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With the exception of Columbia Studios (which began the 1930s as a small
studio that was initially unable to invest in musicals)
every major Hollywood studio of the 1930s developed its own particular style of
screen musical, and its own bevy of resident musical stars. It was almost as if each
studio's executives felt their formula was a sort of talisman guaranteeing success.
This did not leave room for frequent artistic innovation, but it resulted in a decade
packed with enjoyable (if predictable) cinematic entertainment.
Paramount
As the 1930s progressed, Paramount's top directors focused
primarily on non-musical projects. Soon, all of this studio's major musicals
were designed to showcase a pop singer who turned out to be one of the most
well-liked and long-lasting celebrities of the 20th century.
Bing Crosby's film
career began with featured roles in a series of minor Mack Sennett comedies.
After his recordings and radio series took off in the early 1930s, Paramount featured
him in The Big Broadcast (1932). After he delivered a winning performance in MGM's
Going Hollywood (1933), Paramount decided never to loan him out again. Bing was
simply too valuable.
Crosby's starring vehicles included a mixture of full musicals
and comedies with a few interpolated songs. He earned Paramount millions with
such titles as Mississippi (1935), Pennies From Heaven (1936) and Sing You
Sinners (1938). Often mediocre, these films were popular thanks to Crosby's
folksy, laid back screen persona, and his warm baritone crooning of many
hit songs, including "Temptation," "Pennies From Heaven" and
"Blue Hawaii." Crosby's best screen work lay ahead -- you'll find more on him
in our coverage of 1940s screen musicals.
Goldwyn: Eddie Cantor
Independent producer Samuel Goldwyn
liked to think of himself as Hollywood's equivalent of Broadway's Florenz
Ziegfeld. He went so far as to produce six screen musicals starring Ziegfeld Follies
comedian Eddie Cantor, who national popularity was
fed by his ongoing radio series. The Goldwyn-Cantor musicals included Whoopee
(1930), The Kid From Spain (1932), Roman Scandals (1933), Kid Millions
(1934) and Strike Me Pink (1936). In accordance with the Hollywood star system,
these films followed a set plot formula, with Cantor playing nervous weaklings who somehow
outsmart tough guys, along the way offering such hit songs as "Makin' Whoopee,"
"My Baby Just Cares for Me" and "Keep Young and Beautiful."
It was also this series that gave Broadway choreographer Busy Berkeley
his first opportunity to work on film, developing the techniques he would later
use at Warner Brothers.
Cantor & Goldwyn's creative partnership would remain a high point in both
of their careers. But Cantor eased away from films in the 1940s, focusing on radio and
early television. Goldwyn, the most successful independent producer of
Hollywood's so-called Golden Age, continued to make successful musicals into the
1940s, including a series of Cantor-esque musical comedies starring Danny Kaye
-- more on this in the pages ahead.
Universal
Carl Laemmle founded Universal Studios in 1915, then passed it on to
his son Carl Jr. in 1928. Dismissed by some as a "family" business,
Universal is best remembered for making Hollywood's most stylish horror
films, beginning with Lon Chaney's silent version of Phantom of the Opera
(1925). British director James Whale, who helmed the stylish Universal versions
of Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) gave
the studio a landmark musical hit when he directed the finest screen version
of the stage hit Show Boat (1936). Since Universal had no set
formula for musical projects, Whale was granted a relatively free hand. He opted
to treat a classic with extraordinary respect. Commissioning several new songs
from Kern & Hammerstein, he left much of their stage score and the basic
plot intact. Original Broadway stars Helen Morgan and Charles Winninger
repeated their acclaimed performances, and Paul Robeson was on hand to sing the
definitive "Ol' Man River." Whale filmed the complex story with
simple but frequently striking visual style. A critical success, Show Boat was
a one-shot prestige project -- as a rule, Universal preferred to focus on cheaper,
less work-intensive projects. The gifted Whale never got to film another musical.
When MGM dropped unknown teenage Canadian soprano
Deanna Durbin, Universal had the good
sense to put this attractive, upbeat girl under contact and showcase her in a
series of budget-conscious musical comedies that blended operatic selections with
popular songs. Durbin's Three Smart Girls (1936), 100 Men and a Girl
(1937), and Mad About Music (1938) were such money-makers that she has been
widely credited with saving Universal from financial ruin. A dedicated professional,
Durbin would remain the studio's top musical star through the the mid-1940s. (There
is more on her in the pages ahead).
