It’s a cliche that *Oklahoma *was the first “modern” musical; a trope that it was the first musical in which the songs added to the plot and the characterizations; that before Oklahoma, musical numbers in a musical were just inserted, willy-nilly, as Musical Numbers.
Now, unless I completely misunderstand what all that means, I wanna call bullshit, OK?
I just watched the second movie version of Showboat, 1935, directed by James Whale, starring Irene Dunn. Sure, some of its songs were Musical Numbers performed by characters who were performers. But several of them were “modern” musical numbers, as I understand the distinction: songs that serve to give us insight into what a character was thinking, and that are relevant to the plot.
And what about The Singing Lieutenant, 1931, directed by Ernst Lubitsch? All of its songs are integrated into the plot and serve to communicate relevant information about the characters. They’re also very pre-code and very racy, for that matter: “Jazz Up Your Lingerie” is a song I’d like to see Madonna cover.
And howbout Love Me Tonight, Ruben Mamoulian, 1932? The songs were TOTALLY integrated into the plot: verses would pass from person to person as the camera followed the song around the city of Paris. Like The Singing Lieutenant, not a single musical number was staged as a Musical Number.
So what’s with Oklahoma? What difference am I missing? Sure, it had a “ballet” inserted into it, but only after The Red Shoes was a hit. And this was long after On Your Toes, 1939, “dance direction” by George Ballanchine.
So seriously, enlighten me. What’s the big deal about Oklahoma?
The conventional wisdom, with what validity I can’t say, is that Oklahoma was the first smash hit Broadway musical to use the songs-integral-to-plot convention that has become SOP since. While other shows had sporadically done it before, it was something of a hit-or-miss optional practice – but Oklahoma turned it into a convention of the musical stage, to be flouted at your risk.
Hmm. Well, I’ve never seen that distinction made. I think I’m gonna add this myth to my list of myths to obnoxiously and pedantically debunk at every opportunity.
I just looked at a bunch of articles written about “Oklahoma!” at the time it came out in 1943. Critics at the time all seemed more interested in Agnes De Mille’s choreography more so than the music, although that was held in high regard.
But the critics of the day were very impressed by the dancing.
I believe that it was generally the first musical to have been written with the sole purpose of fully integrating song and plot. Rodgers & Hammerstein set out to create a fully integrated musical and they were the first to do it successfully and consistently.
Oh, and Showboat (1936)?
Writing credits:
Edna Ferber (novel)
Oscar Hammerstein II (play)
It represented the intermediate stages of the idea that he had for musicals. Keep that in mind before you pull the whole obnoxious pedant routine.
I haven’t seen the other films you mention, but it sounds like the musical numbers, while integrated into the plot, are not integral to the plot. Could you remove them and still have a film? That is the idea behind the plays of Rodgers & Hammerstein. The songs are crucial to the advancement of the plot, and only occasionally for the purpose of fleshing out the story. Exceptions include Kansas City from Oklahoma!, which serves to fill in the characters and storyline rather than simply advance the plot.
The idea was present in an incipient but still developing stage for a while (primarily in the heads of Rodgers & Hammerstein, but present elsewhere). Oklahoma! was the first major musical (and it was only written a few years after Showboat) to completely realize the full potential of the musical and fully implement the concept of integrated musical numbers.
I still don’t see the distinction. The songs of Love Me Tonight are pretty damn integrated.
In any case, it was Hammerstein’s involvement with Showboat that set me to wondering. Although he had nothing to do with Love Me Tonight or The Singing Lieutenant, it seems pretty clear to me that he’d begun implementing those ideas much sooner than Oklahoma.
Polycarp’s suggestion that it was only the show’s success that set it apart–though I don’t think *Showboat *was a flop–is the only distinction that sounds reasonable to me.
Again, I don’t think that the idea was as fully realized in Showboat as it was in Oklahoma!.
Look at it this way: films before Citizen Kane had deep focus, subjective camera, non-linear narratives, etc., but Citizen Kane marked the full synthesis of those ideas.
I just read a really good series of books about the history of musicals, decade by decade, and the author (Ethan Mordden) explains why Oklahoma! is so important: (he’s distinuishing between musical comedies like Anything Goes and musical plays)
In an earlier volume, he dismisses Show Boat as the first integrated musical because it wasn’t. What we see nowdays is a stripped down version–the “good parts” version, to use a Princess Bride-ism. Almost no-one alive has seen the “real” Show Boat–what we’ve seen is the “Let’s make Show Boat more like Oklahoma! version” that cropped up in the mid '40s.
