Free and Easy?: A Defining History of the American Film Musical Genre

Contents

• Acknowledgments vii
• Introduction 1
• 1 Overture: Musical Traditions before Cinema 11
• 2 You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet: The Sound Revolution 35
• 3 Face the Music and Dance: The Depression 67
• 4 Singing a Song of Freedom: World War II 97
• 5 There’s Beauty Everywhere: MGM and the Freed Unit 125
• 6 Something’s Gotta Give: The Postwar Musical 147
• 7 Bustin’ Out All Over: The Rise of the Musical Blockbuster 175
• 8 In a Minor Key: The B Musical and Beyond 197
• 9 The Sound of Money: Musicals in the 1960s 225
• 10 Whistling in the Dark: A Genre in Crisis 251
• 11 Can’t Stop the Music: Musicals and the New Hollywood 279
• 12 Just Like Scheherezade: Reviving the Musical Film Genre 307
• Index 335