream ballet in Music Man. I work at the high school as Theater Tech wrangler, we did that one last year, and Annie the year before. No dream ballet in either one. I wonder what happened?
Almost everything from “Flower Drum Song.”
and “Happy Talk” from South Pacific.
When i was in high school, we had an African American kid for male lead, and a white kid for female lead, and rather than cope with racial issues in 1976 (FFS) the director chose Flower Drum Song and painted the entire cast yellow. I am mortified for us in retrospect.
The kids went on to Broadway, both of them: Lance Roberts played the genie in Aladin, Donna Murphy does a lot of Sondheim and bit parts on Star Trek.
HOLD. UP. You went to high school with freaking Donna Murphy???
yes? She graduated a year ahead of me, Masconomet Regional High School, Topsfield (or maybe it’s in Boxford) Massachusetts. she was class of 1977. She was amazing then, and she’s only gotten better.
I know you posted this ages ago….but my father went to Masco at the same time (did a lot in theater, too), and I was recently talking to my grandma, and that thing about the director sucking at dealing with race was a very, very clear memory for her. She also called Donna Murphy a talentless hack…..
Anyway, small world!
that is AWESOME! who’s your father? I was using a different alias is high school and went by Cynthia. Still Thomson though….
I saw a re-imagined production by David Henry Hwang back in high school that was actually pretty cool: http://www.aatrevue.com/Old/FDS1001.html but seriously even as a musicals loving kid that movie was borrowed from the library ONCE and then never never again.
There are two things that absolutely RUINED musicals starting in the 1950s and going through the 1960s and they are: 1) ballet and also 2) technicolor on overly fake-looking sets. (I’m willing to give KISS ME KATE a very slight pass on that one, since it’s literally on a stage, but really, BRIGADOON and SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS? really??)
The music is also kind of crap except for that Sinatra one with the salvation army girls and the gambling in the sewers whose title I can never remember because honestly the film is like 6 hours long and movies should be NO LONGER than 70 minutes, maybe 78 minutes if it’s fast-moving and packed full of interesting bits.
I’ve been watching a lot of movies ever since WatchTCM was invented 13 months ago, and I have a lot of opinions. I know squat about the ~art of film-making~ or criticism, but who needs that.
Guys and Dolls. And it’s a goddamn delight.
If you cut out all the talky bits, I think I would have to admit to legitimately enjoying a mid-century musical, which is scary.
Brigadoon is honestly the most boring movie I have ever seen in my life.
I thought it was boring because it took like 5 hours to watch because Comcast + shitty HP laptop wifi = buffering for 2 minutes after every 45sec of movie. (no, literally)
The early scene of the girls in the cottage dancing and the one girl dressed as a dude was entertaining, but it promised so much fun and games that got cut. 🙁 Apparently there’s more with the girl dressed as a dude in the actual stage version? too bad…
I will fight you on the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ballet scene, because that Michael Kidd shit is magic.
Agreed. Also Technicolor is how I used to know when to stop when I was speed clicking through the channels!
But it’s so BORING.
I was giving it a healthy chance despite the horrible sexism and shitty sets/technicolor, until the barn-raising number came around and I lost it.
BESIDES why do they give all 14 people 7 pairs of color-coordinated outfits to wear but don’t pair the matching shirts with each other it’s a TRAVESTY and the cherry on top of the boring and overlong ballet abomination.
(I do like the Polecat number. it’s the only one I like in that movie, but I have to not think about the lyrics sometimes.)
Oh I hate the Hell out of that part for sure – pair the colors up properly or don’t bother to do it at all! But seriously, the ballet is magic, and I am afraid I’ll have to keep fighting until the breath is out of me or until Tommy Rall and Matt Mattox convince me to stop. HA!
Wait wait wait wait wait WAIT! WatchTCM? How did I not know this exists?! My god, the rest of my winter evening are spoken for now!!
yes! It was launched shortly before Screwball Comedy November last year, which was like a frigging Best Present Ever for me – my favorite genre and I can watch every single one from my bed on my laptop instead of asking my family for use of the TV.
