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End of an Era
The 1950’s were both the brightest and the saddest years for the Hollywood musical. The form reached its zenith, with two musicals winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. At the same time, television drew customers away from movie theatres. How sharp was the change? In the mid-1940s, 90 million Americans went to the movies each week – by the late 1950s, the figure had dwindled to 16 million. This coincided with the U.S. courts forcing the studios to sell off their theater chains. Unable to adapt to these changes, a once profitable system descended into chaos with amazing speed.

The once powerful studios became little more than distribution companies with production facilities available for lease. By the decade's end, the major Hollywood studios disbanded most of their fulltime employees and either hired on a project by project basis or left the actual film making to independent producers. This gave low budget film makers greater creative freedom, but the experienced production teams needed to develop original screen musicals were a thing of the past. That's why the few producers still filming big musicals relied on adapting works from the Broadway stage.

In a business where profit margins are everything, big musicals were dinosaurs. Why invest time and money in a quality musical when a quick, low-budget "Beach Party" movie could rake in millions? And if an even quicker and cheaper teen comedy or drama would make the same profit, who bother with musicals at all?

A number of 1950s Hollywood musicals were done on the cheap. Phil Silvers' Broadway hit Top Banana (1953) was filmed onstage at The Winter Garden for a paltry $150,000. The result may be a unique visual record of period stage techniques, but its a disgraceful excuse for a feature film. MGM's soundstage version of Brigadoon (1953) feels claustrophobic, and the screen versions of Damn Yankees (Warner 1958) and Li'l Abner (Paramount 1959) looks chintzy despite the presence of their original stage stars.

Better Efforts
Even though the studio system was fading, Hollywood managed to turn out a number of solid musical films -- and a few worthwhile originals were scattered among the adapted stage shows. Here's a studio breakdown covering some of the most notable efforts:

– 20th Century Fox filmed all of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II's stage hits. Oklahoma (1955) and Carousel (1956) turned out well and King and I (1956) turned out even better, but South Pacific (1958) was marred by the use of annoying colored filters and the vocal dubbing of most of the leads. Fox's most successful R&H adaptation would come in the 1960s – more on that later.

– Warner Brothers created a series of vehicles for Doris Day, a former big-band singer who proved to be a solid screen actress. She followed up her success in such films as Tea For Two (1950) and On Moonlight Bay (1951) with a standout performance as singing cowgirl Calamity Jane (1953). Those who underestimated Day's acting ability were wowed when she played Ruth Etting in MGM's powerful musical bio Love Me or Leave Me (1955). Day joined members of Broadway's original cast for Warner's energetic screen version of The Pajama Game (1957), and made her final musical screen appearance in the underrated Jumbo (1962) – the last film with musicals sequences staged by Busby Berkeley.

Songwriter Irving Berlin old and new songs in the score of White Christmas (1954). Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen shared "Sisters" – then co-stars Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye lip synched to the ladies' soundtrack, creating a a hilarious moment.

– Paramount's White Christmas (1954) had Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, a trunk load of old Irving Berlin hits, plus the new charmers "Sisters" and "Counting Your Blessings." The setting was borrowed from the 1942 Crosby-Astaire hit Holiday Inn (the Berlin score that introduced "White Christmas") – Fred Astaire had been forced out of the project by illness.

– Walt Disney produced a string of animated musicals that remain classics today. Cinderella (1950), Alice In Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), The Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Sleeping Beauty (1959) all had fine scores, but superb animation was the real key to the popularity of these films. Although Disney made several live-action musicals in the 1960s (most notably Mary Poppins), animated musicals remained his forte right up to his final film, the acclaimed Jungle Book (1967).

MGM's Lesser Gems
Whatever the other studios were doing, the best musicals were still coming from MGM. Among MGM's lesser 1950s jewels you'll find –

– Royal Wedding (1951) had Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling, partnering a hat rack, and joining Jane Powell for the knock-about duet "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life?" Stanley Donen directed, composer Burton Lane and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner wrote the score, and Lerner penned the story of what happens to a brother/sister dance team when sis wants to marry a British nobleman. This plot was inspired by Astaire's real life story – his sister Adele had ended their long partnership for the same reason in 1932.

– Kiss Me Kate (1953) featured Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson as the battling co-stars in a strong adaptation of Cole Porter's stage hit. (The only musical ever filmed in 3-D, it is televised in a standard version.) Ann Miller gave her finest screen performance as Lois, and the exceptional supporting cast included Bob Fosse and Carol Haney in numbers co-choreographed by Fosse.

– High Society (1956) boasts an original score by Cole Porter, a book based on The Philadelphia Story, and the powerhouse trio of Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. Crosby and Sinatra shared the showstopping "Well Did You Evah?," but the film lacked the brilliant cohesion of MGM's best efforts.

If these were MGM's "also rans," what were the landmark films? For details on the finest screen musicals that Hollywood's greatest studio ever made, continue on to . . .