I was thinking of the Marx Brothers. I don’t think it fits because the movies were film versions of their plays. Even though there was a plot they were still structured like a vaudeville review. The comedy had to be broken up with musical interludes. Some of the music was played for laughs but often it was played straight.
I remember reading the Mad magazine parody of True Grit. There was a scene where Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) and Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) are talking about La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) being captured by the bandits. Mattie says they have to rescue him because if they don’t, neither of them will be able to sing the movie’s theme song.
I have the original(I think) Chicago soundtrack on Spotify, and I was rather surprised how poor her singing is. She doesn’t appear to have much range, which is ok. But because she kind of just yells the parts where a high note should be, her strong accent comes through and all I can think of is Lilith (from Cheers) and she would never “rouge her knees and roll her stockings down”. Sorry, Bebe. I love you but singing isn’t your strong suit.
I love this scene!
The first example that came to my mind is one I brought up in our movie thread. The most recent Joker film, which has many issues, co-stars Lady GaGa. I said at the time “just because you snagged Lady GaGa for your movie, doesn’t mean she has to sing. As I recall, she’s a fairly good actress, as seen in A Star is Born”. No need to shoehorn in forgettable songs.
I’m guessing this isn’t in the spirit of the OP but had to put it here anyway as it comes out of nowhere. It’s just a big pisstake.
It sometimes happened in the TV Series.
Kirk Douglas in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
The idea of sailors of yore entertaining one another with whatever skills they have, be it sleight-of-hand, juggling, singing, etc. is a LOT more real-world plausible than one policeman singing a romantic song to his partner policeman in his apartment.
Ooooh; I never noticed that about CHiPs. Who knew?!?! Not I.
Irene Dunne was a classically trained singer who graduated from a conservatory before deciding to become an actress.
So most of her movies have her character sing, and sometimes play piano as well. It’s usually worked into the plot: in The Joy of Living, her character is a professional singer, and a very popular one, who is making a lot of money at it while her family sponges off of her. She sings a couple of times because, why not?
In The Awful Truth, Cary Grant is jealous of the time she is spending with another man, even though it’s none of his business, because they are in divorce proceedings. Anyway, it turns out he is her voice coach she is going to just because it’s something she always wanted to do. She gives a formal recital, which Grant crashes, and there’s some purpose to it, because it shows that she hasn’t been lying about seeing a voice coach for lessons.
Some of the excuses for singing are a little more far-fetched-- she bonds with a future mother-in-law when they discover they both love singing around the piano. Sometimes they are perfectly natural-- she sings a lullaby to her child.
But there is nearly always some singing.
Judging it by modern standards is difficult, because singing didn’t record all that well in the 30s, when many of her movies were made. Her singing in movies doesn’t exactly blow you away-- but then, no singing in the 1930s does. The few films she made in the 40s with singing sound a lot better, and you get more of an idea of what she sounded like live. (The first innovation that improved sound since the introduction of sound-on-film in 1927 was the Academy Curve, first used in The Wizard of Oz in 1938.)
People going to films in the 30s were used to the quality of the sound, I guess, and could “translate” it in their heads to what someone really sounded like.
I have heard recordings of Irene Dunne on records that were made in recording studios for records, not for films, and they are probably much closer to what she sounded like live, and she really is very good.
I think that’s almost a parody of the phenomenon the OP describes- they chose a very distinctive pair whose sounds were iconic for the time period being celebrated and stuck them in just to perform that song.
Kind of a sort of meta-joke of the 1960s practice of putting singers in movies just to perform their songs- like say… Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo. They were both singers, but clearly they stuck the “My rifle, my pony, and me” song in there specifically to showcase their singing. I feel like the Austin Powers people did that with Bacharach and Costello to poke gentle fun at that practice.
Not a movie but a radio drama: Richard Diamond, Private Detective
My favorite Fred Astaire movie is the 1961 film The Pleasure of His Company, in which he neither sings nor dances.
Heh, the “piano player.” Hoagy Carmichael is rather a big deal in 20th C. American popular music. And, sorry, Lauren Bacall’s singing in that film is not good. I’ve seen her do better, but she’s not a talented singer.
Eugene Hütz of Gogol Bordello didn’t do any singing in Everything Is Illuminated - though he mock-conducted the Ukrainian folk band at the train station, played by…the rest of Gogol Bordello.
Slight hijack, but: now I’m wondering if the Can You Read My Mind bit in SUPERMAN was scripted when they thought they’d hire an actress who sings, and if Margot Kidder then pointed out that, ‘yeah, I don’t sing.’
Fred Astaire’s first dramatic role was “On the Beach.” Y’know, the movie about the end of the world where everyone dies? His character commits suicide by carbon monoxide. That was the first movie I ever saw him in. I was 10 years old at the time, and was surprised to discover he was a famous song and dance man many years later, when I saw “The Band Wagon” on TV.
Does lip-syncing count? (Dean Stockwell paying tribute to Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” in “Blue Velvet”)
Sandra Bernhart singing “Come Rain or Come Shine” to a slightly taped-up Jerry Lewis in “King of Comedy”.
In “After Hours”, a couple dance to Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is” just before he ends up in a situation similar to Jerry’s, above.
Woman breaking out in “Ode to Joy” in Korova Milkbar in “Clockwork Orange”.
The (drunk) psychopathic protagonist in “Man Bites Dog” bellowing out “Cinema!” as he stumbles into things.
A party scene in “The Reckoning” where a drunk Nicol Williamson starts singing some old British song and then when someone else joins in on the singing NW punches him.
“Camelot” in “…Holy Grail”?
Stephen Bishop briefly doing some proto-hippy singing on the stairs with an acoustic guitar and fawning girls before Mr. Belushi grabs it and smashes it into pieces into “Animal House”. (“…sorry…”)
Random shots of the incredibly inane Tony and the Roosters practicing away, driving yet another psychotic protagonist - Abel Ferrara - their upstairs neighbour, into a yet even deeper psychotic power-drilling rage, in “Driller Killer”.
When I think of Hoagy Carmichael I think of this scene in The Best Years of Our lives.
Funnily enough (?), Malcolm McDowell’s character does the same thing on Mozart in the Jungle while testing his mic for a radio interview.
Harry Belafonte sings an original song, “My Baby’s Not Around,” in Odds Against Tomorrow. IIRC, it’s not especially relevant to the plot.
Best I can come up with is Adam Driver singing “Being Alive” in Marriage Story and Andrew Berth Feldman singing “Maneater” in No Hard Feelings. Truth be told, neither is exactly Neil Patrick Harris nor known as singers, but they definitely give it the ol’ yeoman’s try.