Be warned – you can only have 32 movies in your Watchlist and movies expire about 7 days and 4 hours from when they originally aired. If it says “Expires December 9, 2014” make sure you watch it by December 8 or it may cut out in the middle of playing (i learned the hard way)
OMG you have just infinitely improved my life, thank you!
You did not just diss “seven brides for seven brothers.” That is seven gorgeous bearded men dancing and wearing flannel. That is literally the dream.
You did not. I read nothing.
Ugh, agreed. So boring and so like…icky. You deserve nice things, Maria! Stop putting yourself down!
(in response to paperbgprincess)
As a Bollywood addict, I am deeply committed to long, pointless song-and-dance numbers for no particular plot-related reason. I think we need more of them!
Yes! Also a lot of those songs end up on my gym playlist. Pretty much everything from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, really. Do you have Bollywood recs?
For starters, I always say anything with Shah Rukh Khan (contemporary) or Kishore Kumar (oldies). For fabulous dancing, anything with Madhuri Dixit. Specific movies I love: Om Shanti Om (double roles! reincarnation!), Aaja Nachle (an Indian “hey kids, let’s put on a show!” movie), Chalte Ka Naam Gaadi (Kishore being basically all 3 Marx Bros), Ram-Leela (Romeo and Juliet, Bollywood-style), Band Bajaa Baarat (weddings galore!), Bhoot Bangla (basically, Frankie and Annette go Bollywood, with ghosts), Krorepati (based on one of the weirdest folk conceptions of brain function and amnesia ever), anything having to do with nagas–the only genre that veers from horror to love story depending on the gender of the protagonist …. oh gosh, once I start, where to stop. Just leave all your expectations of Western storytelling and especially genre conventions at the door, sit back, and enjoy. I made my own way by randomly renting things from Netflix and then trying anything that they suggested as a follow-up that looked interesting. (Netflix has tons of Bollywood on DVD and some, but only a drop in the bucket, on streaming. There’s a lot on YouTube but frequently without subtitles.)
I would have gone for “Lucky Star” – so much standing around and so many billowing scarves! Not even in a fun Stevie Nicks way, in a boring ass starry-eyed molasses-flowing way.
I think we all know that the only dream ballet worth its salt is the one in “Cannibal! The Musical”.
I realize this isn’t the point of the article, but I think nearly all musicals would be improved if every musical number was taken out and replaced with “Pore Jud is Daid.”
“His fingernails have never been so clean.”
“He looks like he’s asleep and it’s a shame that he won’t keep, but it’s summer, and we’re runnin’ outta ice”.
“Cyd Charisse is a great lady with some really tremendous thighs”
Can we just have a supercut of Cyd Charise as a movie plz.
I always, always, always fast-forward through Broadway Melody- and I love Singin’ in the Rain! However, I find I’m Not Weatring Underwear Today to be worth it for the punchline. (“Get a job!” “Thank you…honey.”)
Singin’ in the Rain is my favorite musical of all time and I think Broadway Melody is the absolute worst. I will team up to defend its removal from the movie in a West Side Story-esque choreographed back alley brawl with anyone who’s interested.
See, now there’s how you work ballet sequences into your musical! See, other musicals? Why can’t you be more like West Side Story?
I would prefer to ditch ‘You Are My Lucky Star,” personally. I agree with all your reasons for choosing to ditch “Broadway Melody,” but I feel that the less acting Gene Kelly has to do, the better. The other two leads are so good, and Gene Kelly dances so well, and he’s even fine when he’s playing the smarmy conceited movie star, but whenever he has to be sincere I just cringe.
Totally irrelevant, but does his comic buddy, Cosmo, remind anyone else of Logan Echolls?
There’s a lot of Oklahoma! hate out there and I’ve always liked the songs *divorced from the actual plot* – it just hits a nice midcentury cornball spot for me — but the actual plot of Oklahoma is so meandering and meaningless that I just fast foward right to the songs (yes, even Farmer and the Cowhand, which has a train wreck trying too hard quality I am clearly always ready for)
I mean if you want to talk QUESTIONABLE PLOTS – South Pacific — Lead Lady’s entire arc is going from being a terrifying racist to not being quite so racist. Also, child brides are good things?
I’m not even touching the opening song where a bunch of sweaty men sing about sexual fustration while a sign in the background reads TRADESMEN MUST USE REAR ENTRANCE.
