Though I find the Sound Of Music appalling, there are aspects of it that are

MUSICALS - by Arthur Chappell

Though I find the Sound Of Music appalling, there are aspects of it that are
pleasurable - the opening half is actually mildly entertaining as Maria
interferes with the disciplinary no-nonsense no playtime values imposed on
the austere Trapp family children. In many ways it remains over cute and
sugary-sentimental. That is bad enough, but the problems arise when the
story tries to take on the harder political issues of nationalistic pride
and escape from Nazi oppression, while still remaining cute and
soppy-sentimental. Take the Eidleweiss/Cuckoo farewell songs - these are
first used to entertain the family, and show the father's love of his
homeland (Austria) - but later they are used again as the family perform
before an audience of nazis waiting to escort them away, unaware of their
planned escape. Now the songs are sung with an aim to making them defiant,
brave protests against National Socialism, but they never stop being
sentimental ballads. Musically, it just doesn't work. The setting looks all
wrong.
This kind of thing can be done well if done with sufficient edge, as in
Bob Fosse's CABARET - one of my own all time favourite musicals. Here again
is a film set against the background of the rise of the Third Reich (in
1930's Berlin) all the songs are bittersweet, and unsettling at times, but
take the Tomorrow Belongs To Me number in particular - here, a simple
lullaby is repeated several times by young Nazis - It starts off innocently
reflecting on the good things in life, The baby in his cradle, the stag in
the forest, etc in contrast to the My Favourite Things Number in Sound Of
Music, the repetition slowly gets louder and more shrill as more and more
Nazi's join in, moving the song from personal meditative contemplation, to
patriotic pride, national jingoism, fanaticism and angry fascist demand, but
destroying the melody and beauty of the song on the way as the whole thing
gets more and more discordant and the action reduces to a riot. There's no
cheesy sentiment here as in Rogers & Hammerstien.
Fosse always took on less easy challenges than most in his musicals -
SWEET CHARITY has Shirley Maclaine as a Prostitute with a heart of Gold
looking for a love she never finds - her past destroys her hopes, as the one
man who loves her can't accept what she has done with other men and laves
her, most directors would have a happy ending. I like unlikely and more
thought provoking musicals with more emphasis on realism and potential for
failure - The sound Of Music leaves too little doubt of a promised happy
ending.
The film ALL THAT JAZZ, based on Fosse's life deals with Triple bi-pass
open-heart surgery, doomed relationship and a life of unhealthy hedonistic
sex; it's hugely underrated.
Traditional Hollywood Busby Berkely musicals are good to watch too - the
stories were superficial, mostly the backstage romances of the main cast and
production people, with the songs mostly what they perform on impossibly
elaborate stages (no theatre had such huge pools, and aircraft and open air
scenes) the choreography remains unmatched in the various Gold-Digger movies
(named after their years of production). Gold Diggers of 1933 features both
the classic Forgotten Man & Pettin' In The Park, songs - the Forgotten Man
is performed twice, very differently - The first time it is a woman's lament
for a lost lover - the second it is an extraordinary tribute to the men who
march off to fight and die in war by the women they leave behind. Pettin' is
a near-pornographic look at open air romance, largely sung by naked girls in
silhouette (it really appalled the censors and still looks pretty raunchy
today) There's also the We're in The Money song which works best when you
realise the film is set at the height of the depression (I'm not sure
off-chance which Gold-diggers film it is in)
Fred/Ginger musicals work in their lavish, sumptuous choreography - Gene
Kelly's for sheer inventiveness with dance formats.
On The Town is a great musical with its theme of three sailors,
(Kelly/Sinatra/some other geezer) on shore leave for one day only - it
captures a sense of their time compression beautifully, it's pace is
relentless.
Hair & Godspell fail me for most of their songs are unmemorable - Hair
tries to shock with songs on sex/Masturbation, etc but now seems dated. You'd
think I'd hate Godspell just for it's religious pretensions, but no as I do
like Jesus Christ Superstar - This is the tenth film listed on my top ten
films of all time list on my site - This rock-opera is often taken on assumption as being a pro-religious film,
but it is actually highly critical of its subject. The real hero here is
Judas (Carl Anderson). There are no miracles, and Jesus dies unresurrected.
The songs are a series of quite justifiable criticisms of Jesus' ministry,
which the weak Christ figure (Ted Neeley, looking tired and apathetic)
consistently fails to answer. Judas is disillusioned to find that the
radical politician he joined up with is now preaching another sermon. He
sings; "Your followers are blind; too much Heaven on their minds", and
later; "There was no talk of God then, we called you a man." Jesus runs away
when confronted by a crowd of cripples and beggars calling on him to perform
a miracle. "There’s too many of you!" he cries, panicking. Judas dies,
unable to cope with the stigma of being the arch-traitor of all-history, and
yet he is resurrected. We see him among the cast and crew of the film,
loading up the bus that will take them out of the Palestinian sun, but Jesus
is left behind, rotting on the cross. Only Judas seems to notice, or care.
With a script by Melvin Bragg, and a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, this is a
film you’ll like if you can cope with the music. Later stage versions sadly
try to make Jesus more reverential; despite the condemnatory lyrics; and it
rarely works as well as in the film version.

Other Rice/Lloyd Webber musicals are unfamiliar to me other than for their largely fine soundtracks though Joseph & His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is largely unmemorable and cheesy in the extreme -

Lionel Bart's Oliver works in parts and has wonderful songs, - the non-musical Bill Sykes was one of the first film figures to scare me rigid as a child - but the film is often slow and dull too.

Grease works in the singing but is let down by the dross in between,

The Who's Tommy is wonderful, for its energy and unlikely story line of a blind, deaf dumb boy becoming a Pinball champion and later a messianic cult leader before he loses everything through his own egotistical vanity and greed.

The ultimate musical however has to be The Rocky Horror Show, for its theme of interstellar transsexual-transvestite vampires on a hedonistic trip to Earth, falling foul of their leader's Frankenstien experiments. This is a cool musical, deliberately playing on Ed Wood Like B-Movie clichés and stilted dialogue to great ends. Best of all is the interaction of its audience, who dress in character and interact largely through perfectly welcomed (do your worst) heckling and banter with the cast. Rocky Horror is essentially a tarts and vicars party - I saw it and its film a few times before being brave enough to dress up for it myself - it's a truly wonderfully entertaining experience; and the film does have a powerful semi-serious theme and subtext highlighted in its most poignant song - Don't Dream It, Be It.

There are other wonders to think of - the world lacks the music of our fine musicals - it would be great to have people in perfectly choreographed lines floating through a gloomy day bursting into song in supermarkets and on buses, but such dreams remain a celluloid one for now.

Then again, there are stories that are not yet musicals - the film The Tall Guy suggested a Musical version of The Elephant Man - Who Knows. Arthur Chappell