The musical sometimes feels like a relic of a long-dead Hollywood studio system, but it remains a genre that captures movies’ ability to create story worlds that move freely between reality and fantasy. The worst examples come from filmmakers who give license to music, color, and movement to run amok; the best transcend artifice and integrate songs that become expressions of pure character emotion. Musicals offer endless possibilities, but success demands a complete mastery of the medium.
The best movie musicals of all time have faced obstacles as varied as their creators’ styles and tastes. That’s in part because its integration of at least two art forms — music and film always, but sometimes also dance — demands an unusually high-caliber of multi-faceted talent from those attempting its complexities. After Lee De Forest invented the “talky,” the opportunity oozing from that new tech prompted an industry rush on musicals in the last days of the 1920s.
That went over well with audiences at first. But by the end of the ‘30s, movie musicals were a dime-a-dozen, leaving people fatigued and rapidly turning music into the Marvel debate of mid-century cinema. Who needed another film with “Broadway Melody” or “Big Broadcast” in the title? Of course, historic hits throughout the ‘40s, ’50s, and ‘60s, including “Meet Me in St.
Louis” and “Singin’ In The Rain,” meant Hollywood’s best movie musicals were still to come — with story and emotion .