Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers".
152-398: Make Mine Laughs is a 1949 American musical comedy film directed by Richard Fleischer . The film was a compilation of comic scenes and musical numbers from RKO Radio Pictures ' feature films and short subjects of the mid-1940s. It was the second of RKO's four "musical revue" features, composed largely of musical and comedy highlights from previous RKO productions. Comedian Gil Lamb hosts
304-502: A Las Vegas –based hotel and casino company (which it later divested in the 1980s). In 1981, the studio acquired United Artists . In 1986, Kerkorian sold MGM to Ted Turner , who retained the rights to the MGM film library, sold the studio lot in Culver City to Lorimar , and sold the remnants of MGM back to Kerkorian a few months later. After Kerkorian sold and reacquired the company again in
456-611: A Bollywood-style song-and-dance number during the film's end credits, Tallika (2022) was the first movie with Maximum Genres of Music Composed by Maharaja and registered as a World Record Holder in Music, Spain has a history and tradition of musical films that were made independent of Hollywood influence. The first films arise during the Second Spanish Republic of the 1930s and the advent of sound films . A few zarzuelas (Spanish operetta ) were even adapted as screenplays during
608-510: A Jill and Haley's "Who Killed Vaudeville?" number from George White's Scandals ). By the time the suit was settled in 1951, both Bolger and Haley had been paid off, and RKO withdrew the picture from distribution. The studio avoided any future lawsuits by confining its remaining variety-show features Footlight Varieties and Merry Mirthquakes to new numbers staged especially for the films, and comedy sequences from RKO's backlog of short subjects. Musical comedy film The musical film
760-467: A Sixpence , The Happiest Millionaire , Star! , Darling Lili , Goodbye, Mr. Chips , Paint Your Wagon , Song of Norway , On a Clear Day You Can See Forever , 1776 , Man of La Mancha , Lost Horizon , and Mame . Collectively and individually these failures affected the financial viability of several major studios. In the 1970s, film culture and the changing demographics of filmgoers placed greater emphasis on gritty realism, while
912-591: A bidding war which included Time Warner (the current parent of Turner Broadcasting ) and General Electric (the owners of the NBC television network at the time), MGM was acquired on September 23, 2004, by a partnership consisting of Sony Corporation of America , Comcast , Texas Pacific Group (now TPG Capital, L.P.), Providence Equity Partners , and other investors. After its bankruptcy in 2010, MGM reorganized, with its creditors' $ 4 billion debt transferred to ownership. MGM's creditors controlled MGM through MGM Holdings,
1064-474: A few dramas) included their own musical numbers. The Marx Brothers ' films included a musical number in nearly every film, allowing the Brothers to highlight their musical talents. Their final film, entitled Love Happy (1949), featured Vera-Ellen , considered to be the best dancer among her colleagues and professionals in the half century. Similarly, the vaudevillian comedian W. C. Fields joined forces with
1216-408: A few well-received films, but even their popularity waned by 1932. The public had quickly come to associate color with musicals and thus the decline in their popularity also resulted in a decline in color productions. The taste in musicals revived again in 1933 when director Busby Berkeley began to enhance the traditional dance number with ideas drawn from the drill precision he had experienced as
1368-530: A host of new stars, among them Greta Garbo , John Gilbert , William Haines , Joan Crawford , and Norma Shearer (who followed Thalberg from Universal). Established names like Lon Chaney , William Powell , Buster Keaton , and Wallace Beery were hired from other studios. They also hired top directors such as King Vidor , Clarence Brown , Erich von Stroheim , Tod Browning , and Victor Seastrom . The arrival of talking pictures in 1928–29 gave opportunities to other new stars, many of whom would carry MGM through
1520-547: A huge role was Ida Koverman , Mayer's secretary and right hand. In 1937, Mayer hired Mervyn LeRoy , a former Warner Bros. producer/director as MGM's top producer and Thalberg's replacement. LeRoy convinced Mayer to acquire the film rights to the popular children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ; MGM purchased the rights from Samuel Goldwyn for $ 75,000 in 1938. MGM's hits in 1939 included The Wizard of Oz ; Ninotchka , starring Greta Garbo ; The Women , starring Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer ; and Gone with
1672-526: A musical and India producing the most movies in the world (formed in 1913), the first Bollywood film to be a complete musical, Dev D (directed by Anurag Kashyap ), came in 2009. The second musical film to follow was Jagga Jasoos (directed by Anurag Basu ), in 2017. Bollywood musicals have their roots in the traditional musical theatre of India , such as classical Indian musical theatre , Sanskrit drama , and Parsi theatre . Early Bombay filmmakers combined these Indian musical theatre traditions with
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#17328804060671824-470: A number of successful films in the 1970s, including Westworld (1973), Soylent Green (1973), The Sunshine Boys (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Network (1976) and Coma (1978). Despite these successes, MGM never reclaimed its former status. The MGM Recording Studios were sold in 1975. In 1979, Kerkorian issued a press statement that MGM was now primarily a hotel company. In 1980, MGM hit
1976-509: A pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz . Lot 3, 40 acres (160,000 m ) of back-lot property, was sold off for real-estate development. In 1971, it was announced that MGM was in talks with 20th Century-Fox about a possible merger, a plan which never came into fruition. Under Aubrey, MGM also sold off MGM Records and its overseas theater holdings. Through the 1970s, studio output slowed considerably as Aubrey preferred four or five medium-budget pictures each year along with
2128-488: A private company. New management of its film and television production divisions was installed. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem. He had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for $ 3 million, to provide a steady supply of films for his large Loew's Theatres chain. However, he found that his new property only provided a lackluster assortment of films. Seeking to solve this problem, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 for $ 5 million to improve
2280-685: A remake—failed: Cimarron (1960), King of Kings (1961), Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1961), and, most notoriously, Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). The Cinerama film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (also 1962), the first film in Cinerama to actually tell a story, was also a financial failure. One other big-budget epic that was a success, however, was the MGM-Cinerama co-production How
2432-699: A renaissance of the genre. The Guru and The 40-Year-Old Virgin also feature Indian-style song-and-dance sequences; the Bollywood musical Lagaan (2001) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film ; two other Bollywood films Devdas (2002) and Rang De Basanti (2006) were nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language ; and Danny Boyle 's Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008) also features
2584-524: A sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s, musicals gained popularity with the public and are exemplified by the films of Busby Berkeley , a choreographer known for his distinctive and elaborate set pieces featuring multiple showgirls. These lavish production numbers are typified by his choreographic work in 42nd Street , Gold Diggers of 1933 , Footlight Parade (all from 1933). During
2736-519: A show-biz plot about two sisters competing for a charming song-and-dance man. Advertised by MGM as the first "All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing" feature film, it was a hit and won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1929. There was a rush by the studios to hire talent from the stage to star in lavishly filmed versions of Broadway hits. The Love Parade (Paramount 1929) starred Maurice Chevalier and newcomer Jeanette MacDonald , written by Broadway veteran Guy Bolton . Warner Brothers produced
2888-416: A smattering of low-budget fare. In October 1973 and in decline in output, MGM closed its distribution offices then outsourced distribution for its films for a ten-year period to United Artists . UA also purchased MGM's music publishing arm, Robbins, Feist & Miller plus half of Canadian record label Quality Records . Kerkorian had largely distanced himself from the operations of the studio, focusing on