I showed South Pacific at my library last winter, having never actually seen it before, and that opening song was the highlight of my goddamn month.
Srs question: how bad was the word “Dame”? My friend thinks it’s the olden-time equivalent of bitch, I think it’s less coarse/offensive but more objectifying. WHO IS RIGHT? Would Rodgers & Hammerstein have written a song titled, “There is nothin’ like a bitch”?
You’re right! It’s informal, but not negative in connotation.
I’ve never in my life thought of “dame” as a bad word. It’s slangy, and it can be objectifying in context, but you could say the same of “gal.” “Dame” is also literally what women are called who have received a knighthood (and it’s sometimes the title used for nuns who have graduated from Sister); its historical associations are with grandness and importance, unlike the animal associations of “bitch.”
“Dame” is a really interesting word to look at! I’ve heard it so many times in old movies and never questioned it. OED (at least, the OED I’ve got) doesn’t have a separate entry for this slangy sense, which I think was American. Google’s ngram viewer gives a spike in the early 1920s after a long decline (typical of a word falling out of use), so my guess is that in 1922 or 1921, a popular song or joke or something hit and “dame” went viral. Sheik follows a similar track with a spike in the early ’20s, too. Maybe the first modern dames were flappers?
I don’t think it’s “bitch” or derogatory in the way that bitch is. It seems more mock-respectful, in a kind of Wodehouse-ian way, pretend-formal too, and there’s a class connotation, judging from movies and books. For though dames and ladies are women, dames aren’t ladies.
I feel like if I lived in olden times I would react to being called a “dame” (in the American slang sense, not the British knighthood sense) the same way I would react to being called a “chick” now – definitely an eyeroll, but not not super-offended (unless it was in, like, a professional context or something).
It’s kinda like “gal” but usually a little older and more experienced, though still significantly classier than “broad.”
Actually both arcs are about a dude finding a woman who is super young and naieve. See, e.g., “this is what I’ve longed for, someone young and smiling, sitting on my hill”… Yeah I was in that musical in highschool and apparently it scarred me for life.
I adore “Triplets.” Sorrynotsorry.
You’ve heard the version where Mandy Patinkin sings all three parts (without overdubbing), right?
Is there any reason for that absolutely fucking depressing laundry stirring montage “Cheer Up Charlie” in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? And if there’s a reason to have it in there to move the plot forward or represent some maternal existence, why why why does it go on for 37 years?
It’s so long and boring and I always felt like the directors were happily making the movie and then remembered “oh yeah, this is a musical, we should add a few more songs,” and that’s where Cheer Up Charlie came from.
Seriously. I always skip that one.
I had to wait in a long line at the pharmacy a few months ago, and was pleased because the TV that’s always showing some kid’s movie was playing Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory–but the pleasure quickly turned to dismay when I realized I was just in time for “Cheer Up Charlie.” It is the worst.
BAN THAT SONG (if it may even be called ‘song’)
I can only ever picture that song in fast forward because that’s the only way we ever watched it.
Zip zip laundry, zip zip moon, zip zip walking.
Cut all of Avenue Q. Just cut it all.
OH THANK GOD I THOUGHT I WAS ALONE
How about ballet sequences that made you question your sanity? Because I’m pretty sure that the kitchen sequence from “The Glass Slipper” is what shrooms were about in the 1950s, and when I stumbled across it on TCM I was worried that someone had pranked me in the shiitakes.
A+ for puns. Yes.
speaking of numbers that should have been cut, I would like to propose everything by/about Marian the Librarian in THE MUSIC MAN and also the last thirty-to-forty minutes of the film altogether.
Every song is upbeat with some kind of interesting quality, and then you get the Marian songs which are slow and boring and also the titular Marian song puts my teeth on edge with the overly-loud dubbed in noises of softshoe on the set. And it’s kind of a lot creepy. Unnecessary!
You get your damned dirty mitts off my “‘Til There Was You.” I was skimming this thread just spoiling for someone to talk smack about The Music Man, the world’s perfect musical. Bear in mind, without Marian there is no place for Widow Paroo, and the stars in the heavens would be dimmed. I will defend this until the end of time, don’t tempt me.
