Saturday Night Fever - 1977

Badham's melodramatic, out-dated film was the biggest musical sensation and blockbuster of the late 1970's (from co-producer Robert Stigwood) - adapted by screenwriter Norman Wexler from Nik Cohn's New York Magazine story "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night." It features one of the most famous song soundtracks in film history, and was responsible for the Disco Craze phenomenon, launching hot disco clubs (like Studio 54) and the film super-stardom of 19-year old John Travolta, previously best known as one of the Sweathogs of the television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. The film's soundtrack is the most recognizable, with a slew of high-pitched Bee Gees songs from the Gibbs: "Night Fever," "How Deep is Your Love," "More Than a Woman," "You Should Be Dancin'," and "Stayin' Alive" (which accompanies a memorable opening scene when the working-class protagonist struts down the sidewalk to the lyrics: "Oh, you can tell by the way I walk / I'm a woman's man, no time to talk").

In the classic coming-of-age tale, a conflicted, teenaged Italian-American anti-hero from Brooklyn, Tony Manero (Travolta with the film's sole Oscar nomination) works in a dead-end job as a clerk in a local hardware store and lives at home with his oppressive, verbally-abusive blue-collar family. But after dark, he becomes the dynamic, white polyester-clad stud (with platform shoes, flared pants, and a wide-collared shirt) and undisputed dancing legend of a local nightclub (the 2001 Odyssey), with dancing partner Stephanie (Gorney) for a dance contest. The uneducated macho Manero seeks escape from his desperate plight of a staid home life and unambitious friends by finding recognition on the dance floor. However, his swaggering, troubled character also expresses arrogance, racism, immaturity, obnoxiousness, and misogyny (he sexually abuses and disregards girlfriend Annette (Pescow).

Additional popular songs on the soundtrack included Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You" and the Trammps' "Disco Inferno." Unbelievably, the soundtrack was completely ignored by the Academy, causing a critical outcry and leading to the extremely unlikely Oscar win by the next year's inferior disco film Thank God It's Friday (1978)'s for "Last Dance" (sung by Donna Summer). An inferior sequel, director Sylvester Stallone's Staying Alive (1983) also starred Travolta reprising his Tony Manero role.

Jailhouse Rock - 1957

Jailhouse Rock, 1957 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.

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A great black and white B-film, and considered the best, most popular, and most famous of Elvis Presley's musicals (his third film out of over 30 films from the late 50s through the 60s) - and slightly parallels the rocker's own life. Presley plays cocky, quick-tempered Vince Everett, who is serving a one-year jail sentence for accidental manslaughter. While in jail, his cellmate Hunk Houghton (Shaughnessy), a former veteran country singer, mentors him to learn guitar and sing, and persuades him to enter the prison talent show. After his release from incarceration, the budding rock star is introduced to the record business.

Struggling to break into the music industry, he decides to form his own record label, and becomes an overnight sensation. After being seduced by the decadent lifestyle of a pop star, he becomes rebellious and unwilling to work with his former cellmate and Peggy Van Alden (Tyler), his loyal and pretty girlfriend / talent scout / record promoter. [Judy Tyler (formerly Princess Summerfall Winterspring on the Howdy Doody TV show) tragically died in a car crash before the film was released.]

This pre-Army film is filled with Presley classics, especially the wonderfully-choreographed set piece for "Jailhouse Rock," as well as the other memorable numbers including "I Want to Be Free," "Treat Me Nice," "Baby, I Don't Care," "You're So Square," and the two tender ballads: "Young and Beautiful" and "Don't Leave Me Now." Presley's most memorable films also include Love Me Tender (1956), King Creole (1958), G.I. Blues (1960), Blue Hawaii (1961), and Viva Las Vegas (1964).

Swing Time - 1936

Swing Time, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, 1936 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.

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Another of the greatest Astaire-Rogers dance musicals, their sixth film together, with lyrics and music by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. Hoofer/gambler "Lucky" Garnett (Astaire) is late to his marriage to hometown socialite Margaret Watson (Furness). Her father Judge Watson (Stevens) challenges his prospective son-in-law to return only after earning a fortune of $25,000 in the big city.

