Films Were Alive With Sound of Musicals

Ironically, the campaign to cast Michael Crawford as the film Phantom comes at a time when Hollywood has all but abandoned the Broadway musical as a source of filmed entertainment.

Once, the studios produced such splashy musicals as “Brigadoon,” “Oklahoma!,” “The King and I,” “Porgy and Bess,” “My Fair Lady,” “The Sound of Music” and “Cabaret.” They were big-budget, prestige films--some went on to win the Oscar for best picture like “The Sound of Music” and “My Fair Lady.”

But in the 1990s, as the tastes of moviegoers changed, live-action musicals disappeared as fast as you could say “Newsies,” Disney’s 1992 box-office bomb based on the 1899 strike by newspaper boys in New York City.

Live-action musicals were supplanted by Broadway-style, song-filled animated features like Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid” and “The Lion King.”

In 1996, those championing a revival of musicals took heart when Woody Allen came out with “Everyone Says I Love You.” The genre received a bigger boost that year when Disney released “Evita.” Based on the stage production by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, the film grossed a respectable $50.1 million in North America.

Still, the casting of “Material Girl” rock star Madonna as Eva Peron (Patti LuPone starred on Broadway) and Latin heartthrob Antonio Banderas as Che--though both received good reviews--did nothing to silence the age-old debate over whether Hollywood musicals are best served if they feature movie stars or stage performers.

Theater lovers eagerly point out that Yul Brynner was a stunning success on stage and on screen in “The King and I,” Rex Harrison performed brilliantly in both venues in “My Fair Lady,” and Robert Preston was equally impressive on stage and on screen in “The Music Man.”

But they still can’t understand why Julie Andrews was passed over for Audrey Hepburn--whose singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon--in the 1964 film “My Fair Lady.” After all, Andrews went on to win the Oscar that year in the tuneful “Mary Poppins.”

And the list goes on and on: Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood (whose voices were dubbed) in “West Side Story” were cast over Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert. Ethel Merman, who belted out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” in “Gypsy” on stage, was passed over for Rosalind Russell. Barbra Streisand was cast in “Hello, Dolly!” even though Carol Channing became a legend in the role.

But Tom Pollock, chairman of the American Film Institute and former Universal studio chief, said a musical’s success or failure is not contingent on who is cast in the lead role.

“I don’t think ‘My Fair Lady’ would have been any better or worse a movie if Julie Andrews had played the role instead of Audrey Hepburn,” Pollock said. “It’s the movie that makes the difference, not the actor.”