As someone who didn’t start to appreciate musical into well into her twenties, there were a certain group of films that I couldn’t resist despite my rabid dislike of characters spontaneously bursting into song.
Chicago
Beyond the Oscar glory and award hype, Chicago is a razor sharp examination of the age-old, cultural obsession with celebrity, and the blurry line that exists between fame and infamy. Reneé Zwelleger and Catherine Zeta-Jones co-star as lady-killers who must share suave lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) and share the spotlight as they compete for sympathy, attention and newspaper headlines. The three leads all pour their heart and souls into every song, every dance move and every line to escape their lips. Zeta-Jones and scene-stealer Queen Latifah particular shine as Velma Kelly and Mama Morton respectively. Crime and punishment never looked so good.
Singin’ in the Rain
Simply put, this is a classic. Perhaps, the best movie musical produced by MGM Studios and, in my book, the best movie musical produced. Period. Gene Kelly stars as Donald Lockwood, a stuntman turned leading man, who must face the possibility that his career is drawing to a close when “talkies” begin to phase out silent films. Debbie Reynolds (dude, she was 18!) and Donald O’Connor hold their own against Kelly’s formidable screen presence. Aside, for the classic “Singin’ in the Rain” sequence, the true centerpiece of the film is Kelly’s sexy seduction by mobster moll Cyd Charisse.
Saturday Night Fever
In 1974, it started a dance revolution. With a chart-topping soundtrack by the Bee Gees, it got the masses dancing again. Regular guy Tony Minero and his friends escape the bleak reality of their Brooklyn neighborhood every weekend at the discoteque (remember those?) where the pulsing rhythm and flashing lights transform Tony into a god. In 1974, everyone either wanted to be John Travolta or sleep with John Travolta. He made platform shoes and white polyester leisure suits sexy and that, my friends, is no small feat. I simply wanted to dance like John Travolta. While not technically a musical, the film did make a case for how transformative music can be in life, how a good rhythm can transform mere mortals into something larger than life.
West Side Story
Beneath the singing and dancing is a fairly stark look at racial tensions and urban decay in New York City during the early sixties. In a reworking of the classic Romeo and Juliet, the Anglo good-boy Tony and the Puerto Rican princess Maria fight for their love and happiness amid a neighborhood doing everything to keep them apart. From the film’s opening sequence, a overhead sweep of the cityscape, to the final emotional minutes, this film is thoroughly New York. It is a story that lives along the cramped city streets where love and understanding are sometimes just beyond reach and where hate is the easiest conclusion. The musical highlights include “America,” the Latin favored “Mambo” and the heart-wrenching “Somewhere” which, over the years, has been adopted as a gay anthem.
Xanadu
Olivia Newton-John sings! She dances! She rollerskates. She glows? And these are the only parts of the movie that make sense. If you can overlook the plot that only makes sense if you are under the influence of any number of substances (something about Greek muses coming to Earth to inspire struggling artists … I think) and if you forget the whole section of the film that is animated (by America Tail’s Don Bluth no less), this film is actually more fun than rollerskating dance party. Well, actually, it is a rollerskating dance party, but that‘s kind of the point. A soundtrack by Electric Light Orchestra, a rollerskating Gene Kelly and happy-shiny Olivia Newton John make this one make worth watching. Sure, this film killed the careers of several people, but how could you resist something this shiny.
Grease!
Trying to recapture some of the glory of musicals past, Grease! combines catchy songs, great dancing with the two electric elements that musicals during the Hollywood’s Golden Age never had, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Leather-clad hood with a heart of gold, Danny Zukco, tries to win back the heart of his summer love, the ultra-innocent, ultra-virginal Sandy and, of course, that is where all the fun begins. We will excuse the films final message which seems to say if you want to win the heart of the person you love, change everything about yourself. Or to put it more bluntly, ladies, dress like a tart. But all is forgiven the moment our lovely duo start belting out “You’ve the One that I Want.”
8 Women
Director Francis Orzon pays homage to melodramas of the fifties, but unlike Todd Haynes’s equally adept homage, Far From Heaven, Orzon plays the Sirk melodrama template strictly for shits and giggles. Trapped in a remote chateau for Christmas, the murder of the family patriarch makes all eight women suspects in his murder. Tragic secrets are revealed. Deep passions are uncovered. Songs with a pop French flare are sung. Catherine Denevue heads an all-star cast of only the best actresses in French cinema. Watch for Isabelle Huppert’s tearful number, but stay for Fanny Ardent and Denevue’s catfight which takes an unexpected turn. It’s a murder mystery. It’s a post-modern parody. It’s a musical.
Footloose
A tale as old as time. A big city kid moves to a small town where dancing is illegal, but Kevin Bacon, with pop music in his heart and a dance number or two in his soul, challenges that elder’s notion that rock-n-roll will only lead to fornication, drinking and *gasp* tragic death. Will he win the girl, the preacher’s daughter (Lori Singer)? Will he teach his best friend (Chris Penn) how to dance? Will he win the farm tractor race game of chicken? And the film’s most important question, how did those kids learn to dance so fast? The soundtrack is a virtually musical tour of 80’s hits. From Shalmar’s innuendo-latent “Dancing in the Sheet” to Kenny Loggins’s pop monster hit “Footloose,” it is a solid good time. Of course, they are remaking the thing to stab me in the heart.
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