3040-418: A soldier during World War I . In films such as 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Berkeley choreographed a number of films in his unique style. Berkeley's numbers typically begin on a stage but gradually transcend the limitations of theatrical space: his ingenious routines, involving human bodies forming patterns like a kaleidoscope, could never fit onto a real stage and the intended perspective
3192-525: A string of successes with live action fantasy adaptations of several of their animated features , Disney produced a live action version of Beauty and the Beast , the first of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical, and features new songs as well as new lyrics to both the Gaston number and the reprise of the title song. Bill Condon , who directed Dreamgirls , directed Beauty and
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#17328804060673344-551: A subsidiary of Amazon MGM Studios, MGM is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA); it was a founding member before leaving in the 2005 acquisition. MGM was the last studio to convert to sound pictures—nonetheless, from the end of the silent film era through the late 1950s, it was the dominant motion picture studio in Hollywood. It was slow to respond to the changing legal, economic, and demographic nature of
3496-425: A symbolic low point when David Begelman , earlier fired by Columbia following the discovery of his acts of forgery and embezzlement, was installed as MGM's president and CEO. In 1980, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. split its production and casino units into separate companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. and MGM Grand Hotels, Inc. The rise of ancillary markets was enough to allow MGM to increase production to 10-15 films
3648-489: A way to break away from their typecasting. For instance, the multi-talented James Cagney had originally risen to fame as a stage singer and dancer, but his repeated casting in "tough guy" roles and mob films gave him few chances to display these talents. Cagney's Oscar -winning role in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) allowed him to sing and dance, and he considered it to be one of his finest moments. Many comedies (and
3800-680: A writer and producer who had found success at running RKO Pictures . Lavish musicals were Schary's focus, and hits like Easter Parade (1948) and the popular films of Mario Lanza (including The Toast of New Orleans (1950) and The Great Caruso (1951)) helped keep MGM profitable. In August 1951, Mayer was fired by MGM's East Coast executives and he was replaced by Schary. Gradually cutting loose expensive contract players (including $ 6,000-a-week Judy Garland in 1950 and "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable in 1954), saving money by recycling existing movie sets instead of building costly new scenery, and reworking expensive old costumes, Schary managed to keep
3952-480: A year in Technicolor with Northwest Passage (1939) being one of the most notable of this era. In addition to a large short-subjects program of its own, MGM also distributed the shorts and features produced by Hal Roach Studios , including comedy shorts starring Laurel and Hardy , Our Gang and Charley Chase . The studio's distribution deal with Roach lasted from 1927 to 1938, and MGM benefited in particular from
4104-716: A year to a more manageable 25 features per year. During this period, MGM released several very successful musicals with stars such as Judy Garland , Fred Astaire , Gene Kelly , and Frank Sinatra . Audiences began drifting to television in the late 1940s, and MGM and the other studios were finding it increasingly difficult to attract them to theaters. With its high overhead expenses, MGM's profit margins continued to decrease. Word came from Nicholas Schenck in New York to find "a new Thalberg" who could improve quality while paring costs. Mayer thought he had found this savior in Dore Schary ,
4256-432: Is considered the first African American A-list film star. Celebrated director Howard Hawks also ventured into the genre with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes . In the 1960s, 1970s, and continuing up to today, the musical film became less of a bankable genre that could be relied upon for sure-fire hits. Audiences for them lessened and fewer musical films were produced as the genre became less mainstream and more specialized. In
4408-474: Is viewing from straight above. Musical stars such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were among the most popular and highly respected personalities in Hollywood during the classical era; the Fred and Ginger pairing was particularly successful, resulting in a number of classic films such as Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). Many dramatic actors gladly participated in musicals as
4560-564: The Academy Award for Best Original Song (1938), the film earned an ASCAP Film and Television Award (1989) for Bob Hope's signature song " Thanks for the Memory ". During the late 1940s and into the early 1950s, a production unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer headed by Arthur Freed made the transition from old-fashioned musical films, whose formula had become repetitive, to something new. (However, they also produced technicolor remakes of such musicals as Show Boat , which had previously been filmed in
4712-541: The Columbia film It Happened One Night (1934). Mayer and Irving Thalberg's association began warmly, but eventually relations between the two became strained; Thalberg preferred literary works and expensive costume pictures over the lower-budget, family-oriented crowd pleasers Mayer wanted. Thalberg, always physically frail, was removed as head of production in 1932. Mayer encouraged other staff producers, among them his son-in-law David O. Selznick , but no one seemed to have
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4864-654: The Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy in their respective years, while such films as The Phantom of the Opera , Hairspray , Mamma Mia! , Nine , Into the Woods , The Greatest Showman , Mary Poppins Returns , Rocketman , Cyrano , Tick, Tick... Boom! , Elvis , and The Color Purple were only nominated. Chicago was also the first musical since Oliver! to win Best Picture at
5016-576: The Howard Hughes film Hell's Angels (1930), now had a big break and became a Hollywood sex symbol and one of MGM's most admired stars. Despite Harlow's gain, Garbo arguably remained the biggest star at MGM. Shearer was still a money maker despite her screen appearances becoming scarce, and Crawford continued her box-office popularity until 1937. MGM also received a boost through the man who would become known as "King of Hollywood", Clark Gable. Gable's career took off to new heights after he won an Oscar for
5168-569: The Looney Tunes ' sister series, Merrie Melodies . The Happy Harmonies regularly ran over budget, and MGM dismissed Harman and Ising in 1937 to start its own animation studio . After initial struggles with a poorly received series of The Captain and the Kids cartoons, the studio rehired Harman and Ising in 1939, and Ising created the studio's first successful animated character, Barney Bear . However, MGM's biggest cartoon stars would come in
5320-492: The MGM Grand Hotel , investing $ 120 million into that project. Another portion of the backlot was sold in 1974. The last shooting done on the backlot was the introductory material for That's Entertainment! (1974), a retrospective documentary that became a surprise hit for the studio. That's Entertainment! was authorized by Dan Melnick , who was appointed head of production in 1972. Under Melnick's regime, MGM produced
5472-643: The Sherman Brothers . Starting with 1989's The Little Mermaid , the Disney Renaissance gave new life to the musical film. Other successful animated musicals included Aladdin , The Hunchback of Notre Dame , and Pocahontas from Disney proper, The Nightmare Before Christmas from Disney division Touchstone Pictures, The Prince of Egypt from DreamWorks, Anastasia from Fox and Don Bluth, Eight Crazy Nights from Columbia, and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut from Paramount. Beauty and
5624-596: The "Golden Age" of Hindi cinema . Some of the most critically acclaimed Hindi films of all time were produced during this period. Examples include Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), directed by Guru Dutt and written by Abrar Alvi , Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955), directed by Raj Kapoor and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas , and Aan (1952), directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Dilip Kumar . These films expressed social themes mainly dealing with working-class life in India , particularly urban life in
5776-474: The 1930s it was clear that if the Soviet cinema was to compete with its Western counterparts, it would have to give audiences what they wanted: the glamour and fantasy they got from Hollywood. The musical film, which emerged at that time, embodied the ideal combination of entertainment and official ideology. A struggle between laughter for laughter's sake and entertainment with a clear ideological message would define
