early film industry had to create a workable system
for recording and projecting sound—a process
over twenty-five years in the making. The next
obstacle had less to do with mechanical engineer-
ing and more with audience perceptions. Because
the new medium of motion-picture photography
was closely associated with documentation and,
thus, naturalism, the idea of otherwise realistic sce-
narios suddenly interrupted by characters burst-
ing into song didn’t seem to fit with the movies.
Therefore, cinema had to establish a context that
would allow for musical performance but still lend
itself to relatively authentic performances and dra-
matic situations, as well as spoken dialogue.
The first major movie to incorporate extended
synchronized sound sequences provided the solu-
tion. Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer(1927) was a
backstage musical. This kind of film placed the
story in a performance setting (almost always
Broadway), so that the characters were singers and
dancers whose job it was to rehearse and stage
songs anyway. By placing its narrative in this very
specific setting, this early musical incarnation
established some of the genre’s most fixed plot and
character elements. Backstage-musical stories typ-
ically revolved around a promising young per-
former searching for her big show-business break,
or a talented singer/dancer protagonist pressured
by a love interest or family member to leave show
business, or a struggling company of singers and
dancers determined to mount a big show. Many
backstage narratives managed to combine two or
more of these standard storylines. These musicals
had their own set of character types, including the
hard-bitten producer, the gifted ingenue, the inse-
cure (i.e., less talented) star, and the faltering vet-
eran with a heart of gold.
One might assume that since the backstage musi-
cal’s songs were all performed as either rehearsals
or productions within the framework of an exter-
nalized Broadway show, these songs would be miss-
ing the emotional power provided by a direct
connection to the character’s lives. But in practice,
the lyrics and context were usually presented in
such a way as to underscore the performing char-
acter’s state of mind or personal situation.
Backstage musicals had only been around for a
few years when so-called integrated musicals like106 CHAPTER 3TYPES OF MOVIES
(^12)
Backstage and integrated musicalsEarly Hollywood
musicals like Harry Beaumont’s The Broadway Melody(1929)
[1] constructed their narratives around the rehearsal and
performance of a musical stage show, a setting that
provided an intriguing backdrop, narrative conflict, and a
context that allowed the characters to sing and dance
without testing verisimilitude. Within a few years, integrated
musicals like Rouben Mamoulian’s Love Me Tonight(1932) [2]
proved that audiences were already willing to accept
characters who burst into song in everyday situations, such
as a tailor (Maurice Chevalier) who sings an ode to romantic
love as he measures a customer for a suit.