Download or read book The Movies Greatest Musicals Produced in Hollywood USA by the Freed Unit written by Hugh Fordin and published by Frederick Ungar. This book was released on 1984 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain, Easter Parade, Gigi. These and many other classics of the American musical film were the products of Arthur Freed and his incredble MGM production unit, which ruled over Hollywood's golden age like a royal family. Freed brought together the top talent of the day - actors, writers, directors, choreographers, composers, and set designers - and gave them all the freedom to express themselves creatively and without concern for the usual constraints of monet, time, location, and equipment. The results are the films that will still have people singing and dancing for generations to come. Now, in anecdotes drawn from over 500 hours of taped interviews, studio documents, and with over 300 photographs, Hugh Fordin brings the Freed Unit together again for a nostalgic and fascinating look back at what happened - and what might have happened - in the movies' greatest musicals.
Download or read book M G M s Greatest Musicals written by Hugh Fordin and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1996-08-22 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: M-G-M's Greatest Musicals (originally published as The World of Entertainment! Hollywood's Greatest Musicals) is not a biography of Arthur Freed (1894–1973), producer of the most outstanding series of musicals in motion picture history, but a turbulent, behind-the-scenes, film-by-film account of the making of his movies (which, to the exclusion of all else, were his life). From 1940 to 1970, under the auspices of M-G-M's celebrated Freed Unit, Hollywood's master actors, writers, directors, choreographers, composers, and set designers created The Wizard of Oz, Girl Crazy, Meet Me in St. Louis, Annie Get Your Gun, An American in Paris, Show Boat, Singin' in the Rain, Gigi, and nearly forty others. The author brings to vivid life the unexpected crises and everyday magic of the Freed Unit. Richly detailed, profusely illustrated with hundreds of rare photos, this book describes the lives and careers Freed touched and often shaped—Judy Garland, Vincente Minnelli, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, and others like Saroyan, Berlin, Kern, Gershwin—and in the process reveals how a romantic, sentimental man became the uncontested master of the movie musical.
Download or read book Hollywood Musicals the Film Reader written by Steven Cohan and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores one of the most popular genres in film history. Combining classic and recent articles, each section explores a central issue of the musical, including: the musical's significance as a genre; the musical's own particular representation of sexual difference; the idea of camp, both through stars such as Judy Garland and Carmen Miranda and musicals themselves; and the displacement of race in Hollywood's representations of entertainment. Each section features an editor's introduction setting debates in context.
Download or read book The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity written by Raymond Knapp and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American musical has long provided an important vehicle through which writers, performers, and audiences reimagine who they are and how they might best interact with the world around them. Musicals are especially good at this because they provide not only an opportunity for us to enact dramatic versions of alternative identities, but also the material for performing such alternatives in the real world, through songs and the characters and attitudes those songs project. This book addresses a variety of specific themes in musicals that serve this general function: fairy tale and fantasy, idealism and inspiration, gender and sexuality, and relationships, among others. It also considers three overlapping genres that are central, in quite different ways, to the projection of personal identity: operetta, movie musicals, and operatic musicals. Among the musicals discussed are Camelot, Candide; Chicago; Company; Evita; Gypsy; Into the Woods; Kiss Me, Kate; A Little Night Music; Man of La Mancha; Meet Me in St. Louis; The Merry Widow; Moulin Rouge; My Fair Lady; Passion; The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Singin' in the Rain; Stormy Weather; Sweeney Todd; and The Wizard of Oz. Complementing the author's earlier work, The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, this book completes a two-volume thematic history of the genre, designed for general audiences and specialists alike.
Download or read book The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals written by Dan Dietz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-02-18 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Broadway audiences of the 1980s, the decade was perhaps most notable for the so-called “British invasion.” While concept musicals such as Nine and Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George continued to be produced, several London hits came to New York. In addition to shows like Chess, Me and My Girl, and Les Miserables,the decade’s most successful composerAndrew Lloyd Webberwas also well represented by Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Song & Dance, and Starlight Express. There were also many revivals (such as Show Boat and Gypsy), surprise hits (The Pirates of Penzance), huge hits (42nd Street), and notorious flops (Into the Light, Carrie, and Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge). In The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway during the 1980s. In addition to including every hit and flop that debuted during the decade, this book highlights revivals and personal-appearance revues with such performers as Sid Caesar, Barry Manilow, Jackie Mason, and Shirley MacLaine. Each entry includes the following information Opening and closing dates Plot summaries Cast members Number of performances Names of all important personnel including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors Musical numbers and the names of performers who introduced the songs Production data, including information about tryouts Source material Critical commentary Tony awards and nominations Details about London and other foreign productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including a discography, filmography, and published scripts, as well as lists of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, black-themed shows, and Jewish-themed productions. A treasure trove of information, The Complete Book of 1980s Broadway Musicals provides readers with a comprehensive view of each show. This significant resource will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.