5928-555: The 1930s, MGM produced approximately 50 pictures a year, though it never met its goal of releasing a new motion picture each and every week (it was only able to release one feature film every nine days). Loew's 153 theaters were mostly located in New York, the Northeast, and Deep South; Gone with the Wind (1939) had its world premiere at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. A fine reputation
6080-518: The 1930s, the musical films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers became massive cultural fixtures in the eyes of the American public. These films included, Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet , Swing Time (both 1936), and Shall We Dance (1937). Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939) would become a landmark film for movie musical as it experimented with new technology such as Technicolor . During
6232-645: The 1930s.) In 1939, Freed was hired as associate producer for the film Babes in Arms . Starting in 1944 with Meet Me in St. Louis , the Freed Unit worked somewhat independently of its own studio to produce some of the most popular and well-known examples of the genre. The products of this unit include Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in
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6384-471: The 1930s: Clark Gable , Jean Harlow , Robert Montgomery , Spencer Tracy , Myrna Loy , Robert Taylor , Jeanette MacDonald , and Nelson Eddy among them. MGM was one of the first studios to experiment with filming in Technicolor . Using the two-color Technicolor process then available, MGM filmed portions of The Uninvited Guest (1924), The Big Parade (1925), and Ben–Hur (1925), among others, in
6536-690: The 1940s and 1950s, musical films from MGM musicals regularly premiered. These works included: Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), High Society (1956), and Gigi (1958). During this time, films outside the Arthur Freed unit at MGM included Holiday Inn (1942), White Christmas (1954), and Funny Face (1957) as well as Oklahoma! (1955), The King and I (1956), Carousel , and South Pacific (1958). These films of
6688-443: The 1950 film, The Titan: Story of Michelangelo was telecast by ABC in 1952, but that was a documentary.) Beginning in 1959, and lasting until 1991, telecasts of The Wizard of Oz became an annual tradition, drawing huge audiences in homes all over the U.S. and earning additional profits for MGM. The studio was all too happy to see Oz become, through television, one of the two or three most famous films MGM has ever made, and one of
6840-639: The 1960s created specifically for film were Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book , two of Disney's biggest hits of all time. The phenomenal box-office performance of The Sound of Music gave the major Hollywood studios more confidence to produce lengthy, large-budget musicals. Despite the resounding success of some of these films, Hollywood also produced a large number of musical flops in the late 1960s and early 1970s which appeared to seriously misjudge public taste. The commercially and/or critically unsuccessful films included Camelot , Finian's Rainbow , Hello Dolly! , Sweet Charity , Doctor Dolittle , Half
6992-653: The 1960s, films based on stage musicals continued to be critical and box-office successes. These films included, West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1962), The Music Man (1962), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), My Fair Lady , Mary Poppins (both 1964), The Sound of Music (1965), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying , Thoroughly Modern Millie (all 1967), Oliver! , and Funny Girl (both 1968). In
7144-631: The 1960s, the critical and box-office success of the films West Side Story , Gypsy , The Music Man , Bye Bye Birdie , My Fair Lady , Mary Poppins , The Sound of Music , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , The Jungle Book , Thoroughly Modern Millie , Oliver! , and Funny Girl suggested that the traditional musical was in good health, while French filmmaker Jacques Demy 's jazz musicals The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort were popular with international critics. However popular musical tastes were being heavily affected by rock and roll and
7296-738: The 1970s, film culture and the changing demographics of filmgoers placed greater emphasis on gritty realism, while the pure entertainment and theatricality of classical-era Hollywood musicals was seen as old-fashioned. Despite this, Scrooge (1970), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Cabaret (1972), 1776 (1972), Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), and Pete's Dragon (1977), as well as Grease and The Wiz (both 1978), were more traditional musicals closely adapted from stage shows and were strong successes with critics and audiences. Throughout
7448-516: The 1980s and 1990s, musicals tended to be mainly coming from the Disney animated films of the period, from composers and lyricists, Howard Ashman , Alan Menken , and Stephen Schwartz . The Disney Renaissance started with 1989's The Little Mermaid , then followed by Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), and Mulan (1998). In
7600-646: The 1990s, he expanded MGM by purchasing Orion Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company , including both of their film libraries. Finally, in 2005, Kerkorian sold MGM to a consortium that included Sony Pictures . In 2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and reorganization . After reorganization, it emerged from bankruptcy later that year under its creditors' ownership. Two former executives at Spyglass Entertainment , Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum , became co-chairmen and co-CEOs of MGM's new holding company . After Barber's departure in 2018,
7752-549: The 1990s, the three biggest Bollywood movie stars have been the " Three Khans ": Aamir Khan , Shah Rukh Khan , and Salman Khan . Combined, they have starred in most of the top ten highest-grossing Bollywood films . The three Khans have had successful careers since the late 1980s, and have dominated the Indian box office since the 1990s, across three decades. Baz Luhrmann stated that his successful musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001)
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#17328804060677904-556: The 21st century, the musical genre has been rejuvenated with darker musicals, musical biopics, musical remakes, epic drama musicals and comedy drama musicals such as Moulin Rouge! (2001), Chicago (2002), The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Rent (2005), Dreamgirls (2006), Across the Universe , Enchanted , Hairspray , Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (all 2007), Mamma Mia! (2008), Nine (2009), The Muppets (2011), Les Misérables (2012), Into
8056-557: The Academy Awards. Joshua Oppenheimer 's Academy Award-nominated documentary The Act of Killing may be considered a nonfiction musical. One specific musical trend was the rising number of jukebox musicals based on music from various pop/rock artists on the big screen, some of which based on Broadway shows. Examples of Broadway-based jukebox musical films included Mamma Mia ! ( ABBA ), Rock of Ages , and Sunshine on Leith ( The Proclaimers ). Original ones included Across
8208-485: The American Musical Academy of Arts Association to handle all of their press and artist development. The AMAAA's main function was to develop the budding stars and to make them appealing to the public. Stars such as Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, and Jeanette MacDonald reigned as the top-paid figures at the studio. Another MGM actress of the era, Jean Harlow , who had previously appeared in
8360-521: The Beast , The Lion King , and others were adapted for the stage after their blockbuster success. In the 21st century, movie musicals were reborn with darker musicals, musical biopics, epic drama musicals and comedy drama musicals such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? , Moulin Rouge! , Chicago , Walk the Line , Dreamgirls , Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street , Les Misérables , La La Land , and West Side Story ; all of which won
8512-488: The Beast . The second film of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical was Aladdin and features new songs. The third film of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical was The Lion King and features new songs. The fourth film of this live action fantasy adaptation pack to be an all-out musical was The Little Mermaid and features new songs with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda , replacing Ashman. Pixar also produced Coco ,
8664-412: The Bollywood blockbuster format. Yaadon Ki Baarat (1973), directed by Hussain and written by Salim-Javed, has been identified as the first masala film and the "first" quintessentially "Bollywood" film. Salim-Javed went on to write more successful masala films in the 1970s and 1980s. Masala films launched Amitabh Bachchan into the biggest Bollywood movie star of the 1970s and 1980s. A landmark for
