This revealing history of the American film musical synthesizes the
critical literature on the genre and provides a series of close
analytical readings of iconic musical films, focusing on their
cultural relationship to other aspects of American popular
music.
* Offers a depth of scholarship that will appeal to students and
scholars
* Leads a crucial analysis of the cultural context of musicals,
particularly the influence of popular music on the genre
* Delves into critical issues behind these films such as race,
gender, ideology, and authorship
* Features close readings of canonical and neglected film
musicals from the 1930s to the present including: Top Hat,
Singin’ in the Rain, Woodstock, Gimme Shelter,
West Side Story, and Across the Universe
Table of Content
List of Plates ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1 Historical Overview 7
2 Critical Overview 38
3 Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) 55
4 Top Hat (1935) 70
5 The Pirate (1948) 85
6 West Side Story (1961) and Saturday Night Fever (1977) 99
7 Woodstock (1970) 116
8 Phantom of the Paradise (1974) 131
9 Pennies from Heaven (1981) and Across the Universe (2007)
146
References 165
Index 171
About the author
Barry Keith Grant is Professor of Communication, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. He is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including Auteurs and Authorship: a Film Reader (2008) Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology (2007), Film Genre Reader (2003), and The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (1996). As well as being an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he is the series editor of the New Approaches to Film Genre series for Wiley-Blackwell.
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