Download or read book The Complete Book of 1920s Broadway Musicals written by Dan Dietz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-04-10 with total page 671 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Twenties, the Great White Way roared with nearly 300 book musicals. Luminaries who wrote for Broadway during this decade included Irving Berlin, George M. Cohan, Rudolf Friml, George Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Sigmund Romberg, and Vincent Youmans, and the era’s stars included Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and Marilyn Miller. Light-hearted Cinderella musicals dominated these years with such hits as Kern’s long-running Sally, along with romantic operettas that dealt with princes and princesses in disguise. Plots about bootleggers and Prohibition abounded, but there were also serious musicals, including Kern and Hammerstein’s masterpiece Show Boat. In The Complete Book of 1920s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every book musical that opened on Broadway during the years 1920-1929. The book discusses the era’s major successes as well as its forgotten failures. The hits include A Connecticut Yankee; Hit the Deck!; No, No, Nanette; Rose-Marie; Show Boat; The Student Prince; The Vagabond King; and Whoopee, as well as ambitious failures, including Deep River; Rainbow; and Rodgers’ daring Chee-Chee. Each entry contains the following information: Plot summary Cast members Names of creative personnel, including book writers, lyricists, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors Opening and closing dates Number of performances Plot summary Critical commentary Musical numbers and names of the performers who introduced the songs Production data, including information about tryouts Source material Details about London productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including ones which cover other shows produced during the decade (revues, plays with music, miscellaneous musical presentations, and a selected list of pre-Broadway closings). Other appendixes include a discography, filmography, a list of published scripts, and a list of black-themed musicals. This book contains a wealth of information and provides a comprehensive view of each show. The Complete Book of 1920s Broadway Musicals will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in the history of musical theatre.
Download or read book The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals written by Dan Dietz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the stock market crash of October 1929, thousands of theatregoers still flocked to the Great White Way throughout the country’s darkest years. In keeping with the Depression and the events leading up to World War II, 1930s Broadway was distinguished by numerous political revues and musicals, including three by George Gershwin (Strike Up the Band, Of Thee I Sing, and Let ’Em Eat Cake). The decade also saw the last musicals by Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Vincent Youmans; found Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in full flower; and introduced both Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen’s music to Broadway. In The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway from 1930 through 1939. This book discusses the era’s major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway tryouts. It includes such shows as Anything Goes, As Thousands Cheer, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, The Cradle Will Rock, The Green Pastures, Hellzapoppin, Hot Mikado, Porgy and Bess, Roberta, and various editions of Ziegfeld Follies. Each entry contains the following information: Plot summary Cast members Names of all important personnel, including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors Opening and closing dates Number of performances Critical commentary Musical numbers and the performers who introduced the songs Production data, including information about tryouts Source material Details about London and other foreign productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including a discography, filmography, and list of published scripts, as well as lists of black-themed and Jewish-themed productions. This comprehensive book contains a wealth of information and provides a comprehensive view of each show. The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of The American Musical written by Raymond Knapp and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents keywords and critical terms that deepen analysis and interpretation of the musical. Taking into account issues of composition, performance, and reception, the book's contributors bring a range of practical and theoretical perspectives to bear on their considerations of American musicals.
Download or read book The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals written by Dan Dietz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-09-29 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Musicals of the 1990s felt the impact of key developments that forever changed the landscape of Broadway. While the onslaught of British imports slowed down, the so-called Disneyfication of Broadway began, a trend that continues today. Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King became long-running hits, followed by more family-friendly musicals. The decade was also distinguished by a new look at revivals—instead of slavishly reproducing old shows or updating them with campy values, Broadway saw a stream of fresh and sometimes provocative reinventions, including major productions of My Fair Lady, Damn Yankees, Carousel, Show Boat, and Chicago. In The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway during the 1990s. This book discusses the era’s major hits (Miss Saigon, Crazy for You, Rent), notorious flops (Shogun, Nick & Nora, The Red Shoes), controversial shows (Passion, The Capeman), and musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway tryouts (Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge, Whistle Down the Wind). In addition to including every hit and flop that debuted during the decade, this book highlights revivals and personal-appearance revues with such performers as Sandra Bernhard, Michael Feinstein, Patti LuPone, Liza Minnelli, and Mandy Patinkin. Each entry contains the following information: Plot summary Cast members Names of all important personnel, including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors Opening and closing dates Number of performances Critical commentary Musical numbers and the performers who introduced the songs Production data, including information about tryouts Source material Tony awards and nominations Details about London and other foreign productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including a discography, filmography, and published scripts, as well as lists of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, black-themed shows, and Jewish-themed productions. A treasure trove of information, The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals provides a comprehensive view of each show. This significant resource will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.
