Many movie musicals have become enduring fixtures of Western pop culture. Masterpieces like Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and The Sound of Music (1965) have been lauded not only as triumphs of musical storytelling, but as pieces of cinema able to stand alongside the other giants of the medium like Citizen Kane (1941) and The Godfather (1972). But for every West Side Story (1961) and Grease (1978) there are countless other movie musicals that have been forgotten or outright ignored. We have assembled here a list of ten of the most bizarre, unusual, and downright strange movie musicals ever made to celebrate these unsung heroes of song and dance cinema. They are presented in chronological order of their original release. Concert films and documentaries were excluded.
[tps_title]10. Hellzapoppin’ (1941)[/tps_title]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8okW69O4mY
Dir. H. C. Potter
Due to a number of rights issues, H. C. Potter’s delirious adaptation of the Broadway musical revue Hellzapoppin by John “Ole” Olsen and Harold “Chic” Johnson has never been released for sale in the United States. And considering that the film is one of the most compact concentrations of comedic anarchy ever committed to film, this is one of the great tragedies of our time. Seeking to capture the anything goes spirit of the stage musical, Hellzapoppin’ features a dizzying stream of meta-humor (Olsen and Johnson break the fourth wall and get into a disastrous argument with the projectionist showing the film, who happens to be played by Shemp Howard), preposterous sight gags (a gaggle of gowned women literally fall into Hell where they are turned on giant spits by demons), chaotic musical numbers (check out Martha Raye’s ode to photography entitled “Watch the Birdie”), and delightful movie references (both Rosebud and the Frankenstein Monster make guest appearances).
[tps_title]9. Hot Summer (1968)[/tps_title]
Dir. Joachim Hasler
Joachim Hasler’s Hot Summer sounds like a contradiction in terms: an East German beach party movie. The film tried to reconcile the freewheeling teen lifestyle of the West with Soviet-approved ideals with… interesting results. After all, how do you celebrate Western teen culture while promoting collectivization? The film follows a group of young men and a group of young women who meet on Rügen Island and proceed to laugh, love, and, of course, sing. The teens are torn between their obvious lusts and the desire to remain faithful to their larger social groups. Despite this seemingly absurd premise, Hot Summer was actually a smash hit and ranks as one of the most profitable films ever made in East Germany. Hot Summer can be a bit difficult to get ahold of in the West, but it’s worth tracking down purely for the sake of being able to claim that you’ve watched the greatest of East German musicals.
[tps_title]8. Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)[/tps_title]
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Dir. Richard Attenborough
Thirteen years before he would win the Best Director Oscar for Gandhi (1982), Richard Attenborough released one of the most curious anti-war films ever conceived: Oh! What a Lovely War. The film frames World War One as a flippant game between a number of aristocrats who personify different European nations. The music in the film is comprised of authentic period songs from the World War One era reworked both musically and lyrically to ironically comment on the action. One of the best examples is during the scene where American soldiers first enter the fray. As they storm into the pavilion inhabited by the British generals, they sing the famous American song “Over There” with the final line changed to: “And we won’t come back/We’ll be buried over there!” The uncomfortable juxtaposition between the horrors of the Great War, the insouciance felt by the European personifications towards the deaths of millions, and the deceptively upbeat music make Oh! What a Lovely War a mad triumph of creative expression.
[tps_title]7. Phantom of the Paradise (1974)[/tps_title]
Dir. Brian De Palma
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A bona fide cult classic, Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise is a brash attempt to combine a kaleidoscope of musical, literary, and cinematic influences into a visually dazzling nightmare of love, passion, and rock ‘n’ roll. Loosely based on The Phantom of the Opera (the original French novel, not the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical), the film follows wannabe composer Winslow Leach as his music, a mammoth retelling of Faust, is stolen by a satanic rock record producer who throws him in prison. After escaping, Winslow’s face is horrifically disfigured in a record press accident. He becomes the Phantom of the “Paradise,” the record producer’s concert hall, and begins his terrible mission of revenge. In addition to Faust, the film also borrows heavily from The Picture of Dorian Gray and features sequences that directly homage films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Touch of Evil (1958), and Psycho (1960).
[tps_title]6. Lisztomania (1975)[/tps_title]
Dir. Ken Russell
During his heyday, noted piano genius Franz Liszt caused such hysteria among female audience members during his concerts that the phenomenon was labeled an actual medical condition known as “Lisztomania.” Over a hundred years later director Ken Russell would use this as the springboard for his musical of the same name starring Roger Daltrey of The Who as the eponymous Liszt. The film argues that Liszt lived the rock star lifestyle decades before the advent of rock music with insane parties and a lascivious appetite for women. Russell employs a frantic stream-of-consciousness style that bounces between extraordinary set-pieces and production numbers with gleeful abandon. One minute Liszt will be riding a ten foot…*ahem*…”member” into a giant guillotine, the next he’ll be piloting a weaponized piano equipped with flamethrowers to destroy a vampiric Richard Wagner, and the next he’ll be flying a pipe organ spaceship to stop “Wagner-Hitler” from massacring all of Berlin’s Jews.
