From "Over the Rainbow" to "Moon River" and from Al Jolson to Barbra Streisand, The Songs of Hollywood traces the fascinating history of song in film, both in musicals and in dramatic movies such as High Noon. Extremely well-illustrated with 200 film stills, this delightful book sheds much light on some of Hollywood's best known and loved repertoire, explaining how the film industry made certain songs memorable, and highlighting important moments of film history along the way. The book focuses on how the songs were presented in the movies, from early talkies where actors portrayed singers "performing" the songs, to the Golden Age in which characters burst into expressive, integral song--not as a "performance" but as a spontaneous outpouring of feeling. The book looks at song presentation in 1930s classics with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and in 1940s gems with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. The authors also look at the decline of the genre since 1960, when most original musicals were replaced by film versions of Broadway hits such as My Fair Lady.
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Furia’s classic The Poets of Tin Pan Alley (1990) receives ideal complementation with this consideration of the impact of the same cohort of lyricists on the movies. The songwriters brought two functional modes of their craft with them to Hollywood: the crafting of basically freestanding pieces that could be inserted as called for in reviews of greater or lesser topicality, and the creation of dramatically appropriate numbers for the still brand-new “book” musicals, such as Show Boat. Two kinds of films arose to accommodate those song types: the performance musical, whose plot was about putting on a show, and the integral (Furia and Patterson’s term) musical, in which the songs expressed the characters and furthered the developments of a naturalistic story. The first megahit movie musicals, Al Jolson in The Singing Fool and the second best-picture Oscar-winner, The Broadway Melody, rather blurred the lines between the types, but soon the Maurice Chevalier–Jeanette MacDonald films (especially Love Me Tonight) firmly established the integral musical. While Furia and Patterson favor the integral musical and rue its apparent demise (except for adaptations of stage shows, for which they have no time), they discuss great examples of all kinds of singing in the movies so perspicaciously that this is a book thatlovers of warbling on celluloid will utterly treasure. --Ray Olson
Review
"With its critical investigation of the connections between Broadway and Hollywood, the intertwining of music publishers and studios, as well as the marketing strategies behind hits, it's clear that this book is not only a careful investigation of musical films up to the 21st century, but also an insightful means of taking stock of film musicals in Hollywood cinema writ large, which gives rise to yet further consideration about the integration of music into the realistic medium of film." --Lied und popul�re Kultur [Song and Popular Culture]
"The Songs of Hollywood is a brilliantly researched, highly entertaining cornucopia of facts, tracing and defining the evolution of the use of songs in film. It's a fascinating read, bursting with information about the great songwriters, performers, producers and directors who transformed a novelty gimmick into an art form."-Richard M. Sherman, Composer / Lyricist of Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Jungle Book.
"If you love attractive songs and movies that sing and dance, this book is a must. But be prepared to rent all the films you missed or will want to see again after reading the authors' appetizing descriptions!" --Sheldon Harnick, Lyricist
"Good reading--and great history--this book offers a fresh examination of the way songs were integrated into Hollywood movies from the silent era through the glory years of musicals. Furia and Patterson write with equal parts knowledge and enthusiasm. I thought I knew this territory pretty well, but they linger over details to create a rich context for their raw material."--Leonard Maltin
"They discuss great examples of all kinds of singing in the movies so perspicaciously that this is a book that lovers of warbling on celluloid will utterly treasure."-Booklist Starred Review
"Considerable insight. A book that can be used to advantage in serious film study or read for pure enjoyment."-California Literary Review
"The Songs of Hollywood benefits from Philip Furia's previous wok on the American popular song...The selection of key works to illustrate the main themes is done with a purpose; focused not filleted, this is a good, readable history." --Times Literary Supplement
"A good, readable history." --Times Literary Supplement
"Covers a wide range of fascinating aspects of South Pacific, providing a scene by scene and issue by issue discussion of how this musical came to be." --DC Theatre Scene
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thorough Textbook Applauds Original Movie Songs,
By
This review is from: The Songs of Hollywood (Hardcover)
I studied movie musicals in college so had a "been there, read that" attitude going in. But I was impressed by the details included regarding the performers and creators of the original movie musical songs. The focus is mainly on the films from the 20's-60's when the creation of movie musicals with original songs was possible due to lyricists and composers being contracted by studios to create this unique art form with one picture after another. The conversion of movies to sound in the late 20's REALLY got the ball rolling. Then by 1930 the public was tired of movies with people breaking into song, the economy made the public more choosey plus the early equipment prevented creative filmmaking. Soon with the use of boom mikes and mobile cameras and prerecorded tracks, the golden age of movie musicals developed until television in the 50's forced studios to use gimmicks like wide screen Cinemescope, 3D, and stereophonic sound to compete. Studios also were compelled to adapt Broadway shows that were already familiar to audiences in advance as a way to create the movie musical. The authors