Download or read book The Complete Book of 2000s Broadway Musicals written by Dan Dietz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Broadway was notable for old-fashioned, feel-good shows (Hairspray, Jersey Boys), a number of family-friendly musicals (Little Women, Mary Poppins), plenty of revivals (Follies, Oklahoma!, Wonderful Town), a couple of off-the-wall hits (Avenue Q, Urinetown), several gargantuan flops (Dance of the Vampires, Lestat), and a few serious productions that garnered critical acclaim (The Light in the Piazza, Next to Normal). Unlike earlier decades which were dominated by specific composers, by a new form of musical theatre, or by numerous British imports, the decade is perhaps most notable for the rise of shows which poked fun at the musical comedy form, such as The Producers and Spamalot. In The Complete Book of 2000s Broadway Musicals, Dan Dietz examines in detail every musical that opened on Broadway from 2000 through the end of 2009. This book discusses the era’s major successes, notorious failures, and musicals that closed during their pre-Broadway tryouts. In addition to including every hit and flop that debuted during the decade, this book highlights revivals and personal-appearance revues with such performers as Patti LuPone, Chita Rivera, and Martin Short. Each entry contains the following information: Plot summary Cast members Names of all important personnel, including writers, composers, directors, choreographers, producers, and musical directors Opening and closing dates Number of performances Critical commentary Musical numbers and the performers who introduced the songs Production data, including information about tryouts Source material Tony awards and nominations Details about London and other foreign productions Besides separate entries for each production, the book offers numerous appendixes, including a discography, filmography, and published scripts, as well as lists of black-themed shows and Jewish-themed productions. This comprehensive book contains a wealth of information and provides a comprehensive view of each show. The Complete Book of 2000s Broadway Musicals will be of use to scholars, historians, and casual fans of one of the greatest decades in musical theatre history.
Download or read book The Cinema Book written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cinema Book is widely recognised as the ultimate guide to cinema. Authoritative and comprehensive, the third edition has been extensively revised, updated and expanded in response to developments in cinema and cinema studies. Lavishly illustrated in colour, this edition features a wealth of exciting new sections and in-depth case studies. Sections address Hollywood and other World cinema histories, key genres in both fiction and non-fiction film, issues such as stars, technology and authorship, and major theoretical approaches to understanding film.
Download or read book The Child in Film written by Karen Lury and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghastly and ghostly children, 'dirty little white girls', the child as witness and as victim, have always played an important part in the history of cinema, as have child performers themselves. In exploring the disruptive power of the child in films made for an adult audience across popular films, including "Taxi Driver" and Japanese horror, and 'art-house' productions like "Mirror" and "Pan's Labyrinth", Karen Lury investigates why the figure of the child has such a significant impact on the visual aspects and storytelling potential of cinema.Lury's main argument is that the child as a liminal yet powerful agent has allowed filmmakers to play adventurously with cinema's formal conventions - with far-reaching consequences. In particular, she reveals how a child's relationship to time allows it to disturb and question conventional master-narratives. She explores too the investment in the child actor and expression of child sexuality, as well as how confining and conservative existing assumptions can be in terms of commonly held beliefs as to who children 'really are'.
Download or read book June Allyson written by Peter Shelley and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2023-01-06 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June Allyson (1917-2006) was an American film, television and stage actress, singer, dancer and author. After appearing in movie shorts and on Broadway as a chorus girl and featured player, she became an A-list box office attraction in the 1940s and 1950s in films like The Three Musketeers (1948), Little Women (1949), The Glen Miller Story (1954) and Strategic Air Command (1955). She went on to host and star in her own television anthology series from 1959 to 1961, and made many appearances in films in television shows. This first biography of Allyson covers her life and career, and features an appendix of her work.
