The Hollywood musical

The coming of sound in 1927 made a whole genre possible: filming people who sing and dance. Berkeley treated chorus girls as geometrical patterns seen from above, MGM then invented the Technicolor film in which the entire set takes part in the number, and Singin' in the Rain tells precisely of that shift from silent to sound while dancing in the rain. Minnelli drew a seventeen-minute ballet from An American in Paris, Cukor filmed an actress rising while her husband collapses.

works 5

• CinemaGold Diggers of 1933Mervyn LeRoy · 1933A musical shot in the depths of the Depression, it takes the crisis itself as its subject.Cinema
• CinemaAn American in ParisVincente Minnelli · 1951A musical set to music by George Gershwin, it recreates Paris in the Hollywood studios.Cinema
• CinemaSingin' in the RainStanley Donen and Gene Kelly · 1952The producer Arthur Freed had the story built around the songs he had written with Nacio Herb Brown for MGM between 1929 and 1939; only two were composed for the film.Cinema
• CinemaA Star Is BornGeorge Cukor · 1954The film tells, from inside Hollywood, the rise of a young actress and the decline of the star who discovered her.Cinema
• CinemaHello, Dolly!Gene Kelly · 1969Adapted from a Broadway hit, it was then the most expensive musical ever filmed.Cinema