In a local dance studio, Lucky falls in love with instructor Penny Carrol (Rogers). After many romantic misunderstandings, complications and difficulties in the contrived plot, he finds his real life's partner. Songs and dances include: "Pick Yourself Up," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Waltz in Swing Time," "A Fine Romance," "Bojangles of Harlem" (Astaire's only blackface number in a tribute to Bill Robinson), and the lengthy, romantic dance duet "Never Gonna Dance" in the finale.

The Sound of Music - 1965

Sound of Music, Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, 1965 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.

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Based on the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical and the true story of the von Trapp family - a lovely film with a mixture of comedy, romance, and suspense - and a wonderful collection of musical tunes. Restless novice postulant Maria at the Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg, Austria, first pictured daydreaming on the hillside surrounded by the beautiful Alps, is persuaded by the Reverend Mother (Wood) to take a governess position for the motherless, singing family of stern widower Captain von Trapp (Plummer), who is engaged to Baroness SchrÖder (Parker).

The seven children include: 16 year-old Liesl (Charmain Carr), 14 year-old Friedrich (Nicholas Hammond), 13 year-old Louisa (Heather Menzies), 11 year-old Kurt (Duane Chase), 10 year-old Brigitta (Angela Cartwright), almost 7 year-old Marta (Debbie Turner), and 5 year-old Gretl (Kym Karath). The children have a well-deserved reputation for scaring off caretakers, but Maria wins them over, and falls in love with her employer, amidst the ominous Nazi occupation. Includes the songs: "Maria," "The Sound of Music," "My Favorite Things," "You Are Sixteen, Going On Seventeen," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "Do-Re-Mi," and "Edelweiss."

My Fair Lady - 1964

My Fair Lady Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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One of the best and most popular musicals of all-time, from Lerner and Loewe - based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion. Arrogant, fastidious, linguistics Professor Henry Higgins (Harrison repeating his Tony Award-winning performance on Broadway) wagers fellow linguist Colonel Hugh Pickering (Hyde-White) that he can transform a Cockney flower-selling, street urchin Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn) - a 'guttersnipe' - into a proper lady with prescribed diction/elocution lessons. The irrepressible 'guttersnipe' is scrubbed, dressed, and tutored, in time to attend the Ascot races and a society ball. In the end, he reluctantly falls in love with Eliza. Includes songs "On the Street Where You Live," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and "I Could Have Danced All Night."

The Jazz Singer - 1927

Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer Framed Art Print
21.6875 in. x 17.6875 in.

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Legendary, revolutionary film, known as the first sound motion picture - literally, the first feature film to utilize Synchronous Sound. In actuality, it was a part-talkie with only a few musical sequences and one ad-libbed, conversational sequence. With Al Jolson in his film debut. Precipitating a split with his cantor father (Oland) and mother (Besserer), young Jewish son Jakie Rabinowitz (Jolson) leaves his home, takes a new name - Jack Robin - and enters show business as a Broadway singer of popular/secular music.

When his father falls ill on Yom Kippur, Jakie takes his father's place in the synagogue and performs the Kol Nidre. Contains the classic line: "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" Tunes include "My Mammy," "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face," "Toot, Toot, Tootsie Goodbye" and "Blue Skies." Academy Award Nominations: 2, including Best Adapted Writing, Best Engineering Effects. Special Award to "Warner Bros., for producing... the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry."

Cabaret - 1972

Cabaret Photo
20 in. x 16 in.