8816-825: The Chocolate Factory , Pete's Dragon , and Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks were also released in the 1970s, the latter winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects . By the 1980s, financiers grew increasingly confident in the musical genre, partly buoyed by the relative health of the musical on Broadway and London's West End . Productions of the 1980s and 1990s included The Apple , Xanadu , The Blues Brothers , Annie , Monty Python's The Meaning of Life , The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas , Victor/Victoria , Footloose , Fast Forward , A Chorus Line , Little Shop of Horrors , Forbidden Zone , Absolute Beginners , Labyrinth , Newsies , Evita , and Everyone Says I Love You . However, Can't Stop
8968-650: The Flame (1930), Song of the West (1930), Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930), Under a Texas Moon (1930), Bride of the Regiment (1930), Whoopee! (1930), King of Jazz (1930), Viennese Nights (1930), and Kiss Me Again (1930). In addition, there were scores of musical features released with color sequences. Hollywood released more than 100 musical films in 1930, but only 14 in 1931. By late 1930, audiences had been oversaturated with musicals and studios were forced to cut
9120-465: The Gershwins, respectively. Warner Bros. produced Calamity Jane and A Star Is Born ; the former film was a vehicle for Doris Day , while the latter provided a big-screen comeback for Judy Garland, who had been out of the spotlight since 1950. Meanwhile, director Otto Preminger , better known for "message pictures", made Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess , both starring Dorothy Dandridge , who
9272-846: The Islands" (from The Bamboo Blonde ), Anne Shirley and Dennis Day duetting on "If You Happen to Find a Heart" (from Music in Manhattan ), comedy bandleader Freddie Fisher (from Seven Days Ashore ), dance team Rosario & Antonio (from Pan-Americana ), and pianist-bandleader Frankie Carle from an RKO short subject. New specialties filmed especially for Make Mine Laughs are performed by puppeteer Robert Lamouret and his duck figure Dudule, Manuel & Marita Viera and their trained-monkeys act, and acrobatic trio The Titans (with Gil Lamb worked into their act). Ray Bolger and Jack Haley brought suit against RKO for unauthorized use of their performances (Bolger's boxing pantomime from Four Jacks and
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#17328804060679424-459: The Loew's merger going through. Schenck and Mayer had never gotten along (Mayer reportedly referred to his boss as "Mr. Skunk"), and the abortive Fox merger increased the animosity between the two men. From the outset, MGM tapped into the audience's need for glamor and sophistication. Having inherited few big names from their predecessor companies, Mayer and Thalberg began at once to create and publicize
9576-528: The Loews theater chain and the three studios on April 17, 1924, celebrated with a fete on April 26, 1924. Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with 24-year-old Irving Thalberg as head of production. Final approval over budgets and contracts rested with New York City-based Loews Inc., while production decisions rested with the production headquarters in Culver City. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years. In 1925, MGM released
9728-685: The Music , starring the Village People , was a calamitous attempt to resurrect the old-style musical and was released to audience indifference in 1980. Little Shop of Horrors was based on an off-Broadway musical adaptation of a 1960 Roger Corman film, a precursor of later film-to-stage-to-film adaptations, including The Producers . Many animated films of the period – predominately from Disney – included traditional musical numbers. Howard Ashman , Alan Menken , and Stephen Schwartz had previous musical theater experience and wrote songs for animated films during this time, supplanting Disney workhorses
9880-499: The Musical (all 2022), The Little Mermaid , Wonka , The Color Purple (all 2023), Mean Girls , Wicked , Mufasa: The Lion King , Joker: Folie à Deux , A Complete Unknown (all 2024). The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the golden age of the musical film, when the genre's popularity was at its highest in the Western world . Disney 's Snow White and
10032-496: The Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953) and Gigi (1958). Non-Freed musicals from the studio included Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954 and High Society in 1956, and the studio distributed Samuel Goldwyn 's Guys and Dolls in 1955. This era saw musical stars become household names, including Judy Garland , Gene Kelly , Ann Miller , Donald O'Connor , Cyd Charisse , Mickey Rooney , Vera-Ellen , Jane Powell , Howard Keel , and Kathryn Grayson . Fred Astaire
10184-513: The Rain (1952), and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). However, Brigadoon (1954), Deep in My Heart (1954), It's Always Fair Weather (1955), Invitation to the Dance (1956), and Les Girls (1957) were extravagant song and dance flops, and even the now-classic The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957) lost money upon their initial releases. In 1952, as a settlement of
10336-525: The Rings: The Return of the King also did in 2003. During this period, MGM fell into a questionable practice that eventually nearly doomed the studio: an entire year's production schedule relied on the success of one big-budget epic film each year. This policy began in 1959, when Ben–Hur proved profitable enough to carry the studio through 1960. However, four succeeding big-budget epics—like Ben–Hur , each
10488-514: The Seven Dwarfs , the earliest Disney animated feature film, was a musical which won an honorary Oscar for Walt Disney at the 11th Academy Awards . Musical short films were made by Lee de Forest in 1923–24. Beginning in 1926, thousands of Vitaphone shorts were made, many featuring bands, vocalists, and dancers. The earliest feature-length films with synchronized sound had only a soundtrack of music and occasional sound effects that played while
10640-487: The Soviet musical was first and foremost a form of propaganda. Vladimir Lenin said that cinema was "the most important of the arts". His successor, Joseph Stalin , also recognized the power of cinema in efficiently spreading Communist Party doctrine. Films were widely popular in the 1920s, but it was foreign cinema that dominated the Soviet filmgoing market. Films from Germany and the U.S. proved more entertaining than Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein 's historical dramas. By
10792-924: The Unicorn , and Spellbound . Biopics about music artists and showmen were also big in the 21st century. Examples include 8 Mile ( Eminem ), Ray ( Ray Charles ), Walk the Line ( Johnny Cash and June Carter ), La Vie en Rose ( Édith Piaf ), Notorious ( Biggie Smalls ), Jersey Boys ( The Four Seasons ) Love & Mercy ( Brian Wilson ), CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story ( TLC ), Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B ( Aaliyah ), Get on Up ( James Brown ), Whitney and I Wanna Dance With Somebody ( Whitney Houston ), Straight Outta Compton ( N.W.A ), The Greatest Showman ( P. T. Barnum ), Bohemian Rhapsody ( Freddie Mercury ), The Dirt ( Mötley Crüe ), Judy ( Judy Garland ), Rocketman ( Elton John ), Respect ( Aretha Franklin ) and Elvis ( Elvis Presley ). Grossing over $ 900 million at
10944-582: The Universe ( The Beatles ), Moulin Rouge! (various pop hits), Idlewild ( Outkast ) and Yesterday ( The Beatles ). Disney also returned to musicals with Enchanted , The Princess and the Frog , Tangled , Winnie the Pooh , The Muppets , Frozen , Muppets Most Wanted , Into the Woods , Moana , Mary Poppins Returns , Frozen II , Encanto , Better Nate Than Ever , Disenchanted , Wish , Moana 2 and Mufasa: The Lion King . Following
11096-478: The West Was Won (1962), with a huge all-star cast. King of Kings , while a commercial and critical bomb at the time, has since come to be regarded as a film classic. The losses caused by these films led to the resignations of Sol Siegel and Joseph Vogel who were replaced by Robert M. Weitman (head of production) and Robert O'Brien (president). The combination of O'Brien and Weitman seemed to temporarily revive
11248-446: The Wind , starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler . Although Gone With the Wind was produced by Selznick International Pictures , the film was distributed by MGM as part of a deal for producer David O. Selznick , Mayer's son-in-law, to obtain the services of Gable as well as financial assistance necessary for Selznick to complete the film. After Selznick International foundered in 1944, MGM acquired
11400-537: The Woods (2014), La La Land (2016), Beauty and the Beast , The Greatest Showman (both 2017), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again! , A Star Is Born , Mary Poppins Returns , Bohemian Rhapsody (all 2018), Aladdin , Rocketman , The Lion King (all 2019), In the Heights , Respect , Dear Evan Hansen , Cyrano , Everybody's Talking About Jamie , Tick, Tick… Boom! , West Side Story (all 2021), Elvis , Spirited , Disenchanted , Matilda
