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Across the Universe (2007)
Director: Julie Taymor
Based on songs by The Beatles
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luthor McCoy, T.V. Carpio, Bono, Joe Cocker and Eddie Izzard
On an excursion to America, Liverpool dock worker Jude falls for Lucy. When Lucy's brother Max is drafted, Jude and Lucy take a stand as anti-war activists.
kathy's rating:
Director: Alan Parker
Starring: Scott Baio, Florrie Dugger, Jodie Foster, John Cassisi, Martin Lev and Dexter Fletcher
The classic gangster story of Bugsy Malone told with an all child cast.
kathy's rating:
Director: Bob Fosse
Starring: Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Joel Grey, Marisa Berenson, Helmut Griem and Fritz Wepper
Berlin in 1930, a time when political unrest racks Germany, the economy has been destroyed and millions of unemployed roam the streets. Enter into this chaos an American cabaret dancer, working at the downtown "Kit-Kat Club" where anything goes on stage. Into this young dancer's life come several characters such as a rich German politician, a young Jewish man struggling with his identity, an Englishman teacher from London and, of course, the all-knowing, all-seeing Master of Ceremonies.
kathy's rating:
Calamity Jane (1953)
Director: David Butler
Starring: Doris Day, Howard Keel, Philip Carey, Allyn Ann McLerie, Dick Wesson, Paul Harvey, Chubby Johnson and Gale Robbins
The story of Calamity Jane, her saloon and her romance with Wild Bill Hickok.
kathy's rating:
Camelot (1967)
Director: Joshua Logan
Starring: Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero, David Hemmings, Lionel Jeffries, Laurence Naisnmith and Estelle Winwood
Merlin taught King Arthur well. He establishes the perfect kingdom of Camelot, the best knights in the world at the Round Table, and even finds himself a kind, loving wife in Queen Guenevere. Then, along comes the French knight, Lancelot. At first hated by all, he eventually proves himself and becomes the King's best friend and the best knight of the Round Table. He also becomes the Queen's lover, no matter how guilty both feel. Alas, Camelot cannot last! For Mordred, the king's treacherous illegitimate son, catches on and works to undo everything Arthur worked for.
kathy's rating:
Director: Otto Preminger
Starring: Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Olga James, Joe Adams, Brock Peters, Roy Glenn, Nick Stewart, Diahann Carroll and LaVern Hutcherson
Contemporary version of the Bizet opera 'Carmen', with new lyrics and an African-American cast.
kathy's rating:
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
Director: Ken Hughes
Based on the novel by Ian Fleming
Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Sally Anne Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Gerte Frobe, Anna Quayle, James Robertson-Justice, Robert Helpmann and Benny Hill
An eccentric inventor around the turn of the century, with nimble fingers and a unique way of looking at the world, invents for his children a magic car that floats and flies. Or does he?
kathy's rating:
The Cotton Club (1984)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins, Fred Gwynne, Nicolas Cage, James Remar, Allen Garfield, Gwen Verdon, Maurice Hines, Laurence Fishburne, Tom Waits, Jennifer Grey, James Russo and John P.Ryan
The story of the The Cotton Club, the legendary Harlem nightspot, and the owners, staff, performers and customers who all passed through its doors.
kathy's rating:
Evita (1996)
Director: Alan Parker
Starring: Madonna, Antonio Banderas, Jonathan Pryce, Jimmy Nail, Julian Littman, Victoria Sus, Laura Pallas, Julia Worsley, Andrea Corr, Peter Polycarpou, Denis Lill, Nickolas Grace and Billie Piper
Chronicling all the the battles and triumphs that Eva (Evita) Peron has in her short but amazing life. Beginning with her impoverished childhood as the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy rancher from Chivilcoy, rural Argentina, through to working as a taxi dancer in Buenos Aires, becoming a model, radio and film actress, meeting army general Juan Peron and quickly becoming his mistress and then second wife of the now-president of Argentina, until her untimely death from cancer aged 33.
kathy's rating:
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Director: Norman Jewison
Starring: Topol, Paul Michael Glaser, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey, Molly Picon, Paull Mann, Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, Neva Small and Ray Lovelock
Ukrainian milkman Tevye clings desperately to the old Jewish traditions while all around him the world changes, day by day. His three daughters marry men he considers more and more unacceptable and the ruling Russian government's anti-Semitism threatens to drive him from his home.
kathy's rating:
Director: Frank Tashlin
Starring: Tom Ewell, Jayne Mansfield, Edmond O'Brien, Ray Anthony, Henry Jones, John Emery, Juanita Moore, Julie London, Abbey Lincoln, Fats Domino, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, The Platters and Phil Silvers
A gangster hires down-and-out press agent to make his blonde bimbo girlfriend a singing star.
kathy's rating:
Director: David Greene
Starring: Victor Garber, Lynne Thigpen, Katie Hanley, David Haskell, Robin Lamont, Merrell Jackson, Joanne Jonas, Jerry Sroka, Gilmer McCormick and Jeffrey Mylett
Film version of the stage musical, in a modern-day song-and-dance recreation of the Gospel of St. Matthew.
