Movie Musicals

A Chorus Line

Although the 1985 film version of "A Chorus Line" is faithful to the original play and it has an excellent, talented cast, it was not a success. It received no Academy Awards although it was nominated in 3 lesser categories (Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Song; Best Sound). It made a small profit of slightly over $14 million. [read more...]

Evita

The movie version of "Evita" is wonderful with a perfect, superb cast. Yet, it only won the Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song ("You Must Love Me") and the other 4 nominations it received were minor awards. There were no nominations for any of the stars, even though Antonio Banderas was the perfect Che and no one could have been better than Madonna as Eva Peron. [read more...]

Fiddler on the Roof

The cast of the movie version of "Fiddler on the Roof" included many experienced stage actors/actresses, including Topol, a talented Israeli actor who had played Tevye in the London stage production. "Fiddler on the Roof" was one of the few movie musicals after 1960 that did not dub, or need to dub, the singing voices of any of the cast members. [read more...]

Oliver

"Oliver," although an Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director (Carol Reed), did not win similar Tony awards but it was nominated for Best Musical (it lost to "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"). The excellent music score of "Oliver" won a Tony award for the composer and lyricist, Lionel Bart, and an Academy Award for the film's musical arranger, Johnny Green. Overall, "Oliver" won 3 Tony awards out of 10 nominations and 5 Academy Awards out of 11 nominations. In addition, Onna White won an Honorary Academy Award for her choreography of the film version. [read more...]

The Sound of Music

"The Sound of Music" was the only Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical to win an Academy Award even though they have had more movies made from their plays than any other composers. Surprisingly, one of their best and most-loved musicals, "Oklahoma," did not win a Tony award or an Academy Award. [read more...]

My Fair Lady

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's "My Fair Lady" is one of only two Tony winning Best Musicals to also become an Academy Award winning Best Picture. The play ran on Broadway for six and a half years and it has had three Broadway revivals since it ended its first run in 1962. Both the book of the play and the screenplay were written by Alan Jay Lerner. [read more...]

West Side Story

The movie version of "West Side Story" won a record number of Academy Awards (10), but, surprisingly, the play did not win the Tony award for Best Musical (it lost to "The Music Man"). The play opened in 1957 and it ran for almost two years. None of the lead performers from the play appeared in the movie but several of the performers who played smaller parts recreated their roles or played similar parts in the movie. For example, Tony Mordente played a Jet, A-Rab, in the play and then later played a different Jet, Action, in the film version of "West Side Story." [read more...]