11552-496: The actors portrayed their characters just as they did in silent films: without audible dialogue. The Jazz Singer , released in 1927 by Warner Brothers , was the first to include an audio track including non- diegetic music and diegetic music, but it had only a short sequence of spoken dialogue. This feature-length film was also a musical, featuring Al Jolson singing "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face", "Toot, Toot, Tootsie", " Blue Skies ", and " My Mammy ". Historian Scott Eyman wrote, "As
11704-1088: The big screen. It set a new template for Bollywood musical romance films that defined Hindi cinema in the 1990s. The period of Hindi cinema from the 1990s onwards is referred to as "New Bollywood" cinema, linked to economic liberalisation in India during the early 1990s. By the early 1990s, the pendulum had swung back toward family-centric romantic musicals. Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was followed by blockbusters such as Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Chandni (1989), Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Raja Hindustani (1996), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998) and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). A new generation of popular actors emerged, such as Aamir Khan, Aditya Pancholi , Ajay Devgan , Akshay Kumar , Salman Khan ( Salim Khan's son ), and Shahrukh Khan , and actresses such as Madhuri Dixit , Sridevi , Juhi Chawla , Meenakshi Seshadri , Manisha Koirala , Kajol , and Karisma Kapoor . Since
11856-464: The box office Bohemian Rhapsody is the most commercially successful musical biopic. Director Damien Chazelle created a musical film called La La Land , starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone . It was meant to reintroduce the traditional jazz style of song numbers with influences from the Golden Age of Hollywood and Jacques Demy 's French musicals while incorporating a contemporary/modern take on
12008-425: The box-office. Marisol , Joselito , Pili & Mili , and Rocío Dúrcal were the major figures of musical films from the 1960s to 1970s. Due to Spanish transition to democracy and the rise of " Movida culture ", the musical genre fell in production and box-office, only saved by Carlos Saura and his flamenco musical films. Unlike the musical films of Hollywood and Bollywood, popularly identified with escapism,
12160-518: The classic television version of Dr. Seuss 's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) featuring the voice of Boris Karloff . Tom and Jerry folded in 1967, and the animation department continued with television specials and one feature film, The Phantom Tollbooth . A revived Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation was in existence from 1993 to 1999. In 1959, MGM enjoyed what is quite probably its greatest financial success of later years, with
12312-667: The comic actress Martha Raye and the young comedian Bob Hope in Paramount Pictures musical anthology The Big Broadcast of 1938 . The film also showcased the talents of several internationally recognized musical artists including: Kirsten Flagstad (Norwegian operatic soprano), Wilfred Pelletier (Canadian conductor of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra ), Tito Guizar (Mexican tenor), Shep Fields conducting his Rippling Rhythm Jazz Orchestra and John Serry Sr. (Italian-American concert accordionist). In addition to
12464-404: The conventions of Hindi cinema for decades. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the industry was dominated by musical romance films with "romantic hero" leads, the most popular being Rajesh Khanna . Other actors during this period include Shammi Kapoor , Jeetendra , Sanjeev Kumar , and Shashi Kapoor , and actresses like Sharmila Tagore , Mumtaz , Saira Banu , Helen and Asha Parekh . By
12616-535: The decision. Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds. During this time, in the summer of 1929, Fox was badly hurt in an automobile accident. By the time he recovered, the stock market crash in the fall of 1929 had nearly wiped Fox out and ended any chance of
12768-929: The decline of the musical film is Indian cinema , especially the Bollywood film industry based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), where most of films have been, and still are, musicals. The majority of films produced in the Tamil industry , based in Chennai (formerly Madras), the Sandalwood industry , based in Bangalore , the Telugu industry , based in Hyderabad , and the Malayalam industry are also musicals. Despite this exception of almost every Indian movie being
12920-401: The earlier Hanna and Barbera shorts, they did receive positive reviews in some quarters. In 1963, the production of Tom and Jerry returned to Hollywood under Chuck Jones and his Sib Tower 12 Productions studio (later absorbed by MGM and renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts ). Jones' group also produced its own works, winning an Oscar for The Dot and the Line (1965), as well as producing
13072-413: The end of MGM's animation department, as the studio determined it could generate the same amount of revenue by reissuing older cartoons as it could by producing and releasing new ones. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, by then the heads of the MGM cartoon studio, took most of their unit and made their own company, Hanna-Barbera Productions , a successful producer of television animation. In 1956, MGM sold
13224-476: The era typically relied on the star power of such film stars as Fred Astaire , Gene Kelly , Bing Crosby , Frank Sinatra , Judy Garland , Ann Miller , Kathryn Grayson , and Howard Keel . They also relied on film directors such as Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli as well as songwriters Comden and Green , Rodgers and Hammerstein , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter , and the Gershwin Brothers . During
13376-422: The extravagant and successful Ben-Hur , taking a $ 4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Also in 1925, MGM, Paramount Pictures and UFA formed a joint German distributor, Parufamet . Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loew's passed to Nicholas Schenck. In 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew family's holdings with Schenck's assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with
13528-404: The failure of the big-budget epic Raintree County (1957) prompted the studio to terminate Schary's contract. Schary's reign at MGM had been marked with few legitimate hits, but his departure (along with the retirement of Schenck in 1955) left a power vacuum that would prove difficult to fill. Initially Joseph Vogel became president and Sol Siegel head of production. In 1957 (by coincidence,
13680-536: The few films that nearly everybody in the U.S. has seen at least once. Today The Wizard of Oz is regularly shown on the Turner -owned channels, no longer just once a year. In animation, MGM purchased the rights in 1930 to distribute a series of cartoons that starred a character named Flip the Frog , produced by Ub Iwerks . The first cartoon in this series (titled Fiddlesticks ) was the first sound cartoon to be produced in two-color Technicolor. In 1933, Ub Iwerks canceled
13832-474: The film ended and applause grew with the houselights, Sam Goldwyn 's wife Frances looked around at the celebrities in the crowd. She saw 'terror in all their faces', she said, as if they knew that 'the game they had been playing for years was finally over'." Still, only isolated sequences featured "live" sound; most of the film had only a synchronous musical score. In 1928, Warner Brothers followed this up with another Jolson part-talkie, The Singing Fool , which
13984-507: The first computer-animated musical film by the company. Other animated musical films include Rio , Dr. Seuss' The Lorax , Rio 2 , The Book of Life , Trolls , Sing , My Little Pony: The Movie , Smallfoot , UglyDolls , Trolls World Tour , Over the Moon , Vivo , Sing 2 , The Bob's Burgers Movie , Under the Boardwalk , Trolls Band Together , Leo , Thelma
14136-451: The first colour film in Hindi , Kisan Kanya . The next year, he made another colour film, a version of Mother India . However, colour did not become a popular feature until the late 1950s. At this time, lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were the staple fare at the cinema. Following India's independence , the period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s is regarded by film historians as
14288-456: The first million-dollar executive in American history. The company remained profitable, and an increase in MGM's "series" pictures ( Andy Hardy starring Mickey Rooney , Maisie starring Ann Sothern , The Thin Man starring William Powell and Myrna Loy , and Dr. Kildare / Dr. Gillespie with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore ) is cited as evidence of Mayer's restored influence. Also playing