kathy's rating:
Grease (1978)
Director: Randal Kleiser
Starring: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Jeff Conaway, Stockard Channing, Barry Pearl, Michael Tucci, Kelly Ward, Didi Conn, Dinah Manoff, Jamie Donnelly, Sid Ceasar, Eve Arden, Alice Ghostley, Joan Blondell, Frankie Avalon, Edd Byrnes, Dody Goodman, Lorenzo Lamas, Sha-Na-Na, Susan Buckner, Annette Charles, Eddie Deezen, Fannie Flagg, Ellen Travolta and Michael Biehn
Good girl Sandy and greaser Danny fell in love over the summer. But when they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance?
kathy's rating:
Guys and Dolls (1955)
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Based on the stories of Damon Runyon
Starring: Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, Vivian Blaine, Stubby Kaye, Robert Keith, B.S. Pully and Johnny Silver
In New York City, a gambler is challenged to take a cold female missionary to Havana. But they fall for each other and the bet has a hidden motive to finance a crap game.
kathy's rating:
Hair (1979)
Director: Milos Forman
Starring: John Savage, Treat Williams, Beverly D'Angelo, Annie Golden, Dorsey Wright, Don Dacus, Cheryl Barnes and Richard Bright
Claude leaves the family ranch in Oklahoma for New York where he is rapidly indoctrinated into the youth subculture and subsequently drafted.
kathy's rating:
Director: Gene Kelly
Starring: Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau, Michael Crawford, Fritz Feld, Marianne McAndrew, Danny Lockin, Tommy Tune, Joyce Ames, E.J. Peaker and Louis Armstrong
Dolly Levi, a New York City-based matchmaker, merrily arranges things... like furniture and daffodils and lives. A widow, she has found herself in love with a "half-a-millionaire" Yonkers merchant named Horace Vandergelder. So she proceeds to weave a web of romantic complications involving him, his two clerks, a pretty milliner and her assistant.
kathy's rating:
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
Director: Norman Jewison
Starring: Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, Yvonne Elliman, Barry Dennen, Bob Bingham, Larry Marshall and Josh Mostel
Film version of the musical stage play, presenting the last few weeks of Christ's life, told in an anachronistic manner.
kathy's rating:
Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Directors: Bernard Knowles and The Beatles
Starring: The Beatles, Neil Innes, Victor Spinetti, Derek Royle, Spencer Davis, Mike McGear, Magic Alex, Neil Aspinall, Mal Evans, Ivor Cutler, Angelo Muscat, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Peggy Spencer's Dance Group, Women's Air Force and Jessie Robbins
The Beatles charter a special bus for a surreal mystery tour.
kathy's rating:
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Based on songs by ABBA
Starring: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Amanda Seyfried, Dominic Cooper, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Rachel McDowall, Ashley Lilley, Philip Michael and Niall Buggy
Donna, an independent single mother who owns a small hotel on an idyllic Greek island, is about to let go of Sophie, the spirited daughter she’s raised alone. For Sophie’s wedding, Donna has invited her two lifelong best girlfriends — practical and no-nonsense Rosie and wealthy, multi-divorcee Tanya — from her one-time backing band 'Donna and the Dynamos'.
But Sophie has secretly invited three guests of her own. On a quest to find the identity of her father to walk her down the aisle, she brings back three men from Donna’s past to the Mediterranean paradise they visited 20 years earlier.
Over 24 chaotic, magical hours, new love will bloom and old romances will be rekindled on this lush island full of possibilities.
kathy's rating:
Mary Poppins (1964)
Director: Robert Stevens
Starring: Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson, Glynis Johns, Matthew Garber, Karen Dotrice, Hermione Baddeley and Reta Shaw
Mary Poppins is a kind of Super-nanny who flies in with her umbrella in response to the request of the Banks children and proceeds to put things right with the aid of her rather extraordinary magical powers before flying off again.
kathy's rating:
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Richard Roxburgh, Jim Broadbent, John Leguizamo and Kylie Minogue
A poet falls for a beautiful courtesan whom a jealous duke covets in this stylish musical, with music drawn from familiar 20th century sources.
kathy's rating:
My Fair Lady (1964)
Director: George Cukor
Based on the novel 'Pygmalion' by George Bernard Shaw
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfred Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Jeremy Brett, Theodore Bikel and Mona Washborne
A chance meeting between two noted British linguists, Professor Henry Higgins and Colonel Hugh Pickering, leads to a wager that will test Higgins' skills. After they hear a cockney flower girl caterwaul in the street, Higgins proposes to transform the girl, Eliza Doolittle, into a refined Victorian lady with an aristocratic accent. After some hesitation Eliza agrees to become their test case.
kathy's rating:
Director: Carol Reed
Based on the novel 'Oliver Twist' by Charles Dickens
Starring: Mark Lester, Jack Wild, Oliver Reed, Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Harry Secombe, Hugh Griffith, Joseph O'Conor, Peggy Mount, Leonