Search Results

MGM had created and presented songs imaginatively and lavishly. Arthur Freed, a lyricist and producer, had brought a songwriter's understanding to how song should be presented in film. Freed imparted to MGM his experience, earned in traveling all over the world, to acquire a taste and knowledge for music and art. Freed found a position as an assistant director at Paramount, where he also played mood music on the sets. He and Brown wrote “Singin' in the Rain” for the 1927 edition of the annual Hollywood Music Box Revue, and after two years, Irving Thalberg hired the two songwriters to write the score for MGM's Broadway Melody. In 1934, while he was still a staff lyricist at MGM, Freed hired a young piano player and vocal arranger named Roger Edens. Freed and Edens shared the conviction that song must be integral, expressive, and dramatic.

The Broadway Melody, produced by MGM, is the first true musical film. Unlike other films preceding (and following it), it was constructed with meticulous care directed toward both the technology and the audience. The film's huge success can be seen as the watershed that established sound film as viable entertainment, instead of a Jolson-style showcase or stunt. The film's use of early two-color Technicolor was extremely influential, as was its use of a newly-written musical score by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. Its central performance, by Bessie Love, was vital in forging new paths for vocal acting on the screen. While its backstage story spawned scores of imitators, it would retain a powerful hold on its audiences' affections.

Whatever instigated the ugly argument that sealed his fate with Warner Brothers mattered little to Buzz now. The trades in May revealed that Esther Williams was named by MGM to play the leading role in its newest film, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, which was to begin filming the following month. Arthur Freed was the producer of Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Despite the fallout suffered during Girl Crazy, Buzz contacted Freed and told him he wanted to direct again. After getting the approval of his old boss, Loius B. Mayer, Buzz directed Take Me Out to the Ball Game. In October 1948, Buzz was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. After a few months of inactivity, Buzz was focused on two fronts: bringing Annie Get Your Gun to the screen and the troubled Judy Garland into the fold. Both tasks were unsuccessful.

In this chapter, Walters does his initial work in the movies, staging dances for RKO’s Seven Days Leave. John Darrow finds success in Hollywood, negotiating movie contracts for his clients, including Gene Kelly. At Kelly’s suggestion, Walters accepts a four-week offer of work at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (M-G-M) for the film adaptation of Du Barry Was a Lady. This chapter takes a succinct look at the history of M-G-M (pre-1942) and the studio’s dedication to the “star system.” It also explores M-G-M’s role in the development of the “integrated” movie musical and producer Arthur Freed’s “Unit” of film musical production. Walters’ professional relationships with Lucille Ball and Roger Edens are discussed. The chapter concludes with Walters’ accepting a seven-year contract with M-G-M.

It would have been a squalid end to the story, but for the fact that the story has no end. In the years following Lorenz Hart'ss death — and to what was often Richard Rodgers's intense annoyance — the music of Rodgers and Hart became and has gone on growing increasingly popular. The renaissance began five years after Hart's death with Arthur Freed's MGM film biography, Word and Music, and has continued to the present day. Even people to whom the names Rodgers and Hart mean nothing know “The Lady Is A Tramp,” “My Funny Valentine,” and many more of their songs. Few of these people either know, or care, that the man who wrote the words virtually changed the craft of lyric writing singlehanded. Hart brought to lyric writing not just his erudition but his own wit and charm, in a way that seems always spontaneous and effortless. Equally significant was his contribution to the musical theatre.

This chapter explains how Ziegfeld became an icon for generations to come through the lavish biopic The Great Ziegfeld (1936). Burke is an adviser on the set of the film and is now working at MGM. Next, the chapter provides an in-depth look at other films that use Ziegfeldian production techniques. The chapter concludes with a summary of Broadway and other theatrical productions from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that paid homage to Ziegfeld and his legacy.

This chapter provides a frequently digressory capsule history of the musical, noting especially the history and heritage that it variously heeds and forgets. It puts emphasis on the overstated importance of The Jazz Singer (NOT the first musical) and the genuine importance of The Broadway Melody (the first real musical). It stresses the importance, in the musical’s history, of dance director Busby Berkeley and producer Arthur Freed. The chapter then looks at the 1950s decline due to television, the 1960s resurgence (roadshow film and The Sound of Music), and the long moratorium that extended from the early 1970s onward. Chicago, in 2002, marked a resurgence that, ultimately, did not last.