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Set in a cabaret in sexually-charged, decadent, 1930s pre-war Berlin, one of the greatest musicals ever produced, adapted from the Kander-Ebb Broadway stage musical from John Van Druten's play (and movie) I Am a Camera, which, in turn, was based on Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories. Young, bisexual Englishman Brian Roberts (York) becomes involved with free-spirited, promiscuous Kit Kat Klub singer and American expatriate Sally Bowles (Minnelli in her first singing role on-screen). Unbeknownst to her, he also shares her with wealthy German baron playboy/homosexual Maximilian von Heune (Griem). The seedy and sleazy Kit Kat Klub is presided over by a sinister, leering, androgynous emcee/master of ceremonies (Grey). After Sally's abortion and the end of her affair, she sings: "Life is a cabaret, old chum, only a cabaret..." The show 'must go on' night after night as the monstrous Nazis come to power, anti-Jewish persecution and propaganda increases (the subplot of the love affair between Roberts' Jewish friends Fritz and Natalia) and the horror of war appears on the horizon.

A Star Is Born - 1954

Actress Judy Garland, in Scene from Film "A Star Is Born" with Actor James Mason Premium Photographic Print
18 in. x 24 in.
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A Star is Born is the superb 1954 musical, acclaimed by many as the greatest Hollywood musical ever made. Judy Garland's intense performance as the main character, probably the finest of her entire career, illuminates the film based upon Moss Hart's screenplay. It is a remake of William Wellman's original 1937 film by the same name that starred Janet Gaynor. The third version was a poorly made A Star is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand as a pop singer named Esther Hoffman and Kris Kristofferson as John Norman Howard - a rock star.

The film's director, George Cukor, had also directed the film What Price Hollywood? (1932) that is considered the source of all three film versions. Cukor ironically commented upon Hollywood and how it only cared for its own by strategically positioning three official Hollywood ceremonies at the beginning, middle, and end of the film. Each one chronicled the downfall of a talented, but alcoholic Hollywood movie star (James Mason). [Actors who rejected the role included Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant (who accepted but then declined), Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, and Montgomery Clift.]

The emotionally-intense film also hinted at the real-life troubles and problems (five marriages) in the career of its female star - a victim of the Hollywood studio system - during the film's making. Garland's realistic performance reflected the upheavals in her own personal life that led to her death from a drug overdose - and ironically, this film's co-star James Mason delivered her funeral's eulogy in New York in 1969. Predicted to win the Best Actress Oscar, Garland was devastated by the loss to Grace Kelly in an lesser role in The Country Girl.

Singin' in the Rain - 1952

Singin' in the Rain (1952) is one of the most-loved and celebrated film musicals of all time from MGM, before a mass exodus to filmed adaptations of Broadway plays emerged as a standard pattern. It was made directly for film, and was not a Broadway adaptation.

The joyous film, co-directed by Stanley Donen and acrobatic dancer-star-choreographer Gene Kelly, is a charming, up-beat, graceful and thoroughly enjoyable experience with great songs, lots of flashbacks, wonderful dances (including the spectacular Broadway Melody Ballet with leggy guest star Cyd Charisse), casting and story. This was another extraordinary example of the organic, 'integrated musical' in which the story's characters naturally express their emotions in the midst of their lives. Song and dance replace the dialogue, usually during moments of high spirits or passionate romance. And over half of the film - a 'let's put on a play' type of film, is composed of musical numbers.

This superb film, called "MGM's TECHNICOLOR Musical Treasure," was produced during MGM studios' creative pinnacle. From the late 1930s to the early 1960s, producer Arthur Freed produced more than forty musicals for MGM. The creative forces at the studio in the Freed Unit - composed of Freed, Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, and actor/choreographer Gene Kelly - also collaborated together to produce such gems as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Pirate (1948), On the Town (1949), Best Picture Oscar-winner a year earlier with director Vincente Minnelli - An American in Paris (1951), Royal Wedding (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Gigi (1958).

Because the colorful, witty film is set in 1927, it humorously satirizes and parodies the panic surrounding the troubling transitional period from silents to talkies in the dream factory of Hollywood of the late 1920s as the sound revolution swept through. The film's screenplay, suggested by the song Singin' in the Rain that was written by Freed and Brown, was scripted by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who also wrote On the Town (1949)).