14440-493: The first screen operetta, The Desert Song in 1929. They spared no expense and photographed a large percentage of the film in Technicolor . This was followed by the first all-color, all-talking musical feature which was entitled On with the Show (1929). The most popular film of 1929 was the second all-color, all-talking feature which was entitled Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929). This film broke all box office records and remained
14592-461: The form of the cat-and-mouse duo Tom and Jerry , created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1940. The Tom and Jerry cartoons won seven Academy Awards between 1943 and 1953. In 1941, Tex Avery , another Schlesinger alumnus, joined the animation department. Avery gave the unit its image, with successes like Red Hot Riding Hood , Swing Shift Cinderella , and the Droopy series. Avery left
14744-411: The former two examples; Awaara presented the city as both a nightmare and a dream, while Pyaasa critiqued the unreality of city life. Mehboob Khan 's Mother India (1957), a remake of his earlier Aurat (1940), was the first Indian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film , which it lost by a single vote. Mother India was also an important film that defined
14896-484: The freedom and youth associated with it, and indeed Elvis Presley made a few films that have been equated with the old musicals in terms of form. A Hard Day's Night and Help! , starring the Beatles , were audacious. Most of the musical films of the 1950s and 1960s such as Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music were straightforward adaptations or restagings of successful stage productions. The most successful musicals of
15048-438: The full rights to Gone With the Wind . While The Wizard of Oz was a critical hit, the production costs for the film were so expensive it took 20 years before it turned a profit. Within one year, beginning in 1942, Mayer released his five highest-paid actresses from their MGM contracts: Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Jeanette MacDonald and Myrna Loy. After being labeled " box office poison ", Crawford's MGM contract
15200-582: The golden age of the Soviet musical of the 1930s and 1940s. Then-head of the film industry Boris Shumyatsky sought to emulate Hollywood's conveyor belt method of production, going so far as to suggest the establishment of a Soviet Hollywood. MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures , commonly shortened to MGM ) is an American media company specializing in film and television production and distribution based in Beverly Hills, California . Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
15352-470: The government's restraint-of-trade action, United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. 334 US 131 (1948), Loews, Inc. gave up control of MGM. It would take another five years before the interlocking arrangements were completely undone, by which time both Loews and MGM were losing money. In 1956, Schary was ousted from MGM in another power struggle against the New York-based executives. Cost overruns and
15504-453: The highest-grossing film ever produced until 1939. Suddenly, the market became flooded with musicals, revues, and operettas. The following all-color musicals were produced in 1929 and 1930 alone: The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), The Show of Shows (1929), Sally (1929), The Vagabond King (1930), Follow Thru (1930), Bright Lights (1930), Golden Dawn (1930), Hold Everything (1930), The Rogue Song (1930), Song of
15656-635: The late 1980s, Hindi cinema experienced another period of stagnation, with a decline in box office turnout, due to increasing violence, decline in musical melodic quality, and rise in video piracy, leading to middle-class family audiences abandoning theaters. The turning point came with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), directed by Mansoor Khan , written and produced by his father Nasir Hussain , and starring his cousin Aamir Khan with Juhi Chawla . Its blend of youthfulness, wholesome entertainment, emotional quotients and strong melodies lured family audiences back to
15808-657: The latter of whom MGM supported. MGM and other film studios deducted a days pay from each of their employees to raise an anti-Sinclair fund that amounted to $ 500,000. Irving Thalberg was to lead MGM's anti-Sinclair campaign and the studio recruited Carey Wilson to create a series of anti-Sinclair propaganda films. These films, directed by Felix E. Feist , included fake newsreels of Sinclair supporters who were portrayed as bums and criminals. They were shown in Californian movie theaters, with one episode featuring hired actors as Sinclair supporters speaking with foreign accents. During
15960-639: The masala film genre was Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), directed by Manmohan Desai and written by Kader Khan . Manmohan Desai went on to successfully exploit the genre in the 1970s and 1980s. Along with Bachchan, other popular actors of this era included Feroz Khan , Mithun Chakraborty , Naseeruddin Shah , Jackie Shroff , Sanjay Dutt , Anil Kapoor and Sunny Deol . Actresses from this era included Hema Malini , Jaya Bachchan , Raakhee , Shabana Azmi , Zeenat Aman , Parveen Babi , Rekha , Dimple Kapadia , Smita Patil , Jaya Prada and Padmini Kolhapure . In
16112-439: The mid-1950s, MGM could make a claim its rivals could not: the studio never lost money, although it did produce an occasional disaster such as Parnell (1937), Clark Gable's biggest flop. MGM was the only Hollywood studio that continued to pay dividends during the 1930s. MGM stars dominated the box office during the 1930s, and the studio was credited for inventing the Hollywood stable-of-stars system as well. MGM contracted with
16264-435: The motion picture industry during the 1950s and 1960s; and although its films often did well at the box office, it lost significant amounts of money throughout the 1960s. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. , whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios . Three years later, an increasingly unprofitable MGM was bought by Kirk Kerkorian , who slashed staff and production costs, forced
16416-504: The music from films that were then being released. For example, Life of the Party (1930) was originally produced as an all-color, all-talking musical comedy. Before it was released, however, the songs were cut out. The same thing happened to Fifty Million Frenchmen (1931) and Manhattan Parade (1932) both of which had been filmed entirely in Technicolor . Marlene Dietrich sang songs successfully in her films, and Rodgers and Hart wrote
16568-455: The musical The Broadway Melody (1929), however, was both a box-office success and won the Academy Award as Best Picture of the Year. MGM was the last major studio to convert to sound. The studio's first all-color, "all-talking" sound feature with dialogue was the musical The Rogue Song in 1930. MGM included a sequence made in Technicolor's superior new three-color process, a musical number in
16720-522: The musical film format that emerged from early Hollywood sound films. Other early influences on Bombay filmmakers included Urdu literature and the Arabian Nights . The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani 's Alam Ara (1931), was a major commercial success. There was clearly a huge market for talkies and musicals; Bollywood and all the regional film industries quickly switched to sound filming. In 1937, Ardeshir Irani, of Alam Ara fame, made
16872-561: The musical's heyday. They include 1776 , The Wiz , At Long Last Love , Mame , Man of La Mancha , Lost Horizon , Godspell , Phantom of the Paradise , Funny Lady ( Barbra Streisand 's sequel to Funny Girl ), A Little Night Music , and Hair amongst others. The critical wrath against At Long Last Love , in particular, was so strong that it was never released on home video. Fantasy musical films Scrooge , The Blue Bird , The Little Prince , Willy Wonka &
17024-498: The otherwise black-and-white The Cat and the Fiddle (1934), starring Jeanette MacDonald and Ramon Novarro . The studio then produced a number of three-color short subjects including the musical La Fiesta de Santa Barbara (1935); the first complete Technicolor feature was Sweethearts (1938) with MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, the earlier of the popular singing team's two films in color. From then on, MGM regularly produced several films
17176-503: The premiere of the R&;B band Bloodstone 's movie Train Ride to Hollywood , but problems in distribution rendered it barely getting token theatrical release. The year 1976 saw the release of the low-budget comic musical, The First Nudie Musical , released by Paramount. The 1978 film version of Grease was a smash hit; its songs were original compositions done in a 1950s pop style. However,