5. [tps_title]Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)[/tps_title]
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Dir. Terry Jones
Though the Python troupe may have made more successful and more beloved films, their 1983 production entitled Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life was nevertheless a high point for their musical talents. Largely abandoning the plot-centric format of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), the film returned more to the original television show’s roots (as well as those of their first feature-length film, 1971’s And Now for Something Completely Different) with a runtime largely devoted to unassociated, absurdist sketches. These include such Python classics as the deliciously blasphemous “Every Sperm is Sacred,” the breezily philosophical “The Galaxy Song,” and the unforgettably naughty “The Penis Song à la Noël Coward.” Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life may not have as many musical numbers as the other films on this list, but every single one of them is a memorable and timeless example of irreverent British humor.
[tps_title]4. Nudist Colony of the Dead (1991)[/tps_title]
Dir. Mark Pirro
Mark Pirro’s low, low budget horror/comedy/musical Nudist Colony of the Dead is just as absurd as its title makes it out to be. After a group of nudists commit mass suicide to protest the seizure of their colony (the “Sunny Buttocks Nudist Colony,” to be precise), their corpses re-awaken years later when a Bible Camp is held on their land (now renamed “Camp Cut-Your-Guts-Out”). The hapless Christian campers are picked off one-by-one by the naked zombies in between deliberately saccharine and over-the-top musical numbers. With characters named things like “Billy McRighteous” and “Fanny Wype,” it’s easy to see that the film wasn’t designed to be taken seriously, either by the creators or by the audience. The most outrageous part of the film isn’t even the nudity or zombie effects! Instead, it’s how absurdly catchy its music is. Just try and get “Inky Dinky Doo Dah Morning” out of your head.
[tps_title]3. Cannibal! The Musical (1993)[/tps_title]
Dir. Trey Parker
Made while still students at the University of Colorado at Boulder for about $75,000, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Cannibal! The Musical is an irreverent take on the true story of Alferd Packer, the first American to ever be convicted of cannibalism, who supposedly killed and/or consumed the other members of his travel party to the Colorado Territory during the winter of 1873-1874. Predicting the surreal, politically incorrect humor that would come to define their subsequent animated program South Park, the film plays fast and loose with history, having Packer and his fellow travelers encounter a country music singing giant, a tribe of Japanese Native Americans, and a trio of savage yet musically inclined trappers. Adding to the bizarre nature of the film is the fact that many of the historical details concerning Packer’s case are curiously accurate, including lines during the trial scenes that were taken verbatim from the historical trial.
[tps_title]2. The Hole (1998)[/tps_title]
Dir. Tsai Ming-liang
Malaysian Chinese director Tsai Ming-liang has made a name for himself on the art-house circuit for his measured reflections on alienation and loneliness. His 1998 film The Hole is no exception. The film follows two isolated Taiwanese citizens who lock themselves up in their apartments after the rest of their building is evacuated following the arrival of a terrible disease. When a hole forms between their apartments, they finally discover the human contact that has been lacking in their lives for so long. The Hole is a slow, deliberate film full of long, dream-like takes. But interspersed with these scenes are sporadic Technicolor musical sequences where they sing and dance to love songs by Grace Chang. These sequences deliberately clash with the rest of the film, much like how a Busby Berkeley dance number would in an Ingmar Bergman film. But they express the innermost thoughts and yearnings of these characters who have become so lost in their own loneliness that the only surcease they can find is in their own imaginations.
[tps_title]1. Stage Fright (2014)[/tps_title]
Dir. Jerome Sable
Few filmmakers would have the courage to try and combine the horror and musical genres together. Jerome Sable stepped up to the task with his 2014 film Stage Fright (LINK 15), a pure-blooded slasher about a kabuki mask-wearing madman who terrorizes a musical theater camp. As the camp puts on a production of The Haunting of the Opera, an obvious reference to Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, members of the cast and crew begin to disappear. The last part of the film where the camp desperately tries to keep the show going on opening night as more and more of their performers turn up dead is the highlight. It’s actually a clever sequence that pokes fun at the dogged determination of stage actors towards their craft. The show must go on… even if the actors literally can’t. Though the film doesn’t entirely work (the murder scenes seem transplanted from an entirely different movie), Stage Fright should still be applauded for its audacity.
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