Hellzapoppin is a musical revue written by the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, consisting of John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson, with music and lyrics by Sammy Fain and Charles Tobias. The revue was a hit, running for over three years, and was at the time the longest-running Broadway musical, with 1,404 performances, making it one of only three plays to run more than 500 performances in the 1930s.
Production
After opening at the Shubert Theatre in Boston on September 10, 1938, Hellzapoppin opened on Broadway at the original 46th Street Theatre on September 22, 1938, transferred to the Winter Garden Theatre on November 26, 1938, and finally moved to the Majestic Theatre on November 25, 1941. It closed on December 17, 1941, after a total of 1,404 performances.
Olsen and Johnson led a large cast of entertainers: the comedy team of Barto and Mann (Dewey Barto and George Mann); Charles Whithers; celebrity impersonators, the Radio Rogues; Hal Sherman; Walter Nilsson; singing group The Charioteers; identical-twin dancers Bettymae and Beverly Crane; stage magician Theo Hardeen (better known as Harry Houdini's younger brother); the Hawaiian music of Ray Kinney and the Aloha Maids; Bergh and Moore; J. C. Olsen; Reed, Dean and Reed (Bonnie Reed, Syd Dean, and Mel Reed); Roberta and Ray; The Starlings; Dorothy Thomas; Shirley Wayne; Cyrel Roodney and June Winters; Billy Adams; and Whitey's Steppers (also known as Whitey's Lindy Hoppers). Olsen and Johnson were succeeded by Jay C. Flippen and Happy Felton in June 1940.
Shemp Howard begins the film as the projectionist of a cinema, displaying on its screen what appears to be the start of a song-and-dance number whose classily dressed performers walk down a staircase - which collapses as in a fun-house ride, sliding them all straight to hell. Demons punish them in various ways. Ole and Chic arrive in the midst of the mayhem by taxi, and after a bit of funny business step back to reveal that it's a movie sound stage. They work for Miracle Pictures ("If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!") A mousy screenwriter (Elisha Cook, Jr.) outlines his script for the screen adaptation of Hellzapoppin', and the rest of the movie depicts Cook's crazy script. Among the topical humor is Johnson picking up a sled named "Rosebud" and saying "I thought they'd burnt that" (Olsen and Johnson were friends of Orson Welles, whose film Citizen Kane closes with Kane's childhood sled being burnt).
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing.
The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers".
The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if there is a live audience watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it.
Musical films in the Western world
The classical sound era
The 1930s through the early 1950s are considered to be the golden age of the musical film, when the genre's popularity was at its highest in the Western world.
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical– humor, pathos, love, anger– are communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.
“It was a relief to go back to what I loved, dealing immediately with people.” Her most recent composition, Hellzapoppin’ ... on the 1941 musical comedy of the same name, was staged in New York in 2022.
... respond in Rainer’s characteristic style, movements synchronized with dueling projections from the 1941Lindy Hop musical, Hellzapoppin’ and Jean Vigo’s boarding-school drama Zero for Conduct (1933).
The Star Democrat
05 Feb 2023
The Star Democrat
05 Feb 2023