Musicals

Wizard of Oz - 1939

AFI Top Ten Movies of All Time

AFI #3 Movie Musical

Singing in the Rain - 1952

AFI Top Ten Movies of All Time

AFI #1 Movie Musical

Mary Poppins - 1964

AFI #6 Movie Musical

My Fair Lady - 1964

AFI #8 Movie Musical

Best Picture

Sound of Music - 1965

AFI #4 Movie Musical

Best Actress - Julie Andrews

Life of Brian - 1979

Ferris Bueller's   Day Off - 1986

Moulin Rouge - 2001

AFI #25 Movie Musical

Hairspray - 2007

movie to broadway to movie

a number of inspirations from Sound of Music

Mamma Mia - 2008

Highest grossing musical film of all-time globally

The most successful British-made film of all time

AFI is the American Film Institute

What these movies represent is the flow of music in movies over the first century of the medium.

Originally there were musicals created specifically for the movies.  This was followed by a big push for translating Broadway musicals into film musicals.  Mary Poppins was an original musical for the screen and it has now been translated as a musical for the stage.

In the 1970s and 80s the traditional musical almost completely disappeared with the outstanding excepton of Grease that traveled from the stage to the screen.  Music largely became a supporting player in films.  Music also began to rely on popular music that supported the storyline of the film.  And sometimes, as in Life of Brian the notion of the happy musical number becomes the focus of a very funny joke.

The new millenium has seen new life for musicals with an emphasis again on stage to screen adaptations even though Hairspray went from non-musical movie to Broadway musical and then movie musical.  Mamma Mia was on stage but is based on the very popular songs of ABBA so it also has a strange route.  Moulin Rouge is also very unusual in its approach as a movie musical.  The songs are current pop songs intertwined into a story about the Moulin Rouge at the turn of the 20th century.  It puts modern sensibilities into an historical setting.  And it is an historical setting that had a great deal of influence and connection to the Art Nouveau movement in Communication Design.  Toulouse-Lautrec is a key character in the film as he was an important character in this part of Paris at the turn of the Century.  The Black Cat was a club in Paris at this time.