Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History is an entertaining, quite comprehensive if also conventional documentary about the Hollywood musical ever genre.
Hosted by Oscar winning stage, screen and television actress Shirley Jones, it is a celebration of song and dance beginning with the Busby Berkeley era through the first musical to win an Oscar Award in more than 30 years, “Chicago,” and ending with the highly acclaimed box office hit “Dreamgirls.”
The best films from every studio, every decade and the most important and influential stars are included in a survey-like docu about the genres heyday of success. The journey begins with the sound era, continues through the patriotic feel-good musicals of World War II, through the development of the “integrated” musical in which songs became an important story-telling ingredient, through the near-death of the medium when the studio system collapsed, to the genres recent resurgence and multi-generational embrace. Visionary directors and producers like Rob Marshall, Bill Condon, and Craig Zadan have recently brought innovative modern musicals to audiences and filled movie theatres once again.
New interviews with stars like Liza Minnelli, Shirley MacLaine, Mickey Rooney, Rita Moreno, Debbie Reynolds, Leslie Caron, Joel Grey and directors Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls”) and Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) among many others, give an insiders insight into the world that helped shape these filmed masterpieces.
Excellent sequences are interspersed with rarely seen footage and interviews with stars including Busby Berkley, Vincent Minnelli, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly also help us to understand the creative processes that make their films works of art.
“Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History” offers an historical look at one of Hollywood’s best-known genre.
Films Include:
The Jazz Singer, The Wizard of Oz, Dames, Fashions of 1934, The Little Colonel, Gold Diggers of 1935, Meet Me in St. Louis, Babes on Broadway, Yankee Doodle Dandy, On the Town, The Harvey Girls, Cover Girl, The King and I, The Sound of Music, An American In Paris, Singin In The Rain, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Royal Wedding, Damn Yankees, Gigi, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Oklahoma!, Carousel, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, West Side Story, Funny Girl, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Oliver!, Sweet Charity, Hello Dolly, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fiddler On The Roof, Cabaret, Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, New York, New York, Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Hair, All That Jazz, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Evita, Cry Baby, Moulin Rouge, Chicago and Dreamgirls.
Stars Include
Al Jolson, Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Shirley Temple, Betty Grable, Bill Bojangles Robinson, James Cagney, Frank Sinatra, Leslie Caron, Debbie Reynolds, Donald OConner, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Dick Van Dyke, Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minelli, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Ben Vereen, Roy Scheider, Ann Reinking, Madonna, Johnnie Depp, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, Beyonce Knowles and Nicole Kidman.
