During the 1950s, the music of Broadway was the popular music of the western world. Every season brought a fresh crop of classic hit musicals that were eagerly awaited and celebrated by the general public. Great stories, told with memorable songs and dances were the order of the day, resulting in such unforgettable hits as The King and I, My Fair Lady, Gypsy and dozens more. These musicals were shaped by three key elements:
Composers: Rodgers & Hammerstein, Loesser, Bernstein
Directors: George Abbott, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse
Female stars: Gwen Verdon, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman
- 1950 Call Me Madam, Irving Berlin for Ethel Merman, providing her with Broadway’s first musical hit of the decade. Merman’s character was based on Perle Mesta, a real-life Democratic party fundraiser who was named ambassador to Luxembourg. The musical was set in mythical “Lichtenburg,” and spoofed America’s penchant for lending billions to other countries. Merman stopped the show with Russell Nype singing one of Berlin’s best counterpoint duets, “You’re Just In Love.” Dirigit per George Abbot. eorge Abbott was so revered that even longtime colleagues addressed him as “Mr. Abbott.” He had more than twenty years experience as an actor, playwright and comedy director when he staged his first musical, Jumbo (1935 – 233 performances). Over the next 27 years, he directed 26 Broadway musicals, 22 of which were moneymakers. He also wrote all or part of the librettos for many of those shows. Abbott’s swift pacing and instinct for dramatic construction did much to shape the American musical comedy as we know it. He urged composers to tailor songs to specific characters and situations long before anyone else was interested. Many a show facing trouble on the road to Broadway benefited from Abbot’s unaccredited doctoring – which came to be known as “the Abbott touch.”
- 1950 Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser (1950 – 1,200 performances), considered by many to be the finest American musical comedy ever written. Abe Burrows adapted the script from journalist Damon Runyon’s fictional stories about the denizens of Times Square, and Loesser wrote an extraordinary score that included “I’ve Never Been In Love Before,” “Fugue For Tinhorns,” and “Luck Be A Lady Tonight.” Vivian Blaine won a Tony as the love-hungry showgirl Miss Adelaide, and Stubby Kaye stopped the show with the raucous gambler’s anthem “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” The show won the Tony for Best Musical.
- 1951 The King and I, Rodgers & Hammerstein was based on Anna Leonowens real life experiences tutoring the royal family of Siam in the 1860s. The clash of Eastern and Western cultures sets Anna and the King on a collision course, further complicated by their unspoken feelings for each other. Gertrude Lawrence, who had suggested the project, played the Welsh schoolteacher. At Mary Martin’s urging, the little-known Yul Brynner was cast as the King. The score included “Whistle a Happy Tune,” “Hello Young Lovers,” “I Have Dreamed,” and “Something Wonderful.” In the show’s most memorable moment, “Shall We Dance,” depicted an impromptu dance lesson between Anna and the King that exploded with romantic tension. The musical theater lost one of its most luminous stars when Lawrence succumbed to cancer during the run. Brynner made a career of playing the King, appearing in the acclaimed 1956 film version and numerous revivals until his death in 1985. Robbins combined arrative dance and oriental technique “Small House of Uncle Thomas Ballet.” He also staged the “March of the Siamese Children” and the showstopping “Shall We Dance.
- 1951 Paint Your Wagon, Loewe Lerner, a rustic love story set during the California Gold Rush. Featuring “I Talk To The Trees” and “They Call The Wind Mariah,” [d’on van fer la peli que recordo]
- 1953 Wonderful Town, starred Rosalind Russell as a reporter seeking love and success in Greenwich Village. The score featured music by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by his On the Town collaborators Betty Comden and Adolph Green – including “Ohio” and “A Little Bit in Love.” Dir. George Abbot.
- 1953 Can-Can, Cole Porter, a comic story of do-gooders and high-kicking cabaret dancers battling over the scandalous 1890s dance craze. French cabaret star Lilo got star billing and the chance to introduce the hit songs “I Love Paris” and “C’est Magnifique,” but newcomer Gwen Verdon stole the evening playing an uninhibited chorine.