17328-454: The proceedings, finding time to make satirical comments about the opening credits and to perform his "swallowing the harmonica" specialty. The film clips include two short subjects, Leon Errol 's Beware of Redheads and two clips from RKO's Flicker Flashbacks entries (a 1920 fashion show narrated by radio's Ward Wilson and a dramatic playlet narrated by Knox Manning ). Other clips from the vaults are Frances Langford singing "Moonlight Over
17480-497: The process. MGM released The Viking (1928), the first complete Technicolor feature with a synchronized score and sound effects, but no spoken dialogue. With the arrival of " talkies ", MGM moved slowly and reluctantly into the sound era, releasing features like White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) with music and sound effects, and Alias Jimmy Valentine (1928) with limited dialogue sequences. Their first full-fledged talkie,
17632-535: The pure entertainment and theatricality of classical-era Hollywood musicals was seen as old-fashioned. Despite this, Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret were more traditional musicals closely adapted from stage shows and were strong successes with critics and audiences. Changing cultural mores and the abandonment of the Hays Code in 1968 also contributed to changing tastes in film audiences. The 1973 film of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice 's Jesus Christ Superstar
17784-459: The quality of the theaters' products. However, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. A solution came in the person of Louis B. Mayer , head of Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Loew bought the Mayer studio for $ 75,000. Loews Incorporated completed the merger of
17936-402: The release of its nearly four-hour Technicolor epic Ben–Hur , a remake of its 1925 silent film hit, loosely based on true story—despite being adapted from the novel by General Lew Wallace . Starring Charlton Heston in the title role, the film was critically acclaimed, and won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, a record that held until Titanic matched it in 1997 and The Lord of
18088-721: The sequel Grease 2 (released in 1982) bombed at the box-office. Films about performers which incorporated gritty drama and musical numbers interwoven as a diegetic part of the storyline were produced, such as Lady Sings the Blues , All That Jazz , and New York, New York . Some musicals made in Britain experimented with the form, such as Richard Attenborough 's Oh! What a Lovely War (released in 1969), Alan Parker 's Bugsy Malone and Ken Russell 's Tommy and Lisztomania . A number of film musicals were still being made that were financially and/or critically less successful than in
18240-530: The shorts, The Dogway Melody (1930), spoofed MGM's hit 1929 musical The Broadway Melody . MGM entered the music industry by purchasing the "Big Three" starting with Miller Music Publishing Co. in 1934, then Robbins Music Corporation. In 1935, MGM acquired a controlling interest in the capital stock of Leo Feist, Inc. , the last of the Big Three. In the 1934 California gubernatorial election Democratic Upton Sinclair ran against Republican Frank Merriam ,
18392-676: The silent era. The beginnings of the Spanish musical were focused on romantic Spanish archetypes: Andalusian villages and landscapes, gypsies, "bandoleros", and copla and other popular folk songs included in story development. These films had even more box-office success than Hollywood premieres in Spain. The first Spanish film stars came from the musical genre: Imperio Argentina , Estrellita Castro , Florián Rey (director) and, later, Lola Flores , Sara Montiel and Carmen Sevilla . The Spanish musical started to expand and grow. Juvenile stars appear and top
18544-430: The start of the 1970s, Hindi cinema was experiencing thematic stagnation, dominated by musical romance films . The arrival of screenwriter duo Salim–Javed , consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar , marked a paradigm shift, revitalizing the industry. They began the genre of gritty, violent, Bombay underworld crime films in the early 1970s, with films such as Zanjeer (1973) and Deewaar (1975). The 1970s
18696-974: The story and characters with balances in fantasy numbers and grounded reality. It received 14 nominations at the 89th Academy Awards , tying the record for most nominations with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997), and won the awards for Best Director , Best Actress , Best Cinematography , Best Original Score , Best Original Song , and Best Production Design . In 2013, NBC produced The Sound of Music Live! as part of their effort for expanded live entertainment events, which became an annual tradition of adaptations of stage musicals, created specifically as live television events. The following years featured Peter Pan Live! , The Wiz Live! , Hairspray Live! , Jesus Christ Superstar Live! , Dr. Seuss' The Grinch Musical Live! , and Annie Live! . ABC and Fox also produced similar events, including Grease Live! , A Christmas Story Live! , Rent: Live , and The Little Mermaid Live! . An exception to
18848-694: The studio in 1953, leaving Hanna and Barbera to focus on the popular Tom and Jerry and Droopy series. After 1955, all cartoons were filmed in CinemaScope until MGM closed its cartoon division in 1957. In 1961, MGM resumed the release of new Tom and Jerry shorts, and production moved to Rembrandt Films in Prague , Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) under the supervision of Gene Deitch , who had been hired away from Terrytoons . Although Deitch's Tom and Jerry cartoons were considered to be vastly inferior to
19000-463: The studio running much as it had through the early 1940s, though his sensibilities for hard-edged, message movies would never bear much fruit. One bright spot was MGM musical pictures, under the aegis of producer Arthur Freed , who was operating what amounted to an independent unit within the studio. MGM produced some well-regarded and profitable musicals that would later be acknowledged as classics, among them An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in
19152-511: The studio sought to be acquired by another company to pay its creditors. In May 2021, Amazon acquired MGM for US$ 8.45 billion ; the deal closed in March 2022. In October 2023, Amazon Studios absorbed MGM Holdings and rebranded itself as Amazon MGM Studios. As of 2023, its most commercially successful film franchises include Rocky and James Bond , while its most recent television productions include Fargo and The Handmaid's Tale . As
19304-431: The studio to produce low-quality, low-budget fare, and then ceased theatrical distribution in 1973. The studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were distributed through other studios, usually United Artists . Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and an expanded film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up internal production, and kept production going at UA, which
19456-416: The studio's output. This management-by-committee resulted in MGM losing its momentum, developing few new stars, and relying on the safety of sequels and bland material. ( Dorothy Parker memorably referred to the studio as "Metro-Goldwyn-Merde". ) Production values remained high, and even "B" pictures carried a polish and gloss that made them expensive to mount. After 1940, production was cut from 50 pictures
19608-509: The studio. MGM released David Lean 's immensely popular Doctor Zhivago (1965), later followed by such hits as The Dirty Dozen (1967), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Where Eagles Dare (1968). However the company's time was taken up fighting off proxy attacks by corporate raiders , and then MGM backed another series of box office failures, including the musical remake of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) and Ryan's Daughter (1970). Weitman moved over to Columbia in 1967 and O'Brien
19760-467: The success of the popular Laurel and Hardy films. In 1938, MGM purchased the rights to the Our Gang series from Roach and production of the successful series moved to the MGM studios, where it continued until 1944. From 1929 to 1931, MGM produced a series of comedy shorts called All Barkie Dogville Comedies , in which trained dogs were dressed up to parody contemporary films and were voiced by actors. One of
19912-455: The sure touch of Thalberg. As Thalberg's health deteriorated in 1936, Mayer could now serve as his temporary replacement. Rumors had begun circulating for some time that Thalberg was leaving MGM to set up his own independent company; his premature death at age 37 in September 1936 cost MGM dearly. After Thalberg's untimely death, Mayer became head of production, as well as studio chief, becoming
20064-468: The television rights for The Wizard of Oz to CBS , which scheduled it to be shown in November of that year. In a landmark event, the film became the first American theatrical fiction film to be shown complete in one evening on prime time television over a major American commercial network. ( Olivier's version of Hamlet was shown on prime time network TV a month later, but split in half over two weeks, and
