The 1940s started out with business-as-usual musical comedy, but Rodgers & Hart’s Pal Joey and Weill and Gershwin’s Lady in the Dark opened the way for more realistic musicals. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma (1943) was the first fully integrated musical play, using every song and dance to develop the characters or the plot. After Oklahoma, the musical would never be the same – but composers Irving Berlin (Annie Get Your Gun – 1946) and Cole Porter (Kiss Me Kate – 1947) soon proved themselves ready to adapt to the integrated musical.
With the world at war and America still suffering echoes of the Great Depression, most Broadway professionals felt that audiences of the early 1940s wanted an escape from reality, the more lighthearted the better.
- 1940 Cabin In The Sky, Vernon Duke i John Latouche, the parable of an angel and a demon in a tug of war for a black man’s soul. The fine score (including “Taking a Chance On Love”) was integrated with the book, but the show had a limited appeal. The superb 1943 MGM film version had a similar fate — rave reviews, weak box office response.
- 1940 Pal Joey, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, took some creative risks, first musical to center on an anti-hero. The title character is a sleazy nightclub hoofer who hustles his way to success by manipulating a wealthy mistress, only to lose everything when she comes to her senses and dumps him. The score ranged from the innocent romance of “I Could Write A Book” to the sexual bite of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.” Newcomer Gene Kelly played the title character, with Vivienne Segal as his mistress and June Havoc (vaudeville’s former “Baby June”) as one of the nightclub showgirls. Of course, it helped that veteran director George Abbott was on hand to pull all these elements together.
- 1942 This is the Army, Irving Berlin, a revue with an all-Army cast poking lighthearted fun at the trials of military life. Musical highlights included “I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen.”, “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning”
- 1940 Panama Hattie, Cole Porter, starred Ethel Merman as a brassy Canal Zone bar owner who tries to polish up her act when she falls in love with a Philadelphia socialite.
- 1941 Let’s Face It, Cole Porter featured Eve Arden and Danny Kaye in a tale of three wealthy wives who get revenge on their cheating husbands by taking on three soldiers as gigolos. The score included “Let’s Not Talk About Love” and “You Irritate Me So.”
- 1941 Lady in the dark, Kurt Weil i Ira Gershwin, the story of a magazine editor who uses psychoanalysis to explore her romantic insecurities. The music was restricted to several dream sequences in which the main character saw herself at events representing her inner turmoil — a party, a trial, and a circus. Newcomer Danny Kaye’s winning performance as an effeminate fashion photographer (and his lightning fast delivery of the patter song “Tschaikowsky”) made him an immediate star, but even he could not steal the show from Gertrude Lawrence. With the ballad “My Ship” and the show-stopping “Jenny,” this masterful stage star kept audiences cheering for the longest run of her career.
- 1942 By Jupiter, Rodgers and Hart,which told of a conflict between ancient Greeks and female Amazon warriors. Hilarious role reversals between men and women (“You swear like a longshorewoman!”) stretched the creative boundaries. A stellar performance by Ray Bolger and a score that included “Wait Till You See Her” made this Rodgers & Hart’s longest running show. It was also the last new score they would collaborate on. ( Torn by personal demons, including shame over his homosexuality, Hart had become a hopeless alcoholic.) A partir d’aquí treballaria amb Oscar Hammerstein II.
- 1943 Something For the Boys, Cole Porter is the perfect example of what most musical comedies tried to be in the early 1940s, relying on a major star, an unlikely plot situation, and a few wacky comic twists. Ethel Merman played a wartime factory worker who inherits property adjacent to a military base in Texas. While there, she falls in love with a bandleader/soldier and finds that her dental fillings pick up radio signals. “Hey Good Lookin'” “Something for the boys”.