20th Century Fox: Three Blondes
In 1934, the long-lived Fox Studio merged with the newly formed 20th Century
Pictures to form Twentieth Century Fox -- and this new studio, under
mogul Darryl F. Zanuk, found multi-talented tot
Shirley Temple was its most bankable asset. When
this irrepressible six year-old blonde stole Fox's
otherwise forgettable musical Stand Up And Cheer (1934), the new studio realized
that they had a pint-sized goldmine on their hands. Temple's acting & singing
seemed unstudied, and her natural enthusiasm was irresistible on screen. Loved by both
children and adults, her likeness appeared on lunch boxes, dolls and other collectibles.
Most of Temple's films were not full-scale musicals, and almost all were done
on the cheap, but many of the interpolated songs she
performed became top hits, including "Animal
Crackers in My Soup" and "On The Good Ship Lollipop."
Temple also gave the world the memorable image of herself and
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
tap dancing in several films, including The Little Colonel
(1935 - photo at left). This was the first interracial pairing
to succeed in commercial film, effectively smashing a long-standing
Hollywood color barrier.
Other Fox musicals from this period tended to follow a remarkably limited
formula, putting attractive blonde leading ladies in distinctively American backstage love
stories. Alice Faye became Fox's top adult musical star
of the 1930s. This throaty-voiced blonde co-starred with Temple in Poor Little Rich Girl
(1936), and went on to delight audiences in a series of showbiz-themed romances, including
Sing Baby Sing (1936), In Old Chicago (1938), Alexander's Ragtime Band
(1938) and Rose of Washington Square (1939). Faye's reign would continue into the
1940s you can find more on her in the essays covering
that decade.
Fox created a less likely musical star when it
featured Olympic figure skating champion Sonja Henie in
Once in a Million (1936). This shapely blonde could not act or sing, but her
natural enthusiasm and skating ability
delighted moviegoers. Placing the music and dramatics in the hands
of stellar co-stars, Henie headlined a series of highly profitable screen
musicals through the late 1940s. She also produced a series of popular
skating spectacles that played in Broadway's 3,000 seat Center Theatre
(the same space that now serves as Rockefeller Center's parking garage). Rarely
seen today and often dismissed by film scholars, Henie's skating musicals were a
popular Hollywood staple for more than a decade -- a noteworthy accomplishment
in any era.
In a departure, Fox produced Music in the Air (1934),
a surprisingly effective screen version of the Kern-Hammerstein stage hit.
Former silent star Gloria Swanson got to show off a handsome soprano voice and
deft comic timing playing an egotistical theatre diva, but with the Great
Depression at its height, Fox watched its budgets closely and made no attempt to
follow up on this unusual charmer.
Disney
Walt Disney had been turning out animated
short subjects for years, but industry experts scoffed at his plans for a
full-length animated musical, questioning whether there was much of an audience for
such a project. Thanks to Disney's insistence on quality, Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs (1937) was as expensive to produce as a live-action film. However,
Snow White's visual beauty, tuneful score and genuine sense of wonder made
it a sensation with all age groups. Every number (including the hits "Heigh-Ho"
and "Some Day My Prince Will Come") was used to develop plot and character, and
there was a polished balance of humor, color and sentiment. Other studios would occasionally
dabble in feature-length animation, but none matched the Disney team's accomplishment.
Disney seemed to overplay his
hand with Fantasia (1940), an animated revue that blended
classical music and stunning cartoon imagery and was initially
rejected by the movie-going public. Over the years, Fantasia
developed a cult following and is now recognized as a unique
achievement. But the film's initial failure effected the future course of Disney's
output. As much a businessman as he was an artist, he thereafter stuck to
straightforward animated book musicals.
Almost all of these films became classics, introducing such Academy
Award-winning songs as "When You Wish Upon a Star" (Pinocchio - 1940)
and "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" (Song of the South - 1946).
Disney remained the pre-eminent creator of animated musical features until his death in 1966.
One more studio spent the 1930s building a peerless dynasty of musical
talent, so much so that they were considered the premier musical film
factory. For more on these legendary years at MGM . . .
