love me or leave me

I think the heyday of the film musical did go out with a flair. The end of the 1950s through the 1960s saw some of the best film musicals ever made -- Gigi, The Music Man, Mary Poppins, The Sound Of Music, Oliver!, etc. I'd say the movie musical went out with quite a flair. I'd say the thing that really cut back the number of musicals that Hollywood made was the huge popularity of television that started in the 1940s. People could see lots of the things for free on TV that they previously had to go to the movie theater for. Movie studios turned away from churning out tons of features a year to mainly concentrating on the big "epic" films. This especially cut into the movie musical genre. Gone were the light, frothy, colorful musicals of the past decade or so that studios would quickly put together and churn out. They instead started to concentrate more on film adaptations of the big Broadway shows, and those were becoming fewer and farther between as time went by.

As far as Marni Nixon goes, I think she was very much an asset to movie musicals. The first thing that comes to mind is "The King And I". Nixon did a flawless job doing the vocals for Deborah Kerr. If you ever get a chance to listen to "Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You?", a number that was cut from the film, you can hear the flawless transitions from Kerr's speaking voice to Nixon's singing voice. I also think her dubbing of Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady" and Natalie Wood in "West Side Story" were absolutely necessary. I've heard both their vocal tracks for their respective films, and while they were both okay singers, they were not at the level of capability required for the music. The only issue I have with those two of Nixon's performances is that they were obviously Marni Nixon, and not all that close to the stars' own voices.

I really was more referring to times when there was absolutely no need to bring in another singer. A few examples come to mind. Rita Hayworth, for instance, actually could sing very well, but because Hollywood thought of her as a dancer, Columbia automatically dubbed her in her musical films without a thought. Dana Andrews, who was a trained opera singer, was so well known as a non-musical actor in Hollywood, that when he was cast in "State Fair", a singer was hired to dub his vocals. Maureen O'Hara had a lovely soprano voice, but because she was so well known as a dramatic actress, no one ever used her in a musical. She very nearly did get the role of Anna in "The King And I" though, but Richard Rodgers nixed that idea when he said that he didn't want any pirate queen playing his Anna.

Sometimes not dubbing a singer backfires badly too. For instance, allowing Vanessa Redgrave to sing for herself in the film version of "Camelot" was a huge mistake. The woman is a wonderful actress, but her off-key singing in the film is like nails on a chalkboard. And don't even get me started on Lucille Ball in "Mame".