- 1943 Oklahoma!, is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs’ 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie. This musical, building on the innovations of the earlier Show Boat, epitomized the development of the “book musical”, a musical play where the songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals that are able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. In addition, Oklahoma! features musical themes, or motifs, that recur throughout the work to connect the music and story. A fifteen-minute “dream ballet” reflects Laurey’s struggle with her feelings about two men, Curly and Jud. // The new collaborators began with a painstaking assessment of what made the characters tick, where songs would fit and what the style and content of each number should be. They also visualized possibilities for casting, set design, lighting and staging. Once they had agreed on these points, each headed home — Rodgers to his farm in upstate New York, Hammerstein to his farm in Pennsylvania. Oscar fashioned the book and lyrics with great care, laboring for weeks over certain phrases and rhymes. He then either telegraphed or phoned in the results to Rodgers, who had been mulling over melodic options and would sometimes have a completed tune on paper in a matter of minutes. Because the Theatre Guild was bankrupt, its mangers gave Rodgers and Hammerstein extraordinary creative control over the project. With little to lose, R&H took several artistic risks.//Despite strong comic material (“I Cain t Say No”) and a healthy dose of romance (“People Will Say We re In Love,” “Out of My Dreams”) this show was neither a typical musical comedy nor an operetta. This was something new, a fully rounded musical play, with every element dedicated to organically moving the story forward. // The Theatre Guild suggested modern dance choreographer Agnes DeMille. R&H were uneasy about DeMille’s insistence on selecting trained modern dancers in place of the standard chorus kids, but the resulting personality-rich ensemble was a key factor in the show’s eventual fate. All these high-minded choices made Away We Go (as the musical was initially named) a tough sell to investors. Despite their distinguished resumes, Rodgers and Hammerstein had to spend months auditioning the material for potential backers, and the Theatre Guild had to sell off its beloved theater to satisfy anxious debtors. By the time the original run ended, backers saw an astounding 2,500% return on their investment. Before Oklahoma, Broadway composers and lyricists were songwriters – after Oklahoma, they had to be dramatists, using everything in the score to develop character and advance the action. As Mark Steyn explains in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight (Routledge, NY, 1999, p.67), with earlier songs by Lorenz Hart or Cole Porter, you hear the lyricist – with Hammerstein, you hear the characters.
- 1944 On The Town, Leonard Bernstein & Comden Green, coreo Jerome Robbins used modern dance and song to depict the romantic adventures of three sailors on shore leave in New York. Coming from the world of classical ballet, Jerome Robbins used dance as a story-telling device, making it as intrinsic to the musical as the script and the score. What Agnes DeMille had in initiated in Oklahoma came to fruition in the best Robbins stagings. He worked closely with authors and composers, defining the core stories and taking an active role in shaping much of the material he would bring to life on stage. As a result, his directorial concepts are often woven into the librettos and songs, a permanent element in the fabric of these shows. He directed and/or choreographed a roster of hits, including some of the most memorable musicals of the post-Oklahoma era.
- 1945 Carousel, Rodgers and Hammerstein, the story of Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan, young New Englanders who fall into a passionate but abusive marriage. When Julie becomes pregnant, Billy tries to provide for his unborn child by taking part in a robbery – and dies by falling on his own knife. Years later, Billy’s ghost returns from heaven for one day to help his wife and daughter get on with their lives. This often dark story was matched to a glorious score (“If I Loved You,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone”), luminous choreography by Agnes DeMille, and a remarkable cast of newcomers led by John Raitt and Jan Clayton. Although Carousel never matched the amazing popularity of Oklahoma, it has always enjoyed a devoted following.
- Billion Dollar Baby (1945 – 219 performances) was built around a series of story-telling dances, once again with Abbott directing and Robbins handling the musical numbers.
- 1946 Annie Get Your Gun, Berlin & Dorothy Fields. When Jerome Kern died suddenly in 1945, librettists Herb and Dorothy Fields needed a new composer for a musical about famed sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Rodgers and Hammerstein were already producing the project and swamped with other commitments, so they turned to friend and colleague Irving Berlin. was uncertain that he could adapt to the new style of fully integrated musical play. Handed the libretto on a Friday, he showed up the following Monday with “Doin’ What Comes Naturally,” “You Can’t Get A Man With A Gun” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business” — great songs that were firmly rooted in character & the plot.
- 1947 Brigadoon, Loewe, Loerner
- 1947 High Button Shoes, had a score by Jule Styne and a stellar comic performance by Phil Silvers as a slick 1913 con man, but it is primarily remembered for Robbins’ choreography, most notably a madcap “Mack Sennett Ballet.” Keystone-style cops and bathing beauties were unleashed in a wild chase to nowhere, stopping the show. The director was (who else?) George Abbott.
- 1948 Kiss Me Kate’s, Cole Porter, The libretto and lyrics kept the original spirit of Shakespeare intact, but added a healthy dose of sophisticated contemporary hilarity. Porter’s score included “Wunderbar,” “So In Love With You Am I,” and the bawdy “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”.
- 1949 South Pacific, Rodgers i Hammerstein, was unusual in many ways. There was almost no dance, two equally important love stories, and the dramatic tension was not provided by any single antagonist (a.k.a. – a “bad guy”) or “silly misunderstanding.” Both love stories were u against “carefully taught” racial prejudices. These reflex hatreds drive key characters to push away from the people they love. In the case of a young Lieutenant and his native girl, the results are tragic, but Nellie and Emile are finally reunited.