MGM: The Lion's Roar
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had the most well-funded production system in the
business. It was the only studio that showed an annual profit and paid regular
dividends to shareholders throughout the Great Depression. More than any other studio,
MGM used audience reaction from sneak previews to re-shape and re-shoot its films. Studio
head Louis B. Mayer (a former scrap metal dealer) blended a tyrannical
managerial style with a shrewd eye for talent. His insistence on family
entertainment and personal passion for great singers made musicals a big part of MGM's
annual output. Mayer and production head Irving Thalberg managed over 4,000
employees, including many of the finest creative and performing talents
available.
When Thalberg decided to film a new version of The Merry Widow
(1934) to herald MGM's renewed interest in musicals, he spared no expense,
hiring Ernst Lubitsch to direct the already established screen team
Maurice Chevalier and
Jeanette MacDonald. The
acclaimed production amounted to a radical rethinking of Franz Lehar's
beloved stage operetta, filled with the sexy visual wit that was Lubitsch's trademark --
but all calibrated to appease the dreaded Production Code. (New lyrics by no
less than Lorenz Hart certainly helped!)
MGM executives carefully varied the studio's output, balancing expensive
prestige projects with lower-cost fare. Dancer
Eleanor Powell
starred in a series of first-rate MGM musical comedies, including the relatively
inexpensive Born to Dance (1936), follwed by more ambitious projects like
Rosalie (1937) and three installments of the Broadway Melody
series. Powell's natural charm and sensational tap technique made her limitations as
a singer and actress irrelevant. Her "Begin the Beguine" with
Fred Astaire in Broadway Melody of 1940
may be the most acclaimed tap duet Hollywood ever filmed. Powell retired in
the 1940s to marry and raise a family, making a brief nightclub comeback in the 1950s.
Nelson and Jeanette:
"Wanting You"
Nelson
Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald have inspired several books, including this tribute
to their film careers. The cover shows them singing their best remembered duet,
"Indian Love Call" in Rose Marie (1936).
Jeanette MacDonald's most
memorable screen partnership began when MGM paired her with unknown baritone
Nelson Eddy in Naughty Marietta
(1935). This initiated a series of popular operettas
starring the pair. Their heartfelt rendition of "Indian Love Call"
("When I’m calling you-oo-oo-oo") in Rose Marie (1936)
cemented their place in popular culture. Some critics complained that MacDonald and
Eddy were too sweet, their acting limited and their singing less than perfect. None of
this mattered to the movie-going public. Eddy and MacDonald had that tangible but
indefinable on-screen quality called "chemistry," and some films historians now
suggest that the longstanding charges of too much sweetness are off the mark.
On the contrary, in a cycle of films where
physicality is repressed, the erotic often ends up all the more insistent
which just may account for the hypnotic pull these films continue to exert on so
many viewers. In Astaire-Rogers musicals, overt physical playfulness is
essential to courtship. In MacDonald-Eddy pictures, sex behaves differently.
Channeled through song, it becomes as disembodied as Indian spirits echoing
sweet love calls throughout the Canadian Rockies.
- Edward Baron Turk, Hollywood Diva: A
Biography of Jeanette MacDonald (Berkley: Univ. of California Press, 1998),
p. 174.
Eddy and MacDonald's screen hits included adaptations of the stage hits
Maytime (1937) and The New Moon (1940). The romantic
plots may seem corny today, but the two stars always shine through, giving a warm
believability to emotions that could easily have seemed ridiculous on the big screen. If
you watch Sweethearts (1938) with its witty Dorothy Parker script, you
can understand why Nelson and Jeanette became such favorites. After co-starring
on screen for the last time in Rodgers and Hart’s I Married An Angel (1941),
the team made occasional joint appearances on radio. For all their on-screen passion,
the two stars were just friends in real life. The suggestion that they had an
off-screen affair (promoted in the ludicrous book Sweethearts) has been
justifiably dismissed
as nonsense by all responsible sources.
Both stars made films with other partners. MacDonald was memorable as a
nightclub singer who pursues Clark Gable and survives a devastating earthquake
in San Francisco (1936), and Eddy had fun opposite Metropolitan Opera diva
Rise Stevens in The Chocolate Soldier (1941). However, the pairing of
"Nelson and Jeanette" became the stuff of show business legend, spawning fan
clubs that would outlast both stars by several decades.
More was going on at MGM -- enough to take the world all the way
from a barnyard to somewhere over the rainbow . . .
Next: Film 1940s