- 1954 The Pajama Game (1954 – 1,063 performances) focused on a pajama factory superintendent and a union rep falling in love as a strike looms. Bob Fosse’s dances gave the show electrifying drive, and the score by newcomers Richard Adler and Jerry Ross included three pop hits — “Hey There” (introduced by leading man John Raitt), “Steam Heat” and “Hernando’s Hideaway.” Dir George Abbot. Fosse built on what choreographers Robbins and Agnes DeMille had begun, adding a touch of show biz razzle-dazzle and a generous dose of unapologetic sex appeal. He found the perfect vehicle for his style in Gwen Verdon, a gifted dancer and actress who combined vulnerability with sleek sensuality.
- 1954 Peter Pan, Los Angeles-based producer Edwin Lester secured the American rights to James Barrie’s Peter Pan and reconceived it as a musical for Martin. (Because of the flying apparatus used at the time, it was physically necessary to cast women as Peter.) Despite having Cyril Ritchard as a comically effete Captain Hook, staging by Jerome Robbins, and a Carolyn Leigh-Moose Charlap score that included “I’m Flying” and “I Won’t Grow Up,” more was needed. Lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green joined composer Jule Styne to add “Neverland,” “Hook’s Waltz” and several other numbers that showcased the two stars. Martin and Ritchard gave their all, and Peter Pan (1954 – 152 performances) became a critically acclaimed hit.
- 1955 Silk Stockings, Cole Porter, a Cold War love story based on Greta Garbo’s MGM comedy Ninotchka.
- 1955 Damn Yankees, had a Washington baseball fan sell his soul to the devil for a chance to lead his favorite team to a championship over the New York Yankees. Fosse’s dances and a knockout performance by Gwen Verdon made it the hottest ticket on Broadway. The brilliant score by Adler and Ross (“Heart,” “Whatever Lola Wants”) has kept the show a perennial favorite. Ross died early in the run due to leukemia, ending one of the most promising collaborations of the decade. Dir George Abbot. Verdon played a demonic temptress, stopping the show with the raunchy “Whatever Lola Wants.” The show, choreographer and actress all collected Tonys, and Fosse made the connection permanent by marrying Verdon during the run.
- 1956 The Most Happy Fella, Frank Loesser, an operatic version of Sidney Howard’s drama They Knew What They Wanted. An aging Napa Valley vintner (played by Metropolitan Opera bass Robert Weede) falls in love with a lonely young waitress, and both must learn to forgive each other for selfish mistakes. The waitress was played by the gifted soprano Jo Sullivan, who became Mrs. Loesser soon after this production. Loesser blended arias (“My Heart Is So Full of You”) with pop songs (“Standing On The Corner”), and this unlikely mix proved remarkably effective. Overshadowed by the acclaim lavished on My Fair Lady, this masterpiece never got the credit it deserved. Revivals have proven that Fella is like caviar – fans adore it, but much of the general theatre going public somehow does not get the point.
- 1956 My Fair Lady, Loewe, Lerner. Some were surprised when this team announced that their next project would be a musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s comedy Pygmalion. No less an authority than Oscar Hammerstein II warned Lerner this project could not possibly work. It seems that even the greatest genius can be wrong. To many (this author included), this is the finest work the musical theatre has ever produced, with a remarkable blend of eloquence, melody, intelligence and heart that has never been surpassed. Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews and Stanley Holloway headed the cast, Cecil Beaton designed the distinctive Edwardian costumes, and playwright Moss Hart directed. The book mixed some of Shaw’s original dialogue with wonderful new scenes by Lerner, all deftly interwoven with an exquisite score, which included “With A Little Bit of Luck,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “On The Street Where You Live,” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”
My Fair Lady is filled with examples of flawless story-song integration. In one scene, Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering try for weeks to train cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to speak like a lady. Late one night, the caustic Higgins speaks gently to an exhausted Eliza about the beauty and majesty of the English language, reassuring her that she will conquer it. After a breathless moment, Eliza makes the phonetic connection and correctly pronounces, “The rain . . . in Spain . . . stays mainly in the . . . plain.” Disbelief turns to jubilation as the three characters break into a celebratory tango, collapsing onto a sofa at the final note. It is one of the most exhilarating moments the theatre has ever produced. Another standout is the wordless