The time frame of Comden's and Green's script, the Roaring 20s Era of flappers, was mostly determined by the fact that lyricist Freed (and songwriter Nacio Herb Brown) had written their extensive library of songs in their early careers during the 1920s and 1930s, when Hollywood was transitioning to talkies. The musical comedy's story, then, would be best suited around that theme. Except for two songs, all of the musical arrangements in the film to be showcased were composed by Freed and Brown for different Hollywood films before Freed became a producer.

A Night at the Opera - 1935

A Night at the Opera Masterprint
11 in. x 17 in.
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A Night at the Opera (1935), a musical comedy, is the sixth of thirteen Marx Brothers feature films. A Night at the Opera is universally considered to be the Marx Brothers' best and most popular film, and it received critical acclaim when released. By bringing their comedy sequences, musical numbers, and plot line (a love story) up to higher standards, the film also proved to be a tremendous financial success. In homage to this film, the mid-70s raunchy, mock opera rock band Queen, with lead singer Freddie Mercury, named its fourth album after this film. [They also named their next album after another Marx Bros. film, A Day at the Races.]

The less anarchic, solidly-believable plot and slapstick comedy of this Marx Brothers film (the first one without straight-man Zeppo) was derived from a well-developed screenplay written specifically for them by two of their best writers ever, playwrights George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind (who had previously worked with them on The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930)).

Nashville - 1975

Nashville (1975) Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.
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Nashville (1975) is maverick director/producer Robert Altman's classic, multi-level, original, two and a half-hour epic study of American culture, show-business, leadership and politics - and one of the great American films of the 1970s. Its emergence at the end of two troubling eras (Watergate and the Vietnam War) and on the eve of the country's Bicentennial celebrations signaled that it was commenting upon the confused state of American society. Its free-flowing narrative (from a screenplay by screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury) revealed the shallowness of American life - political emptiness and show-business commercialism are equated.

Underneath the drama about the country-western music business and the election campaign of an unseen, independent (populist) party candidate, the multi-faceted, beautifully-structured film is an ensemble piece, a rich mosaic and a complex tapestry. It tells the free-form, explosive tragic-comedic tale of the inter-twined (and colliding) lives of twenty-four protagonists during a five day (long weekend) period in Nashville, Tennessee (the "Athens of the South") - the capital of country music and a microcosmic representation of all society. The fund-raising rally is to be held at the Parthenon in Nashville [the replica of the Greek Parthenon, a symbol of democracy, was erected in 1876 for the nation's first centenary].

Meet Me in St. Louis - 1944

Meet Me in St. Louis Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.
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Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) is a delightful, classic, nostalgic, poignant, and romanticized musical film - and one of the greatest musicals ever made. It tells the story of a turn-of-the-century family in suburban, midwestern St. Louis of 1903, who live in a stylish Edwardian home at 5135 Kensington Avenue. The city, and the well-to-do Smith family (with four beautiful daughters), is on the verge of hosting (and celebrating) the arrival of the spectacular 1904 World's Fair. However, the family's head of the house is beckoned to New York due to a job promotion - an uprooting move that threatens to indelibly change the lives of the family members forever. Filmed during WWII, the decision to remain in St. Louis in the film's conclusion affirmed that nothing will be altered for the American family.

This gem of cinematic, picture-postcard Americana and youthful romance, is richly filmed in Technicolor. It marked the beginning of the golden age of MGM musicals (and producer Arthur Freed's unit), and ultimately became the second most successful film for MGM (behind Gone With the Wind (1939)).

The story is based on the book of the same name from Sally Benson's memoirs of her life in St. Louis, Missouri from 1903-4 - they were recalled and written in multiple issues of The New Yorker Magazine from 1941-1942 (originally published under the title "5135 Kensington" and eventually gathered together as The Kensington Stories). The charming stories, a dozen in all to represent each of the twelve months of the year, are expressed in the film in its musical numbers. The film abandoned the 'put-on-a-show' mentality of so many other backstage song/dance films. Its songs and wonderful performances are carefully and naturally integrated into the story of the close-knit family's day-to-day life, and serve to advance the action and plot from one season to the next.