20216-588: The unsuccessful Flip the Frog series and MGM began to distribute its second series of cartoons, starring a character named Willie Whopper , that was also produced by Iwerks. In 1934, after Iwerks' distribution contract expired, MGM contracted with animation producers/directors Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising to produce a new series of color cartoons. Harman and Ising came to MGM after breaking ties with Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. and brought with them their popular Looney Tunes character, Bosko . These were known as Happy Harmonies , and in many ways resembled
20368-541: The year Mayer died), the studio lost money for the first time in its 34-year history. After Spencer Tracy left MGM in 1955, the only major star remaining under contract from MGM's heyday was Robert Taylor ; by 1960, MGM had released Taylor and the last of its contract players, with many either retiring or moving on to television. In 1958, MGM released what is generally considered its last great musical, Arthur Freed's Cinemascope color production of Gigi , starring Leslie Caron , Maurice Chevalier , and Louis Jourdan . It
20520-617: Was MGM's asset value, which included subsidiary businesses, real estate, and the value of 45 years' worth of glamour associated with the name, which he attached to a Las Vegas hotel and casino . As for film-making, that part of the company was bleeding money and was quickly and severely downsized under the supervision of James T. Aubrey Jr. With changes in its business model including fewer pictures per year, more location shooting and more distribution of independent productions, MGM's operations were reduced. Aubrey sold off MGM's accumulation of props, furnishings and historical memorabilia, including
20672-408: Was a blockbuster hit. Theaters scrambled to install the new sound equipment and to hire Broadway composers to write musicals for the screen. The first all-talking feature, Lights of New York , included a musical sequence in a night club. The enthusiasm of audiences was so great that in less than a year all the major studios were making sound pictures exclusively. The Broadway Melody (1929) had
20824-420: Was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if a live audience were watching. In
20976-456: Was adapted from the novel by Colette , and written by the team of Lerner and Loewe , who also wrote My Fair Lady and Camelot . Gigi was a box-office and critical success which won nine Academy Awards , including Best Picture . From it came several hit songs, including "Thank Heaven For Little Girls", "I Remember It Well", the "Waltz at Maxim's", and the Oscar-winning title song. The film
21128-500: Was also coaxed out of retirement for Easter Parade and made a permanent comeback. The other Hollywood studios proved themselves equally adept at tackling the genre at this time, particularly in the 1950s. Four adaptations of Rodgers and Hammerstein shows - Oklahoma! , The King and I , Carousel , and South Pacific - were all successes, while Paramount Pictures released White Christmas and Funny Face , two films which used previously written music by Irving Berlin and
21280-435: Was also when the name "Bollywood" was coined, and when the quintessential conventions of commercial Bollywood films were established. Key to this was the emergence of the masala film genre, which combines elements of multiple genres ( action , comedy , romance , drama , melodrama , musical). The masala film was pioneered in the early 1970s by filmmaker Nasir Hussain , along with screenwriter duo Salim-Javed, pioneering
21432-603: Was bought by Pathé Communications (led by Italian publishing magnate Giancarlo Parretti ) in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais , the studio's major creditor, then took control of MGM. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso , and Australia's Seven Network in 1996. The debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGM's ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. After
21584-444: Was bracketed by two productions of Ben Hur . It divested itself of the Loews movie theater chain and, in 1956, expanded into television production. In 1969, businessman and investor Kirk Kerkorian bought 40% of MGM and dramatically changed the operation and direction of the studio. He hired new management, reduced the studio's output to about five films per year, and diversified its products, creating MGM Resorts International as
21736-482: Was continuing to thrive, particularly with the lucrative James Bond film franchise. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production. The studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few months later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt, while keeping the library assets for himself. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt. MGM
21888-448: Was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals. The film pays homage to India, incorporating an Indian-themed play and a Bollywood-style dance sequence with a song from the film China Gate . The critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge! renewed interest in the then-moribund Western live action musical genre, and subsequently films such as Chicago , The Producers , Rent , Dreamgirls , and Hairspray were produced, fueling
22040-402: Was forced to resign a few years later. In the mid-1960s, MGM began to diversify by investing in real estate. Edgar Bronfman Sr. purchased a controlling interest in MGM in 1966 (and was briefly chairman of the board in 1969), and in 1967 Time Inc. became the company's second-largest shareholder. In 1969, Kirk Kerkorian purchased 40 percent of MGM stock. What appealed to Kerkorian
22192-689: Was founded on April 17, 1924, and has been owned by the Amazon MGM Studios subsidiary of Amazon since 2022. MGM was formed by Marcus Loew by combining Metro Pictures , Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one company. It hired a number of well-known actors as contract players—its slogan was "more stars than there are in heaven"—and soon became Hollywood's most prestigious filmmaking company, producing popular musical films and winning many Academy Awards . MGM also owned film studios, movie lots, movie theaters and technical production facilities. Its most prosperous era, from 1926 to 1959,
22344-487: Was gained for lavish productions that were sophisticated and polished to cater to an urban audience. Still, as the Great Depression deepened, MGM began to economize by "recycling" existing sets, costumes, and furnishings from previous projects. This recycling practice never let up once started. In addition, MGM saved money because it was the only one of the big five studios that did not own an off-site movie ranch . Until
22496-448: Was met with some criticism by religious groups but was well received. By the mid-1970s, filmmakers avoided the genre in favor of using music by popular rock or pop bands as background music, partly in hope of selling a soundtrack album to fans. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was originally released in 1975 and was a critical failure until it started midnight screenings in the 1980s where it achieved cult status. That same year also saw
22648-454: Was produced by MGM's trailer department as one of the compilation and promotional shows that imitated Disney's series Disneyland which was also on ABC . Parade was canceled by ABC in the 2nd quarter of 1956. MGM took bids for its movie library in 1956 from Lou Chesler and others, but decided on entering the TV market itself. Chesler had offered $ 50 million for the film library. MGM Television
22800-476: Was started with the hiring of Bud Barry to head up the operation in June 1956. MGM Television was to distribute its films to TV (starting with the networks), TV production and purchasing TV stations. TV production was expected to start with the 1957–58 season and was to include half-hour remakes of, or series based on, its pictures. Initial feature film sales focused on selling to the networks. The year 1957 also marked
22952-490: Was terminated and she moved to Warner Brothers, where her career took a dramatic upturn. Garbo and Shearer never made another film after leaving the lot. Of the five stars, Loy and MacDonald were the only two whom Mayer later rehired, in 1947 and 1948 respectively; Crawford returned to MGM after Mayer's departure for the musical drama Torch Song in 1953. Increasingly, before and during World War II, Mayer came to rely on his "College of Cardinals"—senior producers who controlled
23104-636: Was the last MGM musical to win a Best Picture Oscar, an honor that had previously gone to The Broadway Melody (1929), The Great Ziegfeld (1936), and An American in Paris (1951). The last musical film produced by the " Freed Unit " was an adaptation of the Broadway musical Bells Are Ringing (1960) with Judy Holliday and Dean Martin . However, MGM did release later musical films, including an adaptation of Meredith Willson 's The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) with Debbie Reynolds and Harve Presnell . MGM's first television program, The MGM Parade ,
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