Noooo Marian the Librarian is awesome. It’s so cheesy and over the top and IN A FUCKING LIBRARY and there aren’t very many musical numbers set in libraries. Librarians forever.
But why did they put her in that hideous chartreuse dress?
I can only assume for funsies.
My father’s favorite musical is The Music Man and my mother has a MLS and so sometimes he sings bits to her (terribly, terribly, oh my god the tiny bit of vocal talent I possess did *not* come from him) and it’s just adorable.
You cannot get rid of “Shipoopi” for the very fact that young children sing that phrase over and over and it never stops being funny. Shipoopi!
When we watched Music Man in middle school, I remember getting teary during “Goodnight My Someone” and then being angry because what does this dumb song think it’s doing, making me feel feelings in front of everybody? So that one can stay.
Yes. Cut. The. Blackface. if you’re showing it to families. Show it in film studies classes, maybe.
Also cut the bit where those two children have to dress up for New Year’s.
Also add a scene where Mamie gets co-ownership of the Inn. It runs on her labor and her ideas!
Oh my sweet Lord, I forgot about the kids being dressed up for the new year. Horrible. Mamie should have seasoned that damn huge Thanksgiving turkey with arsenic.
Nope. Cyd Charisse’s legs make that entire thing worthwhile, I don’t even care about the plot for the duration of that whole sequence.
Also, quite frankly, I always harbored a small secret desire for Cyd’s character to replace Debbie’s anyway.
This! Yes! I still want that green dress!
I love On the Town but the ballet scene in that movie is horrible. It’s a ballet version of everything that’s happened previously in the movie but with different actors (actual ballet dancers instead of the leads). It makes absolutely no sense to keep it in.
My mom always tried to fast-forward through Beautiful Girls in Singing in the Rain (which no- because it is wonderful and “a cloak that’s trimmed in monkey fur, to lend a dash of drama”)
Beautiful Girls is one of my favorite musical numbers to “sing” along to. So delightfully cheeseball.
Beautiful Girls is a great number!!
I kind of hate all the ballet in On the Town. Sorry, Vera Ellen.
She cannot fast-forward “Beautiful Girls!” That’s the best.
(Incidentally, I think that’s the same guy who sings “Bonnie Jean” from “Brigadoon.”)
On the other hand, every movie (musical or not) can be improved by adding a number with Christopher Walken dancing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERvKa51J8iw
Bali Hai. Although I *would* like to find my “special island” just without all the horribly racist depictions of Pacific Islanders.
I HAVE SO MUCH ANGST about South Pacific. Yes, wanting to have sex with attractive people means racism is dying! Liat has NOT A SINGLE LINE but her prejudice-destroying if doomed romance is one for the ages. oh-kay.
If the dancers were literally anybody besides Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, I’d say the “Who’s Got The Pain” number from Damn Yankees, because its purpose is completely mystifying to me. Like, I’m glad it exists? But what is it doing in this musical???? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIiZuAVZH4w
Also it always makes me sad that there are minstrel numbers in BOTH Holiday Inn AND White Christmas. I would probably watch both films a lot more often as fun Christmas movies, but it’s really unsettling to see blackface included in all the lighthearted capering. Like, “ooh, sometimes he dances with fireworks! Sometimes with a silly wig! Sometimes with HORRIFIC RACISM oh nooooooo”
In defense of “Who’s Got The Pain” – every production of Damn Yankees I’ve ever seen or done uses their hottest dudes in skimpiest/tightest clothing for that number. SEE ALSO: “Steam Heat” in The Pajama Game.
“Steam Heat” in The Pajama Game is one of my favorite dance numbers of all time. It’s hard to tear your eyes away from the riveting Carol Haney, but when you can, her fellow dancers, Buzz Miller and Kenneth LeRoy, are also an absolute joy to behold. They would have completely stolen the scene from anyone but Carol.
