Musical

  • Toshio Sugie – Janken musume AKA So Young, So Bright (1955)

    1951-1960ComedyJapanMusicalToshio Sugie

    Quote:
    Western audiences associate Japanese popular cinema with monster movies and period dramas such as samurai films but, as with most national cinemas, comedies and musicals were industry mainstays. Very popular with domestic audiences, they were generally considered not to travel well. Janken Musume (Janken Girls, also known as So Young, So Bright) is a good 1950s example.Read More »

  • Makoto Satô – YMO Propaganda (1984)

    Arthouse1981-1990JapanMakoto SatôMusical

    Starring Yellow Magic Orchestra and David Brooks Palmer, YMO Propaganda is a 1984 musical film directed by Shin Saito. The film originally premiered theatrically throughout Japan in 1984 and is considered by some to be the best visual work from ‘Y.M.O.’Read More »

  • Michael Curtiz – White Christmas (1954)

    1951-1960ComedyMichael CurtizMusicalUSA

    After leaving the Army after W.W.II, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis team up to become a top song-and-dance act. Davis plays matchmaker and introduces Wallace to a pair of beautiful sisters (Betty and Judy) who also have a song-and-dance act. When Betty and Judy travel to a Vermont lodge to perform a Christmas show, Wallace and Davis follow, only to find their former commander, General Waverly, is the lodge owner. A series of romantic mix-ups ensue as the performers try to help the General.Read More »

  • Roy Del Ruth – The Chocolate Soldier (1941)

    1941-1950ComedyMusicalRoy Del RuthUSA

    Maria and Karl Lang are the singing duo of Vienna. Maria had previously enjoyed attention from many men before marrying Karl, and Karl is very jealous. Karl tries to test Maria’s loyalty by masquerading as a Russian guardsman to see whether she will flirt. Karl, in his Russian disguise, makes vigorous attempts to seduce Maria. But he becomes more and more confused because he can’t determine whether Maria’s friendly reception to the guardsman is innocent, or whether it signifies a deeper interest. Has Maria has seen through Karl’s disguise and is she toying with him?Read More »

  • Nico Manzano – Yo y Las Bestias (2021)

    2021-2030MusicalNico ManzanoVenezuela

    An alternative rock band’s singer-guitarist starts a solo career, seeking inspiration as Venezuela’s crisis roils, accompanied by The Beasts, two masked and mysterious beings.Read More »

  • Karl Hartl – Mozart AKA The Life and Loves of Mozart (1955)

    1951-1960AustraliaDramaKarl HartlMusical

    If you agonized through “Amadeus”, cringing at the depiction of a giggling buffoon and his featherbrained Constanze, shuddering at the underlying premise that God gave the gift to the wrong man for reasons we just can’t understand, then this film may provide you with a pleasant antidote. Filmed in 1955, probably in anticipation of the bicentenary of his birth, it gives a totally different view of the composer, and recreates the last year of his life on a more intimate anti-blockbuster scale. But though it is an engaging effort with many fine points, it doesn’t succeed in redeeming Mozart from the fictions of Milos Forman’s travesty, because it is itself a fictionalization that distorts in its own way the character of the composer.Read More »

  • Ken Hughes – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

    1961-1970ComedyKen HughesMusicalUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    While truant from school, young siblings Jeremy and Jemima meet the beautiful Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), who falls for their widowed father, Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke), and his various oddball inventions, including the family’s noisy rebuilt car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. One day at the beach, Caractacus tells Truly and the children a fanciful fable about the villainous Baron Bomburst (Gert Frobe) and his evil designs on the Potts family car.Read More »

  • Fritz Lang – You and Me (1938)

    1931-1940Film NoirFritz LangMusicalUSA

    The last installment of Lang’s “social trilogy,” You and Me (preceded by Fury and You Only Live Once) was an ambitious experiment but ultimately a box-office failure. A studied attempt to craft a socially conscious satire in the tradition of Brecht’s didactic plays, the film—produced by Lang himself for Paramount—presents the story of a progressive department-store owner who employs ex-convicts, some of whom have not quite reformed. Although Lang’s directorial sleight of hand is visible everywhere, the film slips between the registers of drama and comedy in ways that may have perplexed contemporary audiences.Read More »

  • Hui Shi – Tian xian pei AKA Fairy Couple (1955)

    1951-1960ChinaHui ShiMusicalRomance

    Based on the legendary story of Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy Princess, Marriage of the Fairy Princess is a retelling of how a celestial maiden spies a dutiful young man and, taking pity on him, flies down from heaven and helps him pay back his debt to the local landlord. But their happy relationship is doomed when the Emperor of Heaven discovers his daughter’s absence.Read More »

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