Movies & Musicals

Movies and music has always gone hand in hand. Before sound was added to movies, there was a score that accompanied each silent movie, with a pianist, organist or orchestra hired to play while the movie was being shown. It was just the natural order of things that the first full-length movie was "The Jazz Singer." You couldn't, even with a big stretch of the imagination, call "The Jazz Singer" a musical, though.

"The Broadway Melody", which was released in 1929, is generally accepted as the first true movie musical. "The Broadway Melody" won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1929, and that set off a rush by the studios to hire singers and dancers that were stars of Broadway hits to star in musical movies.

The public loved it! "The Desert Song" was also released in 1929. It was actually an operetta, but no expense was spared by Warner Brothers studio in filming the movie. It was mostly filmed in Technicolor (a very expensive method of making color movies). "On with the Show" was also released in 1929. So was "Gold Diggers of Broadway," a musical that held the enviable position as the highest-grossing film ever produced from the time of its release until 1939.

Probably the best-known dancers in musical movies ever are Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. But there were so outstanding stars of musical movies — Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Ann Miller, Donald O'Connor, Cyd Charisse, Mickey Rooney, Vera Ellen, Jane Powell, Howard Keel, and Kathryn Grayson — the list goes on.

The studios sparred no expense in the filming of the musical scenes in musical movies. "The Wizard of Oz," "Meet Me in St. Louis," "Easter Parade," "On the Town," "An American in Paris," "Singin' in the Rain," and "The Band Wagon" are just a few of the musical movies with very extravagantly staged dance numbers. Musical movies today have been few and far between, but such films as "Chicago", "Moulin Rouge", "Nine", and recently "Burlesque" prove that although scarce the genre is as strong as ever.