Informative, opinionated, and entertaining, with great pictures. ( )

I am so torn about this book. What I wanted was a great read about the musical in Hollywood with lots of inside scoop and some analysis. What I wanted was to be able to glean a list of undiscovered musicals for me to watch. What I got was a reasonably interesting academic analysis of same, but only intermittently. (Intermittently interesting, that is.) There are lots of lists here, lots of them. Bing Crosby gets a lot of space. Sonia Henie gets 10 pages! Non, no, no. More Astaire Rodgers, please. More Rita Hayworth. There is no small detail uncovered here, making it suitable for a paper or academic study, but where’s the fun? Also, in spite of the fact that I have the utmost respect for Basinger, I think she’s wrong about the praise she heaps on Last Waltz. It may be cinematic with all the cutting and film techniques, but I find they detract from the music rather than adding to it. This probably works best as a term paper resource, and it is an excellent resource, or something to dip into, rather than read straight through. ( )

This is not the coffee table book I was expecting. It’s a text heavy book. There were photos, some B & W and some color, but not nearly enough for my taste.

Like the author, I grew up on and loved musicals, but not the early ones she did.

In 1964, during the summer living in NYC I saw about 30 of them. Great ones! Most with their original casts. (Hello Dolly, Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver, Here’s Love, among them) and I love many earlier and later ones too. My first musical/play was in the summer of 1962 at a partially outside tent theater and it was Bye Bye Birdie and I loved it. Some of the last musicals I saw, a few years ago, I also loved: Beautiful, The Book of Mormon, from seeing it in 1972 Pippin is a favorite, and my very favorite movie (I love the play album too) is The Sound of Music. I guess it makes sense for this book to have a main focus on early musicals.

There were times I was tempted to skim or to even return it unfinished, but I’m glad that I persisted and stuck with it. Approximately half way through the book musicals and stars with which I’ve been familiar for a long time, and many I’ve enjoyed and some that are favorites. It’s still not what I’d hoped for re finding all the musicals that have meant so much to me and it’s more text heavy and less photograph heavy that I would have preferred but I did enjoy it. However; I did not agree much of the time with the author’s opinions about musicals regarding them changing over time and many more recent musicals I enjoyed are not included. Some very recent productions are included but so many over the past several decades are left out, ones important to me. I guess those included were meant to be a smattering of the total. I would have appreciated and expected a more comprehensive treatment. I do appreciate how the author addressed some social issues and how they related with the making of musicals. Very few of the missing ones/scenes I noticed as missing were mentioned in the Acknowledgments section. Even though I did not love this book I will be recommending it to at least a couple of people (not on Goodreads) but recommend it only with great interest in the history of English/NYC musical theater and Hollywood musicals movies, and are okay with an incomplete history, and those who can enjoy reading it in one place if they read the hardcover edition. It’s large and heavy and not something I was willing to carry with me to read when I was away from home.

From me, only 2-1/2 stars, rounded up, but that’s mostly because I had high expectations and different expectations. For the right reader, I think it’s a good book.

Contents:
Introduction
I About Musicals
II Origins: The Arrival of Sound
III 1933: A Musical Year
IV Stars and Strategies
V The Musical as an Art Form
VI The Death of the Musical
VII Epitaph
VIII Final Number
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index ( )