For example, a tradition of pre R&H musicals was that you let the star do their “specialty” act–you’re a director who sees some woman who does a really spiffy bubble-dance act and so you tell the writers to write a spot for her into your new show. And so, in the middle of a zany story about a guy who must fulfill some weird condition to win his inhertance when the hero runs off, stage right after the heroine (who’s really the lost princess of Ruritania, unbeknownst to all) leaving the rest of the cast looking on. And then the specialty dancer says “Gee fellas, don’t be glum! Does anyone want to learn the new dance craze that’s sweeping the nation? Let me show it to you!” whereupon she goes into her dance while the scenery is prepared for the next act.
And the public was cool with this. To paraphrase the author "The audience at the time didn’t say “Who is this woman doing the bubble-dance and what the hell does she have to do with what’s going on?”, they thought “A bubble-dance! Cool!”. There were several (IIRC) in the original Showboat, the one that comes right to mind is “Kim’s Imatations” where, in the end when Kim is appearing in St. Louis on stage, the actress did her specialty act of impersonations (of Bea Lillie and Ethel Barrymore to name two) while singing a reprise of “Why Do I Love You”. This scene/song has since been replaced. There’s another scene where a redneck gets so caught up in the melodrama that the Showboat players are presenting and starts shooting at the actors. The original Cap’n Andy was apparently a Danny Kaye-esque comedian and the musical left the spot open for him to take over and do whatever he wanted (since the performers fled)–usually he’d finish the melodrama, taking all the parts himself.
Th’ thing with Oklahoma! is that everything is integrated–the songs, the dialogue, no “specialty acts” and most importantly–the dancing. The dancing actually moved the story forward and that was new. Take out the “Laurey Makes Up Her Mind” ballet and there’s a huge gaping hole in the plot–we’d have no idea really who Laurey is or why she’s so afraid of Jud. The dream-ballet got inside her head and let us get to know her hopes and fears.
By contrast, take out some of the dances in “Love Me Tonight” and you get a shorter movie–hell, take out the famous “Singin’ in the Rain” dance by Kelly from the movie and you end up with a shorter movie*. Oklahoma! integrated everything. It may not have been 100% successful (you need the “Will gets off the train” sequence, but the “Kansas City” dance number is there because, at best, it lends atmosphere. But it’s completely cuttable from a story standpoint.) but it tried. At least Will didn’t get on stage and do, say, impersonations 'cause it was his specialty actl
Fenris
*Not a better movie, mind you. Don’t get me wrong–Kelly’s “Singin’” dance is one of the best ever filmed. But it doesn’t tell us anything new about the character or his situation–he’s already fallen in love with Reynold’s character and we knew that several scenes back. The dance is there because Kelly was a genius and it made sense to give every possible second of screentime for him to show off his art. In other words, it’s a specialty act.
A book came out a couple of years ago (perhaps this one) pointing out that there were many musicals with integrated songs and plot in the 30s. You can see it onscreen in something like Footlight Parade or Dames. Granted, the story for these were not particularly sophisticated: basically, they were “Let’s put on a show!” and the songs were integrated into the plot by the expedient of making them part of the show being put on. But the plot of Oklahoma is not particularly sophisticated, either: two people fall in love.
Oklahoma! was just one more step in the evolution of the musical during this time, but retroactively, it was pointed to as a break from the earlier traditions, since it did have all the pieces in place and was the biggest success in Broadway history until the 1960s.
I can’t do a search right now, but there was a thread about this exact same topic less than a year ago—and it was pointed out that several songs in Oklahoma! (don’t forget the exclamation mark!) were plunked in there simply for the the purpose of “being cute” or giving time for scenery and costume changes—“Everything’s Up To Date in Kansas City,” for one.
I think both Oklahoma! and Citizen Kane—as good as they may have been—have become way overhyped over the decades at the expense of other films and shows just as good.
And while you are doing that, whomever you have cornered at the party will be looking over your shoulder to find someone more fun to talk to.
Seriously, getting your knickers in a twist over Oklahoma!?!
When Lucas has re-redone the Han and Greedo scene in ANH?!?!!?!
Come on!