CINEMA
- 1941 You’ll Never Get Rich (1941), Fred Astaire i Rita Hayworth catapulted Hayworth to stardom. In the movie, Astaire integrated for the third time Latin American dance idioms into his style (the first being with Ginger Rogers in “The Carioca” number from Flying Down to Rio (1933) and the second, again with Rogers, was the “Dengozo” dance from The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)).
- 1942 You Were Never Lovelier (1942), Fred Astaire Rita Hayworth was equally successful.
- 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy, Warner, the most entertaining musical film bio of all time, which soared thanks to James Cagney’s Oscar-winning performance as Broadway legend George M. Cohan. Top-rank director Michael Curtiz gave the film exceptional overall polish.
- 1942 For Me And My Gal, Garland and newcomer Gene Kelly star as vaudevillians hoping to play The Palace. The title tune became a major hit.
- 1943 The Sky’s the Limit. He next appeared opposite the seventeen-year-old Joan Leslie in the wartime drama. In it, he introduced Arlen and Mercer’s “One for My Baby” while dancing on a bar counter in a dark and troubled routine. Astaire choreographed this film alone and achieved modest box office success. It represented a notable departure for Astaire from his usual charming, happy-go-lucky screen persona, and confused contemporary critics.
- 1943 Stormy Weather, amb Bill Robinson, Fats Waller, Lena Horne i els Nicholas Brothers en una de les escenes més extraordinàries de la història.
- 1943 A Cabin in the Sky, dirigit per Vicente Minneli, amb Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, John Bubbles.
- 1944 Meet Me In St. Louis, directed by Vincente Minnelli (Garland’s future husband) is the most fondly remembered of her wartime films. Garland was the picture of wholesome talent in what she often said was her favorite role. This nostalgic story of a 1903 family facing harmless domestic problems was embraced by a war-torn world. The score blended period tunes with new Hugh Martin-Ralph Blane hits – “The Boy Next Door,” “The Trolley Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
- 1944 Cover Girl, the story of a Brooklyn nightclub dancer who becomes a top magazine model. Designed as a vehicle for screen beauty Rita Hayworth (whose singing was always dubbed), it marked Gene Kelly’s transition to stardom. On loan from MGM, his “alter ego” dance with a reflection of himself in a glass window proved to be the first of many classic screen moments. The number was conceived and staged by Stanley Donen, who would play a major role in Kelly’s career and direct several great MGM musicals over the next ten years. Cover Girl was such a hit that MGM refused to ever again loan Kelly out for a musical role.
https://youtu.be/jr7-qi7JRtc - 1945 The fantasy Yolanda and the Thief, Vicente Minnelli, Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer featured an avant-garde surrealistic ballet.
- 1945 Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Astaire danced with Gene Kelly to the Gershwin song “The Babbit and the Bromide,” a song Astaire had introduced with his sister Adele back in 1927. While Follies was a hit, Yolanda bombed at the box office. Always insecure and believing his career was beginning to falter, Astaire surprised his audiences by announcing his retirement during the production of his next film Blue Skies (1946). He nominated “Puttin’ on the Ritz” as his farewell dance. After announcing his retirement in 1946, Astaire concentrated on his horse-racing interests and in 1947 founded the Fred Astaire Dance Studios, which he subsequently sold in 1966.
- 1945 Anchors Aweigh, Kelly helped pop crooner Frank Sinatra look like a capable hoofer. Ball amb Jerry: https://youtu.be/2msq6H2HI-Y https://youtu.be/9UhHu0YEj-A
- 1946 Ziegfield Follies, Gene Kelly Fred Astaire
- 1948 Easter Parade, Garland becomes Fred Astaire’s vaudeville dance partner in this romantic comedy set to mostly vintage songs by Irving Berlin. The two stars introduced the memorable hobo duet “A Couple of Swells.”
Garland later insisted that MGM got the most out of her by encouraging studio doctors to prescribe a dangerous array of pills to crank her up by day and force her to sleep at night. But no other performer ever blamed MGM for encouraging chemical dependency. It was Garland’s controlling mother who got her started on pills, and while the studio may have abetted the abuse, it also encouraged and supported Garland through several attempts at rehabilitation that inevitably fell apart due to her crushing workload. Between the pressures and the pills, this gifted young lady was often a physical and nervous wreck. https://youtu.be/J3aUAiLU0TI - 1949 On The Town (1949), Gene Kelly codirigit amb Donen, a former Broadway chorus dancer with a remarkable instinct for musical film. Donen, Kelly and producer Arthur Freed would create some superb screen musicals in the art form’s remaining years.
Although the Hollywood musical was doomed, its last gasps would be among its most glorious.