I beg to differ. I’ve seen it about a dozen times on VHS/DVD and I’ve never seen it in a “midnight showing” capacity. It’s obviously not The Wizard of Oz or Gone With The Wind but I think it’s a fun movie with a fun cast and premise. You don’t need the live hoo-ha to enjoy it at all.
Newsies.
If you don’t mind musicals that are films of the staged production, I strongly recommend “Passing Strange”. Small cast playing multiple characters, the songs move the story along as much or more than the dialogue, great music, great story, etc.
I thought you were going to link to “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”. Both are creepy as hell in a genre that is usually fairly sunny. (When I was a kid, the movie of Cabaret gave me nightmares. I thought it was a horror movie for a while.)
But it did lead me to read Isherwood’s I Am a Camera/ Goodbye to Berlin trying to understand it.
Another filmed stage production you might want to check out is Pippin.
You’re right about “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” but I think the twist at the end of “If You Could See Her” seduces the audience to the MC’s point of view – until the last line horrifies you.
The Sound of Music (You have no heart whatsoever if you don’t like this one)
Guys and Dolls - Marlon and Frank. Need I say more?
The Music Man - Shirley Jones…yessss! with a young Ron(nie) Howard.
I beg to differ. The lead’s vocals sound like the owl from My Cousin Vinny. No thank you, I’ll take the New York or LA Productions.
I saw what you did there…and nothin’s plenty for me.
Oooooooh, just thought of an idea for a thread…Nope…been done…
Porky’s and Bess
Agree with this 100%. You’re just kind of lulled into a nice, agreeable, amusing little ditty, more or less completely forgetting just where and when the thing is set, and then the last, whispered line…BOOM! It’s like a slap across the face and you have that moment of “Oh, my god!”
Kander & Ebb are/were incredible.
A good though frequently forgotten musical, the film was decently made.
Nobody mentioned Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog yet? It is silly, and makes fun of all the classic mad scientist/evil overlord type memes, and the old high school young love musicals. I frequently throw it on when the god-sprogs are over.
Sounds like all of the Muppet movies.
Movin’ right along. . .
I think you are going about this all wrong. Instead of looking for great musicals that nothing else can live up to, you should find a terrible, rotten musical so afterwards all others will seem great.
It just so happens…I have just that musical. At Long Last Love staring Bert Reynolds and Cybill Shepard. It was directed by Peter Bogdonovich. Yes, two actors who had never done a musical up to that time, directed by a director who had never done a musical…ah, it was truly awful.
And a total and complete waste of Madeline Kahn, which is really the bigger sin.
Alternativdely, you could watch Man of la Mancha, with its non-singing cast* headed by Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren and non-musical director.
*except for the Barber, who’d played the role on Broadway, and James Coco, who’d briefly done it on Broadway. They embarass the rest of the cast.
Ahhh and the concept behind this musical. Truly wonderful! Its sureality .. taking place in a dungeon, yet not.
Watching Sophia Loren was especially sad. She actually looked guilty about taking part in this film.
It’s been years since I saw it, so I can’t tell you how much dancing is involved, but Carousel has some truly magnificent music. Bonnie Rait’s dad played Billy Bigalow on stage, and his 'Soliloquy" is incredibly moving – a young man, about to become a father, and terrified at the prospect – and is almost spoken rather than sung. It’s on YouTube somewhere. Check it out.
And now, from the sublime to the ridiculous: the “Once More With Feeling” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, it’s a musical episode, but it is one in which at least four separate major season-long (and a couple of series-long) plot threads are advanced in the songs.
It’s been a while and I’ve seen a bunch of these movies so I thought I’d do an update on what I’ve seen:
I enjoyed State Fair and Singin’ in the Rain.
I liked Oklahoma!, although I did not like the dream sequence in the middle (I found it particularly hilarious they very conspicuously traded out the main characters for stand-ins, I assume so they didn’t have to teach the main actors how to dance).
Sweeney Todd was just okay. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t really like it either.
I didn’t like Carousel. The story was ludicrous and pointless.
I liked Fiddler, though it was extremely long and the ending was somewhat unsatisfying.
I didn’t like An American in Paris. It started fine, but ultimately the story was a pointless buildup for the big dance number at the end.
I didn’t really care for Cabaret. I just don’t like Liza Minnelli.