What??? I owned the Damn Yankees soundtrack as a teenager and must have listened to it about 6 million times and I have literally no memory of that song. I mean, now that I’ve listened to it it does sound… vaguely familiar? But apparently my subconscious just went ahead and edited it out of Damn Yankees for me, which makes sense, because what the fuck was it doing there in the first place.
oh shoot did I get here too late to start something about awful old Gene Kelly, what a bad dancer he is and how his every sexless [1] twirl is the living physical embodiment of the very worst of the American white 1950s, regardless of the film’s precise date, how watching him is the visual equivalent of hearing Rosemary Clooney sing Mambo Italiano in the way it makes you want to hide your face away and stop up your ears for shame and disgust at this corrupt old world
[1] in the way of a Ken doll or a Frank Sinatra, not sexless in the good way like Fred Astaire, who dwells with me gracefully in the realm of pure spirit
You are a delight.
As long as you like Donald O’Connor’s amazing dancing, we’re good.
You are right. You are lovely. And he was completely evil to Debbie Reynolds during the making of “Singin’ in the Rain.” One day Fred found her crying after Kelly had been a shit to her and, being the perfect gentleman he was, gave her a pep talk about what a great dancer she was and how she would be a star* and she shouldn’t mind Gene, that was just his way. But she was cruelly, cruelly hurt from working on that film.
*This does not mean “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” did not suck goat balls. Sorry, o delightful Agnes Moorehead, for dissing your girl.
There is great truth in this post.
I’d like to nominate anything that Margaret O’Brien sings in Meet Me in St. Louis. Actually, all of Margaret O’Brien from that movie, and every movie. She’s a creepy child-monster and she needs to go.
THANK YOU FOR THIS TRUTH.
Just the video still for Triplets filled my soul with deep disquiet.
“Where is the Life That Late I Led?” from Kiss Me Kate. I love Cole Porter, but a) that song reads like a list of all the sad-ass gag lines that weren’t good enough for any of his other songs; b) it’s a sprightly little tune in the chorus that comes to a screeching halt for every sad, draggy-ass, groan-inducing verse; and c) is obviously just a bid for time while the rest of the show has a set change/costume/change/toilet break, whatever. Cut that stupid number and put in a good old-fashioned intermission with an instrumental overture medley already!
The movie should have cut “Where is the life that late I led” and put “Bianca” back in.
Bianca is just fluff but it would’ve meant more Ann Miller tap dancing.
I also kind of hate Always True To You in My Fashion.
MORE KATHERINE GRAYSON PLEASE.
The only acceptable version of “Triplets” is the one that John Lithgow covered for his children’s album.
I have secret dreams of Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench performing it at the Olivier Awards or something.
But I’m a terrible person.
I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Look, I totally get your point about “An American in Paris”, but as far as I’m concerned, Gene Kelly dancing to Gershwin needs to be in all the things. I propose swapping it with the Jerry the Mouse number from “Anchor’s Away”. Cute, sure, especially whn Stewie Griffin replaced Jerry. But it doesn’t fit in a movie about sailors on shore leave. http://youtu.be/uJzYKm1_Bvo
I didn’t watch a ton of musicals as a kid, but when I did there was usually at least one song/musical sequence (usually the soppiest one) that I’d fast forward through. This was such an automatic thing after awhile that years later when “Muppet Christmas Carol” came out on DVD it took me about 3 full viewings before I realized that Brian Henson had just gone ahead and cut “When Love is Gone” out of the DVD release. Apparently he’d felt the same way.
OMG we did this too! Except our DVD version still has the awful song on it. My sis noticed the version on Netflix cut it, and excitedly called me with the news this weekend.
The pacing of the overall film is vastly improved, too. So many other musicals could cut one superfluous number and the whole thing would run smoother.
[DON, COSMO, and the STUDIO CHIEF finish screening a rough cut of The Singing Cavalier.]
STUDIO CHIEF: Perfect!…How much is there left to do?
DON: One scene and a number!
STUDIO CHIEF: What number?
DON: Well, it’s a new one. It’s for the modern part of the picture. It’s called “Broadway Melody!” It’s the story of a young hoofer who comes to New York. First, we set the stage with a song. It goes like this…
[Fade out to DON’S vision: TEN MINUTES of NEON-DRENCHED PHANTASMAGORIA.]
[Fade back to screening room.]
DON: That’s the idea of the number. What do you think of-
STUDIO CHIEF: What the fuck was that?!
DON: Pardon?
