Hollywood Musicals

The big film style from the 40’s, 50’s and even into the early 60’s was the Musical. Just did some background checks on Musicals in Film history.

In the 2000’s only one musical won best picture (Chicago 2002)
In the 1990’s there were no musicals winning best picture, If you count Disney’s Beauty and the Beast only 1 musical was nominated.
In the 1980’s none and I didn’t see any nominated
In the 1970’s none, I counted 3 nominations.
In the 1960’s there was West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and Oliver! (1968) with many others nominated
In the 1950’s there was An American in Paris (1951), Gigi (1958) and again many others nominated
In the 1940’s Going my Way (1944) again there were many more nominated.

Now I realize that Academy awards are not a good indication of all the films made, it makes some logical sense to me that if more musicals are being made more will end up in the nomination process. That is just everyday statistics. So, I’m wondering, What happened to the musical? I may have to explore this when I have more time. The other question is, why do local community theaters always have to put on a musical? Never mind on that last question, there isn’t a budget for big special effects and action movies, I mean plays.

Post Script…
Fascinating sidebar for me. I started thinking of musicals was when I was discussing Fred Astaire with one of my daughters. I made the comment on how he made all of his dance partners look good, even the inanimate ones.