The Rises and Falls of Movie Musicals

In the late 20s, when the talkies were introduced to the world, it was just a matter of time for musicals to find their way onto the big screen. Hollywood started introducing his audience movies such as Top Hat (1935) and the famouse wizard of oz (1939).

In the 50s and early 60s, the movie musicals were promoted with the Roadshow.

A roadshow theatrical release was a term in the motion picture industry for a practice in which a film opened in a limited number of theaters in large cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and other major cities around the world for a specific period of time before the worldwide general release.

The roadshow movies maybe costed higher then regular releases, but it was considered more lucrative. The movies were longer, and almsot always had an intermission. The main idea was to give the audience the feeling of a theatre.

However, in the 50s and 60s, a new product came to the houses of many americans- the televiosion.

Crowds were becoming less eager to pay a lot of money for expensive releases, for they can stay home with their tvs, and wait for the regular, cheeper releases.

Furthermore, some big companies lost a lot of money due do the fails of their high-budgeted movies.

Thus, in the mid 60s, the large movie companies realized that it’s not too profitble to make movie musicals or roadshow releases.

And just before they decided to leave it aside and bury the concept, a sudden succsses of a certain infamous three movies accured.

In 1964, came ‘Mary poppins’ staring Julie Andrew. It made the Disney company a lot of money, and won a vast amout of awards. Obviously, it was a huge success, and it remembered to this days.

Same year, came ‘My Fair Lady’, starring (almost Julie Andrews, because she was the star of the broadway show, but was eventually replaced by the more famous) Audrey Hepburn.

It was the most expensive movie from Warner Brothers’ studios at the time. It also won many awards, and gained popularity everywhere.

Lastly, in 1965, came ‘The Sound of Music’. This musical made did record box office numbers. Of course, it too got himself a nice amount of awards.

and thus, with the combined 35 oscar nominations and 18 wins for the three hits, the studios coulnd’t sit quietly.

After it’s massive succsess, every studio wanted to make their own ‘Sound of Music.’ So, many movie from the middle and late 60s followed it’s roashow form. Although, not many were such hits.

In 1967, Disney tried with ‘The Happiest Millionaire’, but that’s no surprise that no one today has never heard of it.

So Disney indeed missed with their try, but fortunately for them they didn’t invest in it that much. However, other companies didn’t had that luck.

Same year, Warner brothers took another broadway musical, and made ‘Camelot’.

‘Camelot’ was the 2nd most expensive product of the studio, and had problematic cast from diffrent aspects. Mainly, it was difficult to film, and difficult to sell. By the end of the day, the movie was crushed by critics, and vastly hated by audiences.

20th century fox haven’t gotten the wanted result either.

Their 1967 movie ‘Doctor Dollitle’ costed 18 million dollars, had a problamatic cast, and was difficult to film, failed it’s box-office, and killed by movie critics.

There were other movies that tried and failed, such as ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ ,’Man of la mancha’  and ‘Paint you wagon’.

By the end of the 60s, the roadshow movie musicals were a dead end, but the movie that sealed the thing was 1969s “Hello Dolly.” With a misscasted Barbra Streisand as the lead, and a big delay in release, this movie was mainly criticed, and ended the era of the Hollywood movie musicals.