of this book seem to be more impressed with the integrated musical than the performance musical. But when the integrated musical is adapted from Broadway, it no longer ranks as an original creation and just gets perfunctory mentions. To the authors' credit, the focus of this book is on the songs created for Hollywood but I enjoy well made movie adaptations of Broadway shows so feel they deserve inclusion along with the films with original material.I do have issues with their descriptions of two particular films. There are two instances in which the description of the song's use is at least misleading and at worse false. "Be a Clown" in The Pirate in 1948 is performed TWICE, both with Gene Kelly and Nicholas Brothers as well as the finale with Gene and Judy Garland. But according to this book, Judy missed so many shooting days the planned duet for her and Gene had to be cut! Well, she DID miss a lotta days and much of the film had to be rewritten and reshot but the movie ends with Judy and Gene singing "Be a Clown." Producer Arthur Freed was no fool! The other example is the description of a song used during the titles of a movie. I am impressed with the author's inclusion of Hollywood songs in different manners ranging from title songs to peformance, but I was confused with the description of "The Way We Were" He says the song was not presented on screen and implies it only appears during the closing credits and is not able to make a connection to the film or relate to the story. But this ignores the important presence of the song early in the film, performed by Barbra Streisand in the background while we see her character Katie's "memories" of college and a young Robert Redford. The song clearly makes the "connection" that he says was missing. So clearly with these two movies the author missed the end of The Pirate and tuned in to The Way We Were after the first ten minutes! Still in spite of these two egregious errors, this is a fine book with a wonderfully detailed account of Hollywood's original movie musicals. More textbook than coffee table book in tone with an insightful look at how the magic happened.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but could have been so much better,
By Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE)
This review is from: The Songs of Hollywood (Hardcover)
On the whole, I enjoyed this book and will be coming back to visit its pages many times in the future. It is a marvelous history of the remarkable talents that came together to make the American musical film a unique and wonderful experience. Who hasn't had their spirits lifted by a song from a Hollywood musical?Furia is a noted scholar of American popular song. Precisely what Laurie Patterson brings to the party is unknown. Essentially this is a history of the Hollywood musical and particularly the people who wrote those wonderful songs, made sure they got into the movies (producers and directors), gave them a framework (directors) and character (actors). There is no question of Furia's knowledge, including backstage lore, which in turn makes this an interesting book. It is, unfortunately, not a particularly well-written book. Furia writes like an academic. His style lacks verve and is somewhat stiff. The feeling that you are reading a textbook is never far away. But the book is readable and, with all its information, enjoyable for anyone who likes Hollywood musicals. A surprising omission is that the book lacks a fimography, that is a list of all the movies mentioned, dates of production, stars, songwriters and so on. Anyone who doesn't want to watch some, most or all of these films again after reading this book is probably dead and, thus, a filmography would be helpful. There is a song index. The design of the book is, charitably stated, a total disaster. The cover of the copy I read has a picture of Gene Kelly and Debby Reynolds on the cover. It is an iconic shot from "Singing In The Rain". But instead of the raincoats being bright yellow, they are an ugly, vile, repulsive shade of orange/brown or perhaps umber. The skin tones are rendered as a sunburn red. The effect is just plain awful. It is possible that this is a printing error, but it looks more like just plain bad design. The Amazon cover shot has the same coloration. The book has a couple of hundred illustrations, frames from the films. All of them are in black and white and all are about the size of a 35mm photo frame. Another piece of extremely dubious graphic design. Overall, despite the ugly design and the somewhat stilted writing style, I enjoyed the book because of its subject matter and Furia's encyclopedic knowledge of the Hollywood musical and its songs. Jerry
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Inaccuracies Cast Doubt,
By
This review is from: The Songs of Hollywood (Hardcover)
The trouble with film reference books is that once you uncover a glaring inaccuracy, the rest of the volume is cast into doubt. I speak of a section devoted to the 1973 musical version of "Lost Horizon". How is it possible for the authors to have seen the film and not even know who sang what song and in context the song was sung? Sally Kellerman's dancing-on-a-rock solo number "Reflections" is mistaken for one of the two Liv Ullman/Peter Finch duets, and Bobby Van's schoolroom cute-fest song "Question Me An Answer" is attributed to Peter Finch and mistaken for "If I Could Go Back." Granted , "Lost Horizon" is not a memorable film, but its easy enough to ignore (people have been doing it for decades). If you go to the trouble to reference it in a book (devoted to songs), aren't you supposed to at least get the songs right? Trust me, the error here is not the kind of geek trivia minutiae you can shrug off. These are major facts that they get completely wrong...almost like they were guessing by reading the album liner notes. The book feels somewhat valueless to me now as I am left wondering what other films, less familiar to me, are equally as inaccurately written about. The credibility of the authors is called into question. And don't get me started on the obvious money-saving, teensy-weensy, poor quality illustrations!
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