My love for Movie Musicals started at a young age.  As I grew up out West, I didn't have a chance to go to any Broadway Musicals until I was in my twenties. So, Movie Musicals were my way to escape into the Song and Dance world.  My family were all actors and singers and so it was natural for us to be flipping through the t.v. channels and ultimately stay on some station that was showing a classic movie musical like, Oklahoma! , The King and I , Summerstock, Singin' In The Rain, South Pacific, and others.  One of my personal favorites was a movie musical that actually didn't do well at the box office back when it was released, but as a twelve year old girl, who was home sick from school one day, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in The Pirate was just the medicine I needed! It has been one of my favorites ever since.

Early Movie Musicals and Silent films

Some of the earliest movie musicals are truly classics. One of the best known was Al Jolsen's The Jazz Singer in 1927. With the advent of talking motion pictures or "talkies", the "musical" had found a new home in film.  Most major studios had been caught unprepared by the overwhelming demand for talking films. More and more the public wanted musical films to escape to. Critically acclaimed silent films were playing to near-empty theatres, while even the worst talkies were drawing crowds. Small town theatre owners watched as the locals headed off to the nearest city with a sound theatre. Silent film, the most popular form of entertainment the world had ever known, was suddenly yesterday's news, and no one in the industry was sure what lay ahead. 

As theaters scrambled to install sound equipment, the studios raced to soundproof their studio sets and come up with sound projects to film. Desperately they purchased the rights to hundreds of existing plays and songs, and every major studio hired Broadway composers to write new screen musicals for them.  By 1929, silent films were supplanted by sound and the movie musical was riding high.

The Death of Vaudeville

Within 4 years, the half century fame of Vaudeville was dead. RKO had purchased the long famous Orpheum Circuit of vaudeville theatres and turned them into movie theatres. Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to hurry the death of vaudeville. "Small time" theatres could offer "big time" on screen talent at a nickel a seat. It was no longer practical business to try and fill theatres with live second rate talent. Movie Musicals were the rage and found their place in history.