My 50s Music Education:
With the advent of technicolour films, MGM and 20th Century Fox produced many musicals that had dance extravaganzas backed by a full orchestral sound track. These films from the 50s and early 60s had cinema goers flocking to watch them and screaming for more.
The beautiful actresses who were also fantastic dancers provided very talented eye-candy and music became secondary. But they were wrapped up in one big colourful package and I frequented these musicals at the Cathay and Odeon cinemas in town to enjoy them.
[If I remember correctly musicals such as the ones I am about to describe were only shown at the Cathay Organization cinemas and not at the Shaw Brothers chain. I am not sure why.]
One such actress/dancer was Cyd Charisse. She was Miss Beautiful Legs and for that moment as she danced on stage in the film, all interest in the background music became just... background music.
This blog is about Singapore 60s melodies and I am deviating from the theme but there is a need to explain the beauty, talent, plus the evergreen jazz standards that backed these dancers in those earlier years of Hollywood musicals.
Without these big bands and their music, dance movies with their elaborate costumes and slick choreography, Hollywood would not have been what it is and the East would never have picked up to learn from them. The influences from the West were powerful as local entrepreneurs consumed the business and brought movies to Singapore.
So for the record, some of these songs from the many 50s movies with dance sequences are,
Frankie And Johnny,
Singin' In The Rain,
Alexander's Ragtime Band,
Play A Simple Melody,
If You Believe
and many, many more.
Anyway just watch Cyd Charisse in Party Girl. Enjoy!
Original article: Andy Lim Collection.
Image: http://www.bibi.org/
7 comments:
Thanks for the post, Andy! I'm very interested in knowing what Hollywood films were popular in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia in the 50s and 60s and how they influenced Chinese films.
That picture of Cyd Charisse reminds me of a pose that Patricia Lam Fung would strike, but I suppose in this case, it was Cyd who did it first.
BTW, Lam Fung also had beautiful legs! ;D
Really she has her Beautiful legs..beautiful!...
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the comment. My knowledge of these subjects are limited and I am only able to discuss them because of the movies I have seen and the magazines I read in the past. My reading of your blog and a few others help jolt some synapsis in the head.
Pat Lam Fung, she's one pretty star and I wish I could find that picture of her in the same pose. I didn't know she has fantastic legs too. Wish I could see them.
Cheers
Thanks nomore! Yes there are many pictures of Cyd Charisse on the net. Check her out.
Comments by others about video:
It's nice to see people thinking a woman of some physical substance is sexy. She's slim and very fit but she is not the stick insect that passes for sexy these days. Nor are her chest or lips inflated to impossible proportions.
God bless the truly magnificent Cyd,may she dance again with the other true legend Astaire in heaven,
I was also a showgirl and this is the kind of dancing we did, nobody does it better than this woman, she was always well known to us dancers, a body to die for, legs from the gods, a joy to watch always, love her and love her. Fred
For DMP: You know already.
Cyd Charisse:
1) She also famously played Dean Martin's new wife in Marylin Monroe's last, and unfinished, 1962film "Something's Got to Give."
2) She opened the film, "The Silencers" with a sexy striptease while lip synching the theme song by Vikki Carr.
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Cheers.
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