moment when Eliza first appears in a dazzling Edwardian ball gown. As she descends a staircase to the melody of “I Could Have Danced All Night,” Higgins and the audience sees the “squashed cabbage leaf” complete her transformation into an elegant lady. This wordless moment has moved theatergoers in countless productions. It is worth noting that both of these exquisite scenes discussed above do not exist in Shaw’s Pygmalion – Lerner created them for My Fair Lady. From its first performance on the road, it was clear that the show was a phenomenon. It opened to unanimous raves, won every major award, became Broadway’s longest running musical up to that time (a record that stood for a decade), and played to acclaim in numerous languages all around the world. It has been revived several times in both New York and London, remaining a worldwide favorite after almost half a century. - 1957 The Music Man, Meredith Willson. Robert Preston played a phony traveling salesman who’s plans to flim-flam an Iowa town in 1912 are thwarted by his love for the local librarian, a role that made Barbara Cook Broadway’s premiere ingénue. The score was a disarming potpourri of period styles including the Sousa-style march “Seventy-Six Trombones,” the revival tent exhortation “Trouble,” several barbershop quartets and the soaring ballad “Till There Was You.” The book captured a time of innocence with both humor and charm, and director Morton DaCosta’s staging was so deft that no one complained about the show’s shameless sentimentality. The Music Man remains one of the world’s most popular musicals, an all-American explosion of hokum and heart. Many forget that this show beat out West Side Story for the Best Musical Tony in 1957. It became the longest-running Broadway musical up to that time with book, music and lyrics written by one person (well, there have been rumors that Willson’s pal Frank Loesser helped with “My White Knight”).
- 1957 West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein i Stephen Sondheim, director/choreographer Jerome Robbins and librettist Arthur Laurents. Inspired by Shakespeare, it set a Polish-American Romeo and a Puerto Rican Juliet in the middle of a New York City street gang war. This show combined glorious music, a finely wrought libretto and unforgettable dancing. Bernstein’s melodies had a steamy vitality that gave the score tremendous appeal. “Maria” and “Somewhere” soared with operatic grandeur, “Dance at the Gym” was a jazz explosion, “America” had an irresistible Latin sound, and “Gee Officer Krupke” was a variation on classic vaudeville. The original cast included Chita Rivera, the first in a string of show-stealing performances that she would offer right into the next century. Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert played the doomed lovers and introduced the hit ballad “Tonight.”
- 1957 New Girl In Town, was songwriter Bob Merrill’s musicalization of Eugene O’Neill’s drama Anna Christie. Abbott shaped the story of a prostitute finding love on the waterfront of 1912 New York into a workable musical vehicle for Gwen Verdon, but ongoing battles with choreographer Fosse made this his last collaboration with Abbott.
- 1958 Flower Drum Song, Rodgers & Hammerstein, taking a genial look at generations clashing in a Chinese family in San Francisco. With direction by Gene Kelly, its score included “I Enjoy Being a Girl” and “Love Look Away.”
- 1959 Redhead, the tale of a 1907 London girl who helps her boyfriend catch a Jack the Ripper-type serial killer, was a so-so show that relied heavily on Verdon’s charms and Fosse’s sensational choreography. The dances included “The Uncle Sam Rag” and “The Pickpocket Tango.” Redhead picked up Tony Awards for best musical, actress and choreography, among others. With Verdon’s first four Broadway roles, she had become the first performer ever to win four Tonys — an accomplishment very few have matched since that time. Fosse and Verdon took their relationship a step further, secretly marrying soon after Redhead opened.
- 1959 The Sound of Music, Rodgers & Hammerstein was inspired by the story of Austria’s Trapp Family Singers and their escape from the Nazis in the 1930s. The score included “Do Re Mi,” “Edelweiss,” “My Favorite Things,” and the title tune. Oscar Hammerstein II died due to stomach cancer a few months after The Sound of Music opened, ending a career that spanned the golden age of musical theatre and film. ( la meravella del jazz, versió de Coltrane: https://youtu.be/qWG2dsXV5HI)
- 1959 Gypsy, was not a dance show, but Robbins added much to it by re-creating the dance styles of vaudeville and burlesque. When three strippers assured young Louise (about to blossom as Gypsy Rose Lee) that “You Gotta Get a Gimmick” to succeed in burlesque, Robbins turned their bumps and grinds into one of the funniest showstoppers in theatrical history.
