Gotta sing gotta dance: a history of movie musicals

An illustrated history of the musical genre: Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell, early musicals, the advent of sound and the musical, appeal of the genre, he rise of European musicals, European influence on Hollywood musicals, the musical as propoganda, the Great Depression: the Hollywood mucical in the thirties (the musical as anit-establishment and proletarian, the musical as social comment as well as escape, racism and orientalism, Garbo), the Golden Years (the second world war, the musical as propoganda), the relationship between the musical and the rise of the music industry, Elvis Presley, the sixties and seventies, the bluring between filmed concerts and the musical, the musical as social icon (Saturday Night Fever, etc).

Part of the Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell Collection