Film

Let's Make Music

Name: Let's Make Music
Genre: Music, Romance
Released: 1941
Cast: Bob Crosby, Jean Rogers, Elisabeth Risdon, Joseph Buloff, Joyce Compton

Musical
Light-hearted

A 1941 musical romance where a small-town schoolteacher's old-fashioned song becomes a surprise hit when a bandleader gives it jazz arrangements in New York. It's a charming period piece about the collision between rural innocence and urban showbiz, full of musical numbers and the kind of gentle comedy that doesn't demand much but rewards a patient mood.

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It Happened Tomorrow1944

Both pit innocent idealism against the machinery of show business and media hype; both are about small-town virtue meeting slick urban machinery, but this one lets that collision become tragic.

A newspaperman wakes up to see tomorrow's headlines and uses them to scoop the competition—but knowledge of the future curdles into moral quicksand. Fred MacMurray and Linda Darnell have real chemistry, and the film finds the sadness beneath the premise without ever feeling heavy-handed.

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Easter Parade1948

Fred Astaire and Judy Garland together at last, with Irving Berlin's playful score and a gleeful screwball energy. The dance sequences are joyous, and both stars seem delighted to be there.

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The Band Wagon1953

Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in a backstage musical that knows exactly what it's doing. The production numbers are elaborate and inventive, the romance feels genuine, and it's funny about theatrical pretension.

But If you're watching without appreciation for old-Hollywood artifice, the meta-commentary and elaborate staging might feel arch or overstretched.

High, Wide and Handsome1937

Oscar Hammerstein's only directorial effort is a sprawling operetta-musical about oil drillers and circus performers. Jerome Kern's melodies are gorgeous, the romance has real stakes, and the scale is genuinely ambitious for its moment.

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Going My Way1944

Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald in a warm-hearted story about a young priest revitalizing a struggling parish. The songs integrate naturally, the performances are genuine, and it manages sincerity without saccharine pretense.

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Roberta1935

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The Phantom President1932

Both films are about how show business and marketing remake reality itself; this one just points it at politics instead of songwriting.

George M. Cohan (yes, that Cohan) plays a look-alike of the U.S. President in a musical satire about politics and show business. It's weird and scrappy and funnier about American gullibility than most films made fifty years later.

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Both are about the collision between the mundane and the magical in American life; this one just surrenders to the magical entirely where the other balances between worlds.

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