Elvis in Jailhouse Rock, 1957
The golden age of the Hollywood musical reached its zenith in the 1950s, a time when an emerging younger market, postwar affluence, middle-class values, the Korean War, and rock ’n’ roll music changed the focus of the film industry. The major studios were blessed by an improved Technicolor process, a widescreen format, and production designs that appealed to an audience eager for escape and exhilaration.
MGM’s musicals, led by Arthur Freed and his inspired staff of brilliant collaborators, won Academy Awards for Best Picture during the 1950s: An American in Paris and Gigi. While creating original musicals like Singin’ in the Rain, Royal Wedding, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Elvis Presley’s third film, Jailhouse Rock, MGM also joined other studios to venture into film versions of Broadway hits. Guys and Dolls, Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate and Silk Stockings, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific and The King and I, and the frolicking Pajama Game found new life on the screen. Judy Garland came out of retirement to create an independent production company, producing and starring in an epic-length musical version of A Star Is Born directed by George Cukor—which lost more than 40 minutes of numbers and dramatic scenes between its first test screening and its release.
By the decade’s end, television was drawing more and more customers away from the country’s movie theaters, and Hollywood’s musical output declined. A few of the major studios reduced their fulltime employees, and production teams like the legendary Freed Unit were replaced by groups gathered only for specific films.
Enjoy an evening of memorable film clips, musical recordings, and historical anecdotes by American music specialist Robert Wyatt. Relive numbers like “Singin’ in the Rain,” “The Man That Got Away,” “True Love,” “I Got Rhythm,” “Another Op’nin’, Another Show,” and dozens of others—all part of a dazzlingly creative era when a ticket to your favorite screen musical could be purchased for 70 cents.
Other Connections
Hollywood took advantage of new technologies to make movies that were bigger, wider, more colorful, and sounded better than anything you could see on a 12-inch black-and-white screen. Viewers certainly couldn’t experience 3D on their DuMont or Raytheon sets, so MGM originally released Kiss Me, Kate in that process in 1953. “From This Moment On,” a number cut from a different Cole Porter show, was interpolated into the film and shows off the spectacular dancing of Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Bobby Van, and Bob Fosse—whom choreographer Hermes Pan allowed to choreograph his duet with Carol Haney (which begins at 2:14). Porter spoofed the craze for technical gimmicks in the song “Stereophonic Sound” in his show Silk Stockings, a delivered in the 1957 film version by Janis Paige and Fred Astaire.
Not all technical innovations found favor with movie musical audiences. Director Joshua Logan’s decision to add intense color filters to South Pacific’s musical numbers—presumably to heighten to mood of the songs—came in for widespread critical drubbing when the film was released in 1958. Take a look at how “Bali H’ai” looked behind a haze of purples, golds, and reds.