CINEMA
- 1950 Tea for Two amb Doris Day, Warner (estrenat a Broadway el 1925)
- 1950 Cinderella, Disney
- 1951 Alice in Wonderland, Disney
- 1951 Royal Wedding had Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling, partnering a hat rack (and making it look good), and joining Jane Powell for the knock-about duet “How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been A Liar All My Life?” Stanley Donen directed, composer Burton Lane and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner wrote the score, and Lerner penned the story of what happens to a brother/sister dance team when sis wants to marry a British nobleman and big bro falls for a West End dancer (played by Winston Churchill’s real life daughter). This serviceable plot was inspired by Astaire’s real life story – his sister Adele had ended their long partnership in order to marry a British nobleman in 1932. (MGM)
- 1951 An American in Paris, MGM, An ex-GI turned painter played by Gene Kelly avoids seduction by a wealthy heiress and falls in love with Parisian shop girl Leslie Caron, all while pianist Oscar Levant provides sardonic commentary. Director Vincente Minnelli used Alan Jay Lerner’s screenplay to showcase classic George and Ira Gershwin songs. “By Strauss” and “I Got Rhythm” became giddy sidewalk production numbers, and a 17-minute fantasy ballet (which took more than two months to rehearse and shoot) turned the tone poem “American in Paris” into the most ambitious use of dance ever attempted in a feature film. This amazing film has pretentious moments, but they usually go unnoticed thanks to the sheer style, energy and genius the Freed unit brought to every frame. An American in Paris received six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Screenplay (for newcomer Alan Jay Lerner) and a special award for Gene Kelly’s contribution to dance on screen.
- 1952 Singin in The Rain MGM, Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen co-directed this hilarious screenplay written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, inspired by the insanity that reigned in Hollywood when sound was introduced. The plot involves a swashbuckling silent movie star (Kelly) turning a silent flick into a song & dance spectacular with the assistance of his best friend (Donald O’Connor) and soon-to-be girlfriend (Debbie Reynolds), and all despite the machinations of a vicious silent screen diva (Jean Hagen). The cast performed a parade of producer Arthur Freed’s vintage MGM songs with one new comedy number by Comden and Green (“Moses Supposses”), and a derivative new song by Freed (“Make ‘Em Laugh,” painfully similar to Cole Porter’s “Be a Clown”). Few cinematic images are as well known as a rapturous, rain soaked Gene Kelly swinging from a lamppost as he performs the title tune. A modest success in its initial release, the film’s reputation as a classic grew over time. Singin’ in the Rain is now hailed as one of the best films ever made, and is justifiably called the greatest musical comedy created for the big screen.
- 1953 Peter Pan, Disney
- 1953, The Bandwagon, MGM, Comden and Green wrote this brilliant backstage story of a stage musical struggling on its way to Broadway. Vincente Minnelli directed and Michael Kidd provided the witty choreography. Using songs from several Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz stage scores (plus the newly composed “That’s Entertainment”), it featured Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant and British stage star Jack Buchannan. Astaire and Charisse shared a stunning pas de deux in “Dancing In The Dark,” Fabray, Astaire and Buchannan were riotous as “Triplets,” and the suave Astaire-Buchannan duet “I Guess I’ll Have To Change My Plan” is a rarely hailed moment of pure cinematic gold.
- 1954 A Star is Born, Warner Brothers most masterful 1950s musical was built by another stellar team of MGM alumni: director George Cukor, screenwriter Moss Hart, composer Harold Arlen, lyricist Ira Gershwin and performer Judy Garland. The magnificent A Star is Born (1954) was based on a classic 1937 tearjerker about an unknown actress surviving Hollywood stardom and personal heartbreak. After months of long and tortured filming, Garland gave the most unbridled and powerful screen performance of her career, while Cukor and company made “The Man That Got Away” and other songs emotional highpoints that fit seamlessly into the story.
- 1954 White Christmas, Bing Crosby i Danny Kaye
- 1955 Oklahoma, 1956 Carousel, 1956 The King 1958 South Pacific, revivals de la 20th Century Fox revivals de Rodgers i Hamerstein.