STUDIO CHIEF: It’s 1927. You’re out of your goddamn skull if you think this studio can swing crane shots and “full gorgeous Technicolor,” which I don’t know what that is.
Are we counting “Avenue Q” as a Hollywood musical? Also disagree strongly about “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today” because it gives Ann Harada’s character a chance to deliver the line “Get a job” so brilliantly, she should have won the Tony for those three words alone.
I was briefly afeard for my beloved “Teen Angel” but nope, these are all pretty reasonable suggestions.
Ugh, so many people in my lawschool theatre group wanted to do Oklahoma and UGH.
++++++ “lawschool theatre group”
“Stairway to Paradise” is by far the best number in “American in Paris.” I could watch it on repeat for hours.
Are any Toasties fans of “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” by any chance? Catherine Deneuve and her sister Francoise Dorleac sing and dance, surrounded by George Chakiris, Danielle Darrieux, AND Gene Kelly. Harvard Film Archive is showing it this Sunday at 7 p.m. – wish I could go.
Aww, Young Girls is so cute! I watched it shortly after seeing Umbrellas of Cherbourg, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t as, you know, does-love-even-exist-probably-not levels of depressing.
Could we just replace all of these with the Nicholas Bros and Cab Calloway from Stormy Weather?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF3KOLS9qLg
Not that I’d actually argue with you about any of these.
“Broadway Musical” was my favorite part of that movie, but it should have been my favorite part of a different movie. 2-for-1: it might actually have a relevant plot to fit into in a different movie, and it would open up my favorite song slot in “Singing in the Rain” for the actual, title song, which currently sits sadly in second place.
Oh and Cyd Charisse’s legs. We’d doubtless see more of them if she’d appeared at any other point in the movie.
“Who Gets the Pain” from Damn Yankees was already mentioned, yes. Definitely came from the same misguided sense of “there needs to be a big production number” as the interminable dream ballets.
“More I Cannot Wish You” is the deadest spot in Guys and Dolls (which is the Sinatra one a previous poster blanked on). Guys and Dolls has a lot of irrelevant musical numbers because there’s a showgirl in the plot, but those generally work. It’s the racist Havana sequence that fits the theme, though. But “More I Cannot Wish You” is the lame and must go.
I would also like to put in a bid for the pointless “Beauty School Dropout.”
Noooo I love it! It’s so much fun to sing along to. So mean!
“You missed your midterms and flunked shampoo”
also: that 1940’s flashback montage in Xanadu with Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John:
NO.
THEY NEVER SPOKE! He just showed up at her hut, the lighting went all gauzy and orange and then BOOM they’re sexin’
(ugh, reply to Nicole Callahan, although ‘BOOM they’re sexin’ kind of works as a stand-alone IMHO)
My roommate LOVES that song, and I’ve gotta disagree on her behalf, simply because there’s a reprise at the end. She gets VERY up in arms about it.
This was in response to the “When Love Is Gone” comment, but apparently is not showing up in that thread?
I would like to put forward the suggestion that we swap out this number from Anchors Aweigh for an extra three minutes of tiny baby Frank Sinatra having a moon-eyed crush on Gene Kelly. Also, I want that sunflower dress.
I clicked on it hoping for all those exact lengthy ballet dancey sequences to be listed and you did not disappoint. Those things are terrible. So dull. Ugh.
I’m a director, and I’ve always had the theory that every play has one scene that is the “dream ballet.” It’s a scene that doesn’t advance the plot, seems out of character and/or makes no damn sense. This theory was born of the first two scenes you mentioned, and has held true throughout my life.
also known as “time to get more popcorn”
When my beloved Stratford Festival announced this year’s playbill, I groaned out loud when I saw that both their musicals were to be Rogers and Hammerstein. BORES, THE BOTH OF THEM.
Also, throw Kiss Me Kate in the garbage where it belongs.
WHAT??? Kiss Me Kate?? I WILL CUT YOU!! Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Always True To You In My Fashion, Too Darn Hot, Carol Haney and a young Bob Fosse as specialty dancers in From This Moment On: these are sublime moments in musical theatre, and I will brook no argument. I will grant you that there are an awful lot of dud numbers too (Where Is the Life That Late I Led, shudder), but that’s what fast forward is for.
