This month features a few theme nights that play into my strengths—namely, some Eleanor Powell and Bob Hope flicks. There’s a lot of other interesting stuff, featuring some of the biggest names in musicals, so let’s get to it!
I’d kind of assumed that with all the wonderful ghosty-themed programming going on over TCM this month, they wouldn’t have time to also fit in a bounty of musicals, but somehow they did! In fact, they’re so rare that I’ve seen almost none of them, and will have to leave you to your own devices. …
It’s no secret that I love a good sailor musical, so when I caught wind of the getTV Mickey Rooney Blogathon, hosted by Once Upon a Screen, Outspoken & Freckled and Paula’s Cinema Club, it took only a moment’s perusal of the channel’s upcoming schedule to make my pick: All Ashore, the 1953 musical in which Rooney plays, yup, a sailor on …
By the 1980s, the movie musical was… well, far beyond the time of transition. Since their heyday in the ’30s and ’40s, musicals had become limited to just a handful of movies per year, without a lot to choose from—Disney films for kids, pop hits designed to sell soundtracks, the occasional prestigious musical dramas, and the cheesy movies that seemed to capture everything cringeworthy of their era. For the studios financing the films, musicals were, to put it mildly, anything but a sure thing. That’s partly what makes Purple Rain such an interesting moment in film history—though it’s easy to see its significance 25 years after the fact, Purple Rain is still a weird, weird movie.
Considering the historical entwinement of the United States and Britain, for the most part, people on either side of the Atlantic know where to spot the differences between our two cultures. The chips, the crisps, biscuits, boots, and lifts—as an American, I can accept all of those fairly easily, and will enthusiastically bring them up upon encountering …
Summer Under the Stars is back! TCM’s annual celebration of classic Hollywood features a slew of entertaining pictures with some of the biggest and brightest names. Musical-wise, your best bets are to keep an eye on August 4 (Judy Garland), August 25 (Dick Powell), and August 30 (Betty Grable). But the whole months is full of wonderful treats!