- 1955 The Lady and the Tramp, disney
- 1957 Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, MGM, This is the only film in this MGM quartet that was not created by the Freed unit. Produced by Jack Cummings and directed by Stanley Donen, this gem featured singing stars Jane Powell and Howard Keel, but it s fame rests in several hearty ensemble dance sequences choreographed by Michael Kidd. The plot involves a mountain woodsman (Keel) whose marriage to a wholesome town girl (Powell) inspires his six spirited brothers to kidnap six town girls of their own – and all of them are so gosh-darn honorable that the film winds up with seven happily married couples. Even a fine Johnny Mercer-Gene dePaul score (“Wonderful Day,” “Sobbin’ Women”) has trouble outshining Kidd’s rousing barn-raising challenge dance and the ax-wielding machismo fest “Lonesome Polecat.” Overlooked by studio executives, Seven Brides received a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Score. Although the film cost a hefty $2.5 million, it grossed several times that to bring MGM a handsome profit of $3.2 million.
- 1957 Funny Face was conceived at MGM, but when Paramount refused to loan out Audrey Hepburn, several key members of the Freed unit (who knew they were in the process of being disbanded) made the film at Paramount. Arthur Freed’s longtime associate Roger Edens produced, Stanley Donen directed, and singer-composer Kay Thompson (Edens’ longtime MGM colleague) gave a film-stealing performance as a ruthless fashion magnate. Fred Astaire made everything from a raincoat to an umbrella come alive as dance partners in “Let’s Kiss and Make Up.” The score consisted of four classic George and Ira Gershwin songs, with several new numbers by Edens and Leonard Gershe. Hepburn gave a disarming performance as an intellectual beauty wooed by photographer Astaire while doing photo spreads for Thompson’s magazine. Impressive as the cast and score are, Donen’s unique sense of cinematic flow makes this film a standout. Every song flows out of the action surrounding it, and unforgettable images abound. Film buffs have long treasured Hepburn’s exuberant descent down a staircase in the Louvre, trailing a red tulle wrap in imitation of the sculpture “Winged Victory” (seen in the photo just above). Although visually stunning and thoroughly entertaining, Funny Face was such a box office disappointment that Paramount stopped making musicals altogether, and MGM allowed the Freed unit to fade away. However, the film developed a dedicated following over time.
- 1957 Silk Stockings, MGM, musical film adaptation, filmed in CinemaScope, of the 1955 stage musical of the same name,[2] which itself was an adaptation of the film Ninotchka (1939).[3] Silk Stockings was directed by Rouben Mamoulian, produced by Arthur Freed, and starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. The supporting cast includes Janis Paige, Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin, and George Tobias repeating his Broadway role.[4][5] It was choreographed by Eugene Loring and Hermes Pan.
- 1957 The Pajama Game, dirigida per George Abbot i Stanley Donen, Doris Day i Carol Heaney.”I’ll Never Be Jealous Again” (20′) i Steam Heat (56′).
- 1959 Gigi MGM was dismissing it’s contract employees, but a defiant Arthur Freed pulled together one last triumph. At the urging of director Vincente Minnelli, Freed called in My Fair Lady’s Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to musicalize French novelist Colette’s story of a young girl who is raised to be a courtesan but manages instead to fall in love with (and marry!) a millionaire. The result was Gigi (1959). The cast included Leslie Caron as the title character, Hermoine Gingold as her protective grandmother and Louis Jourdan as the millionaire. Maurice Chevalier, his roguish charm as irresistible as ever, made a triumphant return to the musical screen as Jourdan’s aging but irrepressible playboy uncle. Gigi had minimal choreography, but the score (“Thank Heaven For Little Girls,” “The Night They Invented Champagne,” “Gigi”) and ingenious screenplay made the potentially unsavory subject matter into a sophisticated yet family-friendly hit. Where other film makers settled for a standard postcard vision of Paris, Minnelli shows the city from the everyday perspective of Parisians. Instead of gazing at the Eiffel Tower from a distance, we travel beneath it; instead of a glittering hotel or romanticized garret, we see such wildly contrasted residences as a dazzling palace interior and a frowsy bourgeois apartment. Minnelli also makes amazing use of light and shadow. In one sequence, a pensive Jourdan is silhouetted against illuminated fountains, communicating a key moment of revelation with a few mute movements – the sort of pure cinematic effect that could never be accomplished on a Broadway stage.
Despite Gigi’s tremendous critical and commercial success, MGM’s Freed unit passed into history. Producer Arthur Freed and his associates would not receive their full due until the release of That’s Entertainment (1974) reminded the world what a rich legacy they had left behind.