Nope, beg to differ. “Everything’s Up To Date In Kansas City”, at least the song part, is an important character piece–it shows us that Will has pretentions of sophistication but is, in reality, a not-very-bright hick. (“They got uh big thee-ater/they call a burley-kew” or “Yuh c’n walk t’ th’ privy in th’ rain/an’ never wet yer feet”). I can’t defend the “Hey kids, let me show you the new dance craze that’s sweeping the nation!” two-step number that follows of course, but the song itself is important and at least the song (which, I think was there to give time for a scene change) had some connection to the plot and the preceeding action AND it was period-appropriate. He didn’t start jitterbugging or whatever was hot in the '40s.
The other thing that Oklahoma! had in every song that no earlier musical did was a unique “voice” for each character’s song. Look at Anything Goes–it had possibly the largest number of huge hit songs to ever come out of one musical. And any song (pretty much) can be sung by any character: “Anything Goes” was sung by Reno, but could just as easily have been sung by Billy or Moonface. “You’re The Top” was a Reno/Billy duet that could just as easily have been Billy/Moonface or Moonface/Reno. “Friendship” was Moonface/Reno but could have been Billy/Moonface or Reno/Hope.
Contrast that to “Kansas City” which could not have been sung by Curley, Laurie, Aunt Eller, Ali Hackem or Ado Annie. Ado Annie’s big number “I’m Just A Girl (Who Cain’t Say No)” was tailored specifically to her character and couldn’t have been sung by Laurie. The “second banana couple resolves their issues” song (“All Er Nothin’”) is tailored to the plot and character so tightly that it couldn’t have been sung by the main couple any more than the main couple’s song (“People Will Say We’re In Love”) could have been sung by the second banana couple.
Even a masterpiece like Show Boat didn’t have that kind of song/character integration, as can be seen by the newer practice of having Parthey sing “Why Do I Love You” to her new granddaughter. At least some of the songs are interchangable between characters.
That can’t be said of Oklahoma!. Even the big choral numbers have individualized lines that are character specific.
Chuck–couldn’t have been that particular book–itwon’t be published for at least a year (I’m eagerly awaiting it! ). That book is the last in the series of decade-by-decade musical theater history books that I mentioned earlier and Mordden is very clear (and supports his thesis) that Oklahoma! was something new. He spends about 20 pages on it (more than any other musical in any of the other books) in the '40’s book Beautiful Morinin’
I think Ilsa summed it up nicely: the individual elements may have existed before Oklahoma! but the complete…gestalt…wasn’t achieved until Oklahoma!. And it was such a powerful change that it completely changed musicals. Again, compare Anything Goes (the biggest musical comedy of the '30s) with Annie Get Your Gun (the biggest musical comedy of the '50s). Even in lighthearted musical comedy of the '40s, all the songs are integrated to the plot and to the characters, none of the stars get specialty acts, there aren’t dances for the sake of dances, they have to mean something (the “I’m An Indian Too” dance), etc. Even revivals were “Oklahom-ized” (the aforementioned 1946 revision/revival of Show Boat where the songs were integrated, the plot tightened, the specialty acts removed and much of the fun (apparently) excised.
It’s very trendy right now to dismiss the import of Oklahoma! but history doesn’t support it.
As a thought, I’ve noted in a wide variety of connections lately that there’s often one point in an ongoing process or sequence at which there’s a definite transition from X-tending-toward-Y to Y-with-elements-of-X-retained. Might it be appropriate, given everything discussed up to this point, to say that the Hammersteinian integrated vision was being moved towards before Oklahoma, most of Oklahoma follows that “doctrine,” and that musicals thereafter were judged by how well they followed that “doctrine” (in addition to many other things)? In other words, it may not have been absolutely perfect in its integration of “numbers” into plot, but it was the point where the line was definitely crossed?
There was never a point where the line was permanently and irrevocably crossed. It simply evovled.
Like Eve I remember an earlier thread, but can’t search for it. I believe the argument was whether Oklahoma! had anything more to contribute than Pal Joey, which debuted a couple of years earlier.
After a bit of squabbling, the debate turned into what was a proper mix of
Book
Lyrics
Music
Dance
and how tightly they had been integrated with the characters and overall storyline.
I’ve never seen Pal Joey, so I don’t know how dance numbers were handled. But of course, Oklahoma! had Agnes DeMille and a ballet scene that actually drove the story. I don’t think anyone had pulled that off before.
