The Hollywood Film Musical

This revealing history of the American film musical synthesizes the critical literature on the genre and provides a series of close analytical readings of iconic musical films, focusing on their cultural relationship to other aspects of American popular music.

• Offers a depth of scholarship that will appeal to students and scholars
• Leads a crucial analysis of the cultural context of musicals, particularly the influence of popular music on the genre
• Delves into critical issues behind these films such as race, gender, ideology, and authorship
• Features close readings of canonical and neglected film musicals from the 1930s to the present including: Top Hat, Singin' in the Rain, Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, West Side Story, and Across the Universe

List of Plates ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

1 Historical Overview 7

2 Critical Overview 38

3 Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) 55

4 Top Hat (1935) 70

5 The Pirate (1948) 85

6 West Side Story (1961) and Saturday Night Fever (1977) 99

7 Woodstock (1970) 116

8 Phantom of the Paradise (1974) 131

9 Pennies from Heaven (1981) and Across the Universe (2007) 146

References 165

Index 171

“Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-and upper-division undergraduates; general readers.” (Choice, 1 November 2012)

Barry Keith Grant is Professor of Communication, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. He is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including Auteurs and Authorship: a Film Reader (2008) Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology (2007), Film Genre Reader (2003), and The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (1996). As well as being an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he is the series editor of the New Approaches to Film Genre series for Wiley-Blackwell. American film musicals are a central genre in the evolution of cinema as an art form and popular entertainment. With an impressive range of films produced to meet an ever-growing consumer demand, musicals proved to be a powerful formula for box office success. With an accessible style and substantial depth of analysis, this engaging new title offers an overview of the history of, and the critical literature on, this popular genre.

The Hollywood Film Musical examines the synergy between the genre and the popular music industry, tracing the function of this relationship in aesthetic, ideological and industrial terms, and outlining the influence of minstrel shows, vaudeville, the Broadway stage, the recording industry, and stardom. The book also provides a selection of close readings of iconic musicals from the golden age of the 1930s right up to the new century: from Top Hat and Singin' in the Rain to Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, West Side Story and Across the Universe. As well as providing illuminating new readings of popular films, these detailed analyses reflect on critical issues such as race, gender, ideology, and authorship.

"Barry Grant gracefully articulates the pleasures of that most joyous of Hollywood’s genres. A must read for anyone who loves musicals and, especially, for those who think they don’t."
-David Desser, University of Illinois

"Elegantly conceived and beautifully illustrated, The Hollywood Film Musical introduces the genre with all its problematic glories. Grant is meticulous as a historian and scrupulous as a cultural critic. Did I mention the beautiful illustrations?"
-Krin Gabbard, Stony Brook University