MovieChat Forums > On the Avenue (1937) Discussion > Fox Muiscals

Fox Muiscals

posted 14 years ago by dmnemaine
4 replies | jump to latest

Funny that the 20th Century Fox musicals of the 30s and 40s don't get nearly as much attention as the MGM musicals. Three of the greatest musical stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood appeared in many of these films -- Alice Faye, Betty Grable, and Carmen Miranda. I was very surprised when I found that there were no topics started for this film. It has a fun, simple story about a rich girl who sues the producer of a Broadway show for caricaturing her father and her in a sketch, but then falls in love with the producer, who is also the leading man. Together with a wonderful score by Irving Berlin, great musical performances by Dick Powell, Alice Faye, and The Ritz Brothers, it's a must see for any movie musical fan.

[–] jhpcine 13 years ago

Were composers hired exclusively by the big studios? Irving Berlin provided the music for "On the avenue" but I remember he was behind the music of Paramount's "White Christmas" an MGM's "Easter Parade".

JUAN.

[–] dmnemaine 13 years ago

The big name composers (Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, etc.) had enough clout to make some demands of the Hollywood studios. They were normally hired for one, two, three, or four picture deals with specific studios rather than long term contracts simply because of who they were. Basically, if Fox wanted to use Irving Berlin, they had to meet Berlin's terms. There were studios that had composers/lyricists under specific contract -- MGM had Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown under contract in the 20s and 30s to write songs for their early musicals.

[–] jhpcine 13 years ago

Thank you for answering. Eventhough the composers weren't hired exclusively by the big studios, the musical films from each studio were so distinctive. You can easily recognize an MGM musical (lavish, stylish) as well as a Fox one (generally more "down to earth", but some times very "exotic") And most of the time, the music from the MGM musicals is perdurable, while I can't seem to remember so many songs from Alice Faye or Betty Grable's pictures. Maybe it's because of the directors, the producers (Arthur Freed surely left his mark in MGM musicals) the performers, but you can always tell the difference between an MGM musical and a Fox one.

JUAN.

[–] dmnemaine 13 years ago

That's very true. All MGM films had a definite look and feel to them, as did Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Columbia, Universal, RKO, etc. The various studios -- especially the larger ones -- purposely created "personas" for themselves that were distinct from the other studios. MGM was glitz. Warner Bros. was grit. and so on ...