Yes to all of these!
Also, cut just…all of Gigi. I love how they made it a musical to make the plot more palatable. “I don’t know…a movie about teaching a child to be a prostitute? Maybe if we add some songs…” Why have I seen that movie so many times?
Can I add the weirdest dance interlude of all time in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? when the delivery boy and the maid’s daughter have a little bee-bop dance in the middle of a VERY serious movie about race? Found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L576AJtjO4
This has CRUSHED me. I adore all dream sequences and Gene Kelly is both an athlete and a GOD, and I will defend him to the death.
I agree with every one of these choices.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: SOBBIN’ WOMEN.
Just skip it. (Also take out Lonesome Polecat, also take out the ending bit where everyone claims the baby and instead have all of the Pontipee Brothers die tragically and then all the ladies form a commune. The end. The best end one could ever hope for, really.)
If I stumbled
And I busted my whatchamacalit
I would lie on the floor unnoticed
Til my body had turned to caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-
rion
Come on now you can’t not love that.
I DO love it. It’s so good.
That is literally the best set of lyrics ever set to music and I will fight people on it. I WILL FIGHT YOU.
The film of OKLAHOMA is utterly worthless from beginning to end. Shirley Jones in all her wacky frocks looks more like a bridesmaid in someone’s insane “rural themed” wedding than a farmer. And don’t get me started on Judd, Frankenstein’s Monster. The only good stage production of it that I’ve ever seen was Trevor Nunn’s at the National Theatre in the ’90s. Americans are apparently so out of touch with their national history that they don’t understand the central issue of the story, but he did. And cast Hugh Jackman as Curly. Sigh.
AMEN AND AMEN. (Well, at least of the ones I’ve seen, i.e. Gene Kelly’s self-indulgence and Oklahoma!). When Mom snarkily called the Broadway Melody sequence “the Gene Kelly Showcase”, I thought it meant she agreed with me that it ought to be cut from all future viewings. Then I discovered that she was a traitor to the cause. (I blame too much nostalgia around That’s Entertainment! marathons when she was younger.)
However, I am told that the ballet sequence in Oklahoma! helped get musicals recognized as Real Art, and if that’s the reason musicals started doing that sort of thing, I can forgive them. For having done it. Not for continuing to keep it in revivals and dear heavens films.
You are a bad person, and you should feel bad.
I would include “Portobello Road” from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I absolutely agree with Broadway Melody from Singin in the Rain and the three or four dance numbers in the middle of White Christmas.
I love the dream ballet sequences in An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain, and Oklahoma (although it’s been it’s been years since i’ve seen it so it may just be 15 year old me talking). I have to include Something’s Coming and the song where Tony and Maria “marry” in West Side Story. So boring.
I’m just saying, if you have to watch a golden era male star in a body stocking of any sort, Gene Kelly’s the one to choose.
We certainly don’t want Fred Astaire to be the one to have to wear it.
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the roaring thunder of Gene Kelly’s thighs in a nude bodystocking.
And Vera Ellen's LEGS FOR DAAAAAYZ in "Mandy".
LEGSSSSSS.
NO!!! Broadway Melody is the emotional core of the whole movie, it’s the thesis, it ties everything together, it’s beautiful, it’s Gene Kelly’s big essay on art and business and love, it is everything. I will defend this forever.
Beautiful Girl though – that could go. Doesnt have any of the main cast in it, it’s filler, it’s – I dunno, a little creepy?
Let’s not forget the racist number in On the Town where they dance around with artifacts from the natural history musuem. realy uncomfortable
that is AWESOME! who's your father? I was using a different alias is high school and went by Cynthia. Still Thomson though….
I will fight to the death in defense of the Dream Ballet in Oklahoma. It is the cherry on the top of how weird and inappropriate the whole musical is, and indeed an encapsulation of all of its coming-of-age-wrong themes in one glorious ultracolored nightmare. Nothing is more necessary than the Dream Ballet.
I totally agree with you on every single one.
Can I add the “Cheer Up, Charlie” mom-song from Willy Wonka? Soooo boring, so treacle-y, just stops the action, and we never hear from her again.