Customer Reviews

The Hollywood Musical

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Having read and enjoyed Ethan Mordden's decade by decade series of books on the Broadway musical, I approached his treatise on the Hollywood musical with keen anticipation. But, while the book is full of Mordden's usual wit and peraspective, I found my enjoyment level decreasing as I made my way through its pages. Perhaps Mordden tried to cover too much in a single book or perhaps I simply don't agree with his opinions of film musicals as much as I did with Broadway. I was certainly disappointed that some of my favourite films barely got a mention in what I had hoped would be an exhaustive review of the genre.

For starters, Mordden doesn't seem to think much of most of the post-war musical films and spends a disproportionate amount of time raving about the 30s. He will spend a page and a half analysing a single number from an Astaire/Rogers film, yet the film versions of three Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals - Oklahoma, Carousel, and South Pacific - are all crammed together in a single paragraph. He also seems to have a fairly low opinion of the fabled Freed Unit that produced the famous MGM musicals of the 40s and 50s. Some musicals of the 50s and 60s don't even get an entire sentence to themselves but are merely mentioned in passing. So this overview of the Hollywood musical becomes distinctly lopsided.

Similarly, Mordden doesn't seem overly fond of the male stars of musical films, with the exception of Fred Astaire. And, in his eyes, Judy and Barbra can do no wrong, even in their worst films. So the book is highly opinionated and rather selective in what does and doesn't get examined. Perhaps I was expecting too much. But I definitely think that Ethan Mordden is much better writing about Broadway than Hollywood.