By: Ashley Sklack
Movie Musicals have been a huge part of our culture for decades and yet recently we have had little love for them. But, it didn’t use to be this way. For a considerable amount of time Movie Musicals were the dominant form of Hollywood cinema. This is never more accurately depicted than in 1954’s Singin’ in the Rain where Donald Lockwood (Gene Kelly) is struggling to adapt to the “talkies”. Realizing that his first talkie is going to flop, he quickly adapts it to a musical. It seems like a no brainer in the 50’s, but now a days, no director in their right mind would take a failing drama and just add a few songs and dances. Over time, Movie Musicals have seen a major decline in both popularity and prominence in society as well as a major shift in targeted audience.
The movie musical is a genre of film almost as old as film itself. Ever since the invention of the “talkies”, or motion pictures with sound, there have been movie musicals. In fact many of the studio system actors, including Gene Kelly (Singin’ in the Rain, 1954), Fred Astaire (Funny Face, 1957) and Ginger Rogers (Shall We Dance, 1937) became famous strictly for their singing and dancing in the era’s movie musicals. Others used the popularity of the movie musicals to enhance their own fame; people such as Frank Sinatra (Guys and Dolls, 1955) and more contemporary examples of Samantha Barks (Les Miserables, 2012) and John Lloyd Young (Jersey Boys, 2014).
The first movie musicals came out in mass production. Martin Scorsese even once recalled, in an interview discussing his own movie musical New York, New York (1977), the prominence of the movie musicals in the thirties, forties and into the fifties. Names like Gene Kelly and Bing Crosby were household names and many of these “Song and Dance Men” were hired directly from vaudeville and Broadway specifically to make movie musicals. For example, Bing Crosby (White Christmas, 1954) was recruited by Paramount Pictures after a successful 20 weeks of live radio performances in 1932. On the other hand, Gene Kelly, the tap dancing master, was signed to MGM after a great run with the Rogers and Hart musical “Pal Joey”. Fred Astaire was snatched by RKO after a long career with his sister Adele both in vaudeville and on Broadway.
The late fifties, sixties and seventies are where the movie musical started to decline in popularity because the increased use of special effects and prominence of drama as a genre really began to take over the mainstream cinema. That is why the major studios made a huge shift from mass producing movie musicals to releasing several per year. This era still had some very big title that are still remembered today. Films like Bye Bye Birdie (1963), The Sound of Music (1965) and My Fair Lady (1964) were some of the jewels of this era. Some of the biggest movie adaptations of stage shows came out of this era for example, Hair, 1776, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hello Dolly and Oliver all were very successful stage shows that were picked up by Hollywood to make movie versions.
Now this era still produced a relatively large amount of movie musicals, just not to the extent that the thirties, forties and early fifties did. It was also the era of the Beach Films. Beach Films were relatively inexpensive to make because Los Angeles has a beach in pretty close proximity. They were immensely popular among the younger demographic. Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello were the champions of these films because of their unique musicality and amazing on screen chemistry which made them a dynamic duo. It was these Beach Films and the major Stage-To-Screen adaptations that made up the majority of the movie musicals of the late fifties, sixties and seventies.
It’s in the eighties and by far the nineties where the movie musical almost dies out completely. Often in this time, only one or two big musicals found their way out of obscurity. Now, it’s true that some of these musicals are the most iconic movie musicals ever made. Movies like Footloose (1984), Evita (1996), and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1999) are still very famous titles today. These and quite a few others remain popular because of two main factors. The first is because of the stars in the films. Audiences then and now flock in large numbers to see Kevin Bacon dancing in Footloose and Madonna donning a Spanish accent and singing outside the Casa Rosada in Evita. In fact, Newsies (1992), which remains one of my favorite films to date, is more popular now than it used to be because of the stars like Christian Bale (The Dark Knight Trilogy) and Max Casella (The Sopranos). The other reason that their fame has lasted so long is because of what made them so special and unique in the first place. These films had to use the idea that movie musicals weren’t as popular as they once were and adapt in order to attract a large enough audience to survive. That is a major reason why no one sings in Footloose. The soundtrack for the musical is mostly non-diegetic (or not in the realm of the film) and the characters just dance instead of singing and dancing. This was immensely popular among audiences of the time and is what propelled it out of obscurity.
