Greatest opening/closing numbers on film

Cafe Society
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On film rather than stage because recorded numbers are more absolute for judging (plus, I haven’t seen many Broadway shows, mainly for cost reasons). I’ll share what I know, but I’d love to hear more recommendations.

Opening:
Little Shop of Horrors
Hard Day’s Night - still holds up even after countless parodies. For reference, I knew all the words to “Running from our Fans”, pre-internet, before I ever watched this movie, and I was still genuinely entertained.
Austin Powers - perfect, over-the-top, opening nubmer fun that really shames the poorly done opening of the sequel
Gold Diggers of 1933 - perfect pre-code ironic humor. The number was a flashy faux-on-stage rendition of “We’re in the Money”, and it ended with the producer telling the cast that the play had folded and that they were all out of jobs

Closing:
Good News (1947) - “Varsity Drag” - Goes on forever in a good way. And the film ends on its last note.
42nd Street - Title - City scene with lots of stuff going on (plus, look hard enough and you’ll see where the makers of Phone Booth got the inspiration for their anachronistic opening).
South Park: BLU - Really short, but it brings all the characters back into frame in a delightful, over-the-top way, and the geek-baiting long string of “hick” synonyms is cute.

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Closing - “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” - Monty Python’s Life of Brian

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I personally loved the closing of 40 Year Old Virgin.

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Any Busby Berkeley – if you liked 42ND STREET, try DAMES. GOLDIGGERS OF 1933 (I think that’s the one) has the great opening number of “We’re in the Money” sung by Ginger Rogers (partly in pig Latin.)

Opening and closing of SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN ain’t bad, neither.

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Opening and closing: All That Jazz (“On Broadway” and “Bye Bye Love” respectively).

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Opening: “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz.

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Opening: Charlotte Greenwood and the Goldwyn Girls doing “Bend Down, Sister!” in Palmy Days (1931).

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Opening:
“Fugue for Tinhorns” from Guys and Dolls
“I Hope I Get It” from A Chorus Line
“Six Months Out of Every Year” from Damn Yankees.
“Another Op’nin’ Another Show” from Kiss Me Kate

Closing:
“Lullabye of Broadway” from Gold Diggers of 1935.
“Remember my Forgotten Man” from Foortlight Parade
(And let’s give credit to Harry Warren and Al Dubin, who wrote the music for both)

“Brotherhood of Man” from How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying

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I thought I should have bolded the titles my examples (and italicized).

Oh, God, don’t remind me of that.

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That is indeed the best musical number ever filmed, but I don’t think it comes at the end . . . Of course, I haven’t been able to sit through that gawdawful movies in years, except for that one number.

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You mean from Golddiggers? Or do you mean “Shanghai Lil” from Footlight Parade. Both were great, I thought (but I especially love it when they go down a line of characters who all sing a line or two of dialogue in musical numbers, so I like “Shanghai Lil better”.

Good call. I love that number, but unfortunately, I heard the recent stage version with the scatting woman and the jazzier music first, and liked it. It was disappointing to not hear the jazziness in woman’s part of the song in the film version. But I liked the Drew Carey Show version too.

[QUOTE=Eve]
Opening: Charlotte Greenwood and the Goldwyn Girls doing “Bend Down, Sister!” in Palmy Days (1931).*

Man, that sounds intriguing. Too bad it’s not on DVD. I’ll have to check to see if it’s in TCM’s repertoire.

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Opening: which Bond film’s credit sequence music do you prefer?

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Me? Goldfinger, of course. But were there any Bond movies with actual opening “numbers”?

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In the 1940 “classic” Too Many Girls there’s a scene at the end with the college football team’s victory bonfire. A very young (and very handsome) Desi Arnaz is singing and playing the conga, lit only by the flames of the campfire.

I finally understood what Lucy saw in him.

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Cabaret and Wilkommen.

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Excellent call.

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Opening: The End from Apocalypse Now.

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Gotta be Casino Royale.

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I came in here expecting to contradict someone for nominating the ending of Grease, but I see you guys have been too smart to even bring it up yet! “We Go Together” is a fine song and it would have been a fine ending, if it weren’t for that horrible, terrible, no good, very bad Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ending with the car flying off into the sunset!

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All these posts in and no mentions for Disney movies? Do they not qualify under some reason I’m not getting? (I’m not at all knowledgable of musical/stage tradition, so that’s actually a serious (not snarky) question).

To me, the finest opening number is Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. With no less than 22 separate singing voices, each one getting their own measure in the sun, plus four different ensemble arrangements, the song itself shows a songwriter, Howard Ashman, at the height of his powers… right before he died of AIDS.

Let’s start with the basics: co-written with Alan Menken the song is rich in exposition and personality… at the end you know who these people are, what they do, what they’re like. There’s a bit of foreshadowing

it introduces the major conflicts, it kicks-starts the plot… it pretty much does everything you wish of an opening number. And it’s bouncy as all hell.

What makes the song really special, imho, is it’s relationship to the rest of the movie. Actually, to go on a wider tangent, Menken’s entire soundtrack* is a wonder, one of the most thought-out pieces of movie music I’ve heard, and it starts off with “Belle” (actually, it starts off with the Introduction, but, dammit, I’ve gotta point to make! :wink: ). Musically, BATB has a richness of themes that are fully developed and utilized throughout the film, all of them coming together in the end in the final moments, a consideration to the overall musical structure that I really don’t hear all that much in motion pictures. (In a lot of movies, it sounds like the soundtrack is scored as the dailies come in. Other movies repeat the same 1 or 2 melodies into your head - Fantastic Four is a pretty bad offender in this respect).

For example, the theme that you first hear when Belle sings, in the middle of the song when she’s looking at the book

is repeated many times in the film, most importantly when the Beast becomes a Prince. As you watch the transformation, the “isn’t this amazing?” theme repeats as the Beast rises from a near-death, turning human, the music growing ever more confident with each repetition. As the movie ends, you hear snippets of the major melodies of many of the songs, finally ending with the title song.

There’s a lot of love and respect for the material in this movie; it seems one of those films where everybody realized that they were working on something special, which inspired them even more. There’s a level of craftsmanship and competence on the part of the artists involved that comes through, easily seen on the screen, even 15 years after the films release.

*He and Ashman worked ala Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Menken wrote the music for BATB and Ashman was responsible for the lyrics. I’m sure there was a lot of crossover, but that seems to be the general division of labor for this film.