56 replies to this topic

[DanBuck]

Um I could swear I voted for The Music Man, but then it disappeared from the results list.

[Jeff Kolb]

Here's another vote for My Fair Lady...

[Jason Bortz]

Because I can can can.

[DanBuck]

[rjkolb]

Grease!!?

[gigi]

No Busby Berkeley?
No Jazz Singer? (which, whilst I'm on a rant, is conspicuously absent from the top 100)
No Fred and Ginger?

I declare this poll a farce!

[Shantih]

To be absolutley fair to Channel 4 this *was* designed as a 'Most Popular' poll rather than 'Greatest' as most of the top 100 were very well known or recent. So of course there were none of the great thirties musicals and an over indulgence to Lloyd Webber.

But, yes, the number one choice is indeed wrong. Because it isn't Cabaret or Gold Diggers of 1933.

Phil.

[Darryl A. Armstrong]

I voted for Oklahoma! as a sentimental childhood favorite (it wasn't nearly as "girly" as The Sound of Music which my mom seemed to have playing constantly and thus became a favorite), but only because Cannibal! The Musical wasn't on the list.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Hegel with songs
The Sound of Music is a seriously religious film, its plot a fairytale version of modern Christian history
Theo Hobson, Guardian, September 7

[yukiyuki]

anyone remember about Kael's review of Sound of Music (I believe the title is Sound of Mucus) and got the link???

[David Smedberg]

anyone remember about Kael's review of Sound of Music (I believe the title is Sound of Mucus) and got the link???

I believe it was actually "The Sound of Money", but that's just OTTOMH.

Best musical of all time? Fantasia

Edited by GreetingsEarthling, 14 September 2005 - 06:03 PM.

[DanBuck]

I can't find the actual review, just several blurbs about how that review may have been what got her fired from McCall's.

Hmm I got this from a BBC News article:

Among some of her most famous reviews were her scathing comments about The Sound of Music in an article headlined The Sound of Money. 

And this from Wikipedia

At one point, she wrote a famously negative review of The Sound of Music, which allegedly resulted in her being fired from McCall's magazine (she referred to the movie as "The Sound of Mucus").

I found the following bit in this article.

For instance, here’s Kael on The Sound of Music: “Wasn’t there perhaps one little Von Trapp who didn’t want to sing his head off, or who screamed that he wouldn’t act out little glockenspiel routines for Papa’s party guests, or who got nervous and threw up if he had to get on a stage?”

She apparently hated West Side Story as well. It think anything that smacks of inauthentically wholesome rubs her the wrong way. Well, it did.

Edited by DanBuck, 14 September 2005 - 09:01 PM.

[DanBuck]

And a larger excerpt:

The Sound of Music

"Set in Austria in 1938, this is a tribute to freshness that is so mechanically engineered and so shrewdly calculated that the background music rises, the already soft focus blurs and melts, and, upon the instant, you can hear all those noses blowing in the theatre. Whom could this operetta offend? Only those of us who, despite the fact that we may respond, loathe being manipulated in this way and are aware of how cheap and ready-made are the responses we are made to feel. We may become even more aware of the way we have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs. The dauntless, scrubbed-face heroine (Julie Andrews), in training to become a nun, is sent from the convent to serve as governess to the motherless Von Trapp children, and turns them into a happy little troupe of singers before marrying their father (Christopher Plummer). She says goodbye to the nuns and leaves them outside at the fence, as she enters the cathedral to be married. Squeezed again, and the moisture comes out of thousands—millions—of eyes and noses. Wasn't there perhaps one little Von Trapp who didn't want to sing his head off, or who screamed that he wouldn't act out little glockenspiel routines for Papa's party guests, or who got nervous and threw up if he had to get on a stage? The only thing the director, Robert Wise, couldn't smooth out was the sinister, archly decadent performance by Christopher Plummer—he of the thin, twisted smile; he seems to be in a different movie altogether."

[Thom Wade]

Man...Moulin Rouge and Singin' In the Rain...neck and neck!

[M. Dale Prins]

I'm not sure any of my favorite five musicals are in that poll ("Singin' in the Rain" would be the closest). I am not sure what this says about me.

Dale

[John Drew]

I'm not sure any of my favorite five musicals are in that poll ("Singin' in the Rain" would be the closest). I am not sure what this says about me.

You know, I think I had the same thought back when I voted on this a couple of years ago. Except for the re-written ending, I love Little Shop of Horrors, and would have voted for it had it been on the list. I am glad there was no inclusion of Xanadu or the Bee Gee's Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

[MattPage]

Seeing as we don;t have a dedicated Singin' in the Rain thread, can I just boast about my daughter Nina who sat through the whole of Singin' in the Rain yesterday afternoon at just 2.5 years old? We did actually skip out the "Broadway rhythm" bit, but otherwise she sat through, and enjoyed the whole thing.

Matt

[Peter T Chattaway]

Cool. My own 2.5-year-olds were sitting through Seven Brides for Seven Brothers a couple months ago.

[MattPage]

I'll add it to her Netflix list!

Matt

[Darrel Manson]

One that isn't on the list is Paint Your Wagon. Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood singing!! (Well, they try to anyway.) It is a little long, but I still enjoy it.