Download or read book Screening the Stage written by Steven Neale and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduced by a comprehensive account of the factors governing the adaptation of stage plays and musicals in Hollywood from the early 1910s to the mid-to-late 1950s, Screening the Stage consists of a series of chapter-length studies of feature-length films, the plays and musicals on which they were based, and their remakes where pertinent. Founded on an awareness of evolving technologies and industrial practices rather than the tenets of adaptation theory, particular attention is paid to the evolving practices of Hollywood as well as to the purport and structure of the plays and stage musicals on which the film versions were based. Each play or musical is contextualized and summarized in detail, and each film is analyzed so as to pinpoint the ways in which they articulate, modify, or rework the former. Examples range from dramas, comedies, melodramas, musicals, operettas, thrillers, westerns and war film, and include The Squaw Man, The Poor Little Rich Girl, The Merry Widow, 7th Heaven, The Cocoanuts, Waterloo Bridge, Stage Door, I Remember Mama, The Pirate, Dial M for Murder and Attack.
Download or read book Before the Parade Passes By written by John Anthony Gilvey and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2005-11-01 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Golden Age of the Broadway musical, few director-choreographers could infuse a new musical with dance and movement in quite the way Gower Champion could. From his earliest Broadway success with Bye Bye Birdie to his triumphant and bittersweet valedictory, 42nd Street, musicals directed by Champion filled the proscenium with life. At their best, they touched the heart and stirred the soul with a skillful blend of elegance and American showmanship. He began his career as one-half of "America's Youngest Dance Team" with Jeanne Tyler and later teamed with his wife, dance partner, and longtime collaborator, Marge Champion. This romantic ballroom duo danced across America in the smartest clubs and onto the television screen, performing story dances that captivated the country. They ultimately took their talent to Hollywood, where they starred in the 1951 remake of Show Boat, Lovely to Look At, and other films. But Broadway always called to Champion, and in 1959 he was tapped to direct Bye Bye Birdie. The rest is history. In shows like Birdie, Carnival, Hello, Dolly!, I Do! I Do!, Sugar, and 42nd Street, luminaries such as Chita Rivera, Dick Van Dyke, Carol Channing, Mary Martin, Robert Preston, Tony Roberts, Robert Morse, Tammy Grimes, and Jerry Orbach brought Champion's creative vision to life. Working with composers and writers like Jerry Herman, Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, and Bob Merrill, he streamlined the musical making it flow effortlessly with song and dance from start to finish. John Gilvey has spoken with many of the people who worked with Champion, and in Before the Parade Passes By he tells the life story of this most American of Broadway musical director-choreographers from his early days dancing with Marge to his final days spent meticulously honing the visual magic of 42nd Street. Before the Parade Passes By is the life story of one man who personified the glory of the Broadway musical right up until the moment of his untimely death. When the curtain fell to thunderous applause on the opening night of 42nd Street, August 25, 1980, legendary impresario David Merrick came forward, silenced the audience, and announced that Champion had died that morning. As eminent theatre critic Ethan Mordden has firmly put it, "the Golden Age was over." Though the Golden Age of the Broadway musical is over, John Gilvey brings it to life again by telling the story of Gower Champion, one of its most passionate and creative legends.
Download or read book Popular music on screen written by John Mundy and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-30 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular Music on Screen examines the relationship between popular music and the screen, from the origins of the Hollywood musical to contemporary developments in music television and video. Through detailed examination of films, television programs and popular music, together with analysis of the economic, technological and cultural determinants of their production and consumption, the book argues that popular music has been increasingly influenced by its visual economy. Though engaging with the debates that surround postmodernism, the book suggests that what most characterizes the relationship between popular music and the screen is a strong sense of continuity, expressed through institutional structures, representational strategies and the ideology of "entertainment."
Download or read book Showstoppers written by Martin Rubin and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The name Busby Berkeley, creator of the dances for films such as 42nd Street, Babes in Arms, and Million Dollar Mermaid, is synonymous with the spectacular musical production number. Films, television commercials, and MTV videos continue to use "Berkeleyesque" techniques long after Berkeley himself and the genre that nourished him have faded from the scene. The first major analysis of Berkeley's career on stage and screen, Showstoppers emphasizes his relationship to a colorful, somewhat disreputable tradition of American popular entertainment: that of P. T. Barnum, minstrel shows, vaudeville, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, burlesque, and the Ziegfeld Follies. Rubin shows how Berkeley absorbed this declining theatrical tradition during his years as a Broadway dance director and then transferred it to the new genre of the early movie musical. With lively prose and engaging photographs, Showstoppers explores new ways of looking at Busby Berkeley, at the musical genre, and at individual films. Appropriate for both specialists and general readers, Showstoppers is an exuberant study of a figure whose career, Rubin notes, "provides an extraordinarily rich point of convergence for a wide range of cultural and artistic contexts".