Even with the apathy of the general public towards movie musicals in the eighties and nineties, Disney still managed to build an empire on it. Until this time, Disney had released a few of it’s animated classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Cinderella (1951). These films had been widely popular and quite a few were made between 1937 and 1980 but unlike the general trend of the movie musical, Disney Classics increased in production numbers starting in 1980 and especially into the nineties. Almost all of the classics that are enjoyed and remembered today and most of the Disney Princesses were born out of this era. Essentially Disney was being successful in a dying business.
But how was this possible? How could Disney make money in a genre that was all but extinct? Well, for starters Disney had made a startling amount of money and an entire empire on the movie musical already. They had built themselves a reputation and an empire, so audiences would come to the theaters to see these films because they anticipated them being just as good as the ones that came before. They also were able to prey on the newer technology of the time. Animation was vastly popular in this time period. This is reflected in the fact that starting in 1991, most of the movie musicals were animated and they were, for the most part, catered towards younger audiences.
On top of the increase of animated movie musicals, the turn of the century brought about a shift to television as a stage for movie musicals. These “made-for-TV” films, like the animated films, have been widely geared towards teens and young adults. Perhaps the most influential of these are High School Musical (2006), Camp Rock (2008) and their subsequent sequels. Pre-teens and teens alike went crazy for a singing Zac Efron (who didn’t actually sing most of his songs during the first film) in High School Musical or the Jonas Brothers in Camp Rock.
One of the things that make these movie musicals so appealing is their availability. Audiences don’t have to pay to watch these films; just tune in at 8 o’clock PM and enjoy the movie. And even if they miss it, it will be on several more times over the next few days. What also attracts audiences to the television movie musicals is the reputation that they are built on. Many of these films are released on either Disney Channel or ABC Family which already have rather large fan bases. They also include actors that have been successful on that network. Raven Symone had been on Kim Possible (2002-2007) for over a year before the release of The Cheetah Girls (2003) and had continued with Kim Possible and had added on That’s So Raven (2003-2007) so by the time The Cheetah Girls 2 (2006) came out, she had built herself quite the reputation. Similarly, Chelsea Staub (now Kane) was a star on several TV shows before she starred in the made-for-TV musical Lovestruck: The Musical (2013).
The the second most drastic shift of the movie musical from the Studio System era to the present, next to the volume in which they are produced, is that more recent movie musicals have almost all been geared towards a far younger demographic. Excluding one or two movies a year which are mostly movie adaptations of stage shows, like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004), the last thirty years or so of movie musicals has all been for teens and kids. Nothing demonstrates this better than the 1999 animated remake of the King and I. Warner Brothers took a fairly old musical and added magic, some very odd animated sequences and a comedic relief that makes modern day jokes and keeps losing teeth all in order to attract a young audience to the movie.
Regardless of the increase in made-for-TV and animated musicals, the amount of movie musicals has still significantly decreased since they began in the late twenties. In 1929, there were 60 movie musicals released but in 2013, only 9 were released and one of those was a made-for-TV film. The decrease has been case by a multitude of factors. The main reason is that the general movie going public no longer has the same love of musicals that it once had. Another reason is that musicals are now being catered towards a younger audience. Although, occasionally there are a few mainstream released musicals for older audiences per year, most are either made-for-TV or animated children’s films. The movie musical is dying out. One can only hope it finds some kind of way to survive.
Works Cited
American Film Institute. American Film Institute. n.d. 6 November 2014
Coates, Tyler. The 50 Essential Movie Musicals. 11 July 2013. 9 November 2014
International Movie Database. IMDB. n.d. 7 November 2014
Wikipedia. List of musical films by year. 9 November 2014. 9 11 2014