Movie Musicals on Record

This discography provides a comprehensive listing of the songs from motion picture musicals, and the singers who performed them on commercially available albums. Covering the period from The Jazz Singer in 1927 to Three Amigos in 1987, and including 666 albums and 6,500 song titles, the book is a companion volume to Lynch's Broadway on Record (Greenwood Press, 1987), arranged in a similar format. While the scope is primarily American, albums of some foreign films that became popular in this country have been included. The entries are listed alphabetically by film title with the name of the company that produced it and the year it was first released. Remakes of musicial films are listed chronologically, and the original label and number are given, as well as information on the most recent reissue.This thoroughly researched reference offers easy access to a wealth of information on the subject of recorded songs from motion picture musicals and assists the user in identifying many little-known facts, such as the names of the title-song singers, names of singers who dubbed the voices of the stars, and additional composers and lyricists where there were several contributors to the film's score. Also provided is a complete guide to recording availability and type, and major composer, lyricists, and musical conductor credits are given, with an alphabetical list of cast members who sing on the recording. An exhaustive source for students and scholars of film history, film music, and popular culture, this book will be a valuable addition to all university and public libraries.

?Lynch, New York Public Library music curator and author of Musicals! and Broadway on Record, offers this cinema companion to his Broadway discography. He retains the format, listing 666 film musicals alphabetically by title. Each entry includes the film's production company; release year; original label and number, recording format; major composer, lyricist, and conductor, cast members who perform on the recording; and notes (e.g., dubbed vocals). The volume closes with a film chronology, performer index, and technical staff index. Lynch cites Jack Raymond's Show Music on Record, Clive Hirschhorn's Hollywood Musical (1981), and Stanley Green's Encyclopedia of the Musical Film as references, although he provides more data per recording. Overall, Lynch puts forth a curious amalgamation, including Valley of the Dolls and I'll Cry Tomorrow while excluding Private Buckeroo and This Is Spinal Tap. Broadening the range of works would make this a first-rate directory. . . . Recommended for general academic library collections that emphasize the performing arts.?-Choice, ?Movie Musicals on Record is a discography of the songs used in movie musicals and the singers who performed them on commercially available albums. Covering the 60 years from The Jazz Singer (1927) to Three Amigos (1987), more than 600 albums are covered as well as more than 6,000 songs. This useful reference book includes the identification of singers who dubbed the voices of stars and all the composers and lyricists involved in Hollywood's factory-like production of musicals in the 1930s and 1940s. There are indices by performer and technology used. Lynch is a retired librarian who obviously loves to compile helpful lists.?-CAST/Communication Booknotes, ?One way of bringing a successful stage musical show to a large audience is to create a film version of it. Richard Chigley Lynch observes this logical progression by creating this companion volume to his Broadway on Record (Greenwood, 1987). A total of 666 recordings of movie musicals are analyzed in entries that list record labels and numbers (with references to reissues and available compact discs), songwriters, musical directors, cast members, other performers (such as Marni Nixon, who provided Natalie Wood's singing voice in West Side Story but did not appear in the film), and musical numbers with their performers. Occasional notes provide additional information of interest such as the availability of additional soundtrack cuts or the inclusion of spoken dialogue on the recording. The large number of entries make this book fairly complete. Lynch's working definition of a movie musical requires that "musical numbers must actually be performed in the film and must in some way be concerned with the film's plot" (Introduction). It generally doesn't include films with fewer than three musical numbers, dance and opera films, short films, and foreign films that were not popular in America. "Generally" is the operative word here as Purple Rain, 10, and many Astaire/Rogers films are included, while Eddie and the Cruisers, Flashdance and Footloose were left out. In addition to the basic discography, Lynch provides a chronology of films and indexes to performers and technicians (songwriters/musical directors). Claiming that an index to the 6,500 song titles would be unwieldy, the author refers us to Clive Hirschorn's The Hollywood Musical (Crown, 1981) and Nat Shapiro and Bruce Pollack'sPopular Music, 1920-1979 (Gale, 1985). Richard Lewine and Alfred Simon's Songs of the Theater (H.=tW. Wilson, 1984) largely does the trick, too. None of these volumes quite duplicate the scope and content of Movie Musicals on Record, thus allowing Lynch's book to contribute uniquely to public and academic library performing arts reference literature.--Donald W. Maxwell, Audio-visual Librarian, Carmel Clay Public Library, Carmel, Indiana.?-RQ, ?This accurate and straightforward discography covers 60 years' worth of motion picture musicals that have been recorded commercially and are currently available. There have been numerous musicals filmed and recorded more than once--such as four renditions of The Threepenny Opera and three each of The Jazz Singer, St. Louis Blues, and The Desert Song. These multiple recordings are among the 666 different albums included here. The discography consists of an alphabetical list of recordings, each of which notes the film company and the year of release for the film on which the record is based. Each entry also includes the record company; record number; credits for music, lyrics, and musical direction; the cast members; and a list of songs and the name(s) of the cast singing each song. (Dubbers are also mentioned.) If the song was not in the film on which the record is based, it is so noted. Spoken dialogue, when it appears on a record, is also noted. A chronology of films, an alphabetical performer index, and a technical credits index are appended. . . . A companion volume to the author's previous Broadway on Record, this discography is suggested for libraries that found the earlier volume useful--performing arts libraries, most academic libraries supporting programs in film or music, and large public libraries.?-Reference Books Bulletin, "Lynch, New York Public Library music curator and author of Musicals! and Broadway on Record, offers this cinema companion to his Broadway discography. He retains the format, listing 666 film musicals alphabetically by title. Each entry includes the film's production company; release year; original label and number, recording format; major composer, lyricist, and conductor, cast members who perform on the recording; and notes (e.g., dubbed vocals). The volume closes with a film chronology, performer index, and technical staff index. Lynch cites Jack Raymond's Show Music on Record, Clive Hirschhorn's Hollywood Musical (1981), and Stanley Green's Encyclopedia of the Musical Film as references, although he provides more data per recording. Overall, Lynch puts forth a curious amalgamation, including Valley of the Dolls and I'll Cry Tomorrow while excluding Private Buckeroo and This Is Spinal Tap. Broadening the range of works would make this a first-rate directory. . . . Recommended for general academic library collections that emphasize the performing arts."-Choice

RICHARD CHIGLEY LYNCH was Assistant Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library. He compiled Musicals! A Directory of Musical Properties Available for Production, Broadway on Record: A Directory of New York Cast Recordings of Musical Shows, 1931-1986, and is a regular contributor to Show Music.