Filmed Musicals....What's That All About?

On Tuesday night I was channel hopping during the half-time break at Upton Park and I stumbled across the film On The Town.

Now you only have to have a passing knowledge of 20th Century cinema history to know that this is the story of three sailors spending their weekend off in New York. I watched the film for about three minutes whilst Gene Kelly and his latest flame danced back and forth across the stage in front of a very poorly painted backdrop of the Big Apple and it struck me how ridiculous filmed musicals are.

I think the technician forgot to project the background

I don't doubt the dancing skills of Mr Kelly or the over-hyped (IMO) singing talents of Francis Albert Sinatra but the whole spectacle seems fairly quaint these days, and I know that musicals are still being made and are still popular.

Stage musicals I can live with, after all there is a tradition of music hall, vaudeville etc and I enjoy a concert as much as the next man but watching three sailors walk down the avenue whilst singing a song about walking down the avenue just seems daft.

It's my fault not the musicals. I can't get across the bridge of suspended disbelief. You know the acceptance that the musical world exists entirely for its own purpose. A world where if you see a young urchin struggling in the street you have to greet him with a song, or should you ever be stranded on a tropical island somewhere you will suddenly burst into song about a neighbouring even more inaccessible island or should you be confronted by a knife carrying youth outside Woolworths you only have to start clicking your fingers and the problem will go away.

Despite my dislike for them you see I have absorbed them through my cultural pores, my Dad sang in Amateur Dramatics and I remember when I was about 12 trying to collate a Top 40 from records in our house and the bottom quarter, of a Beatles dominated chart, consisted of the soundtracks from West Side Story, South Pacific, Desert Song, Oklahoma, Seven Brides etc.

It's not all bad though, I think the name Mitzi Gaynor is one of those names you can't say without smiling.

So there you go, my first entry for Television's Room 101 (not Orwell's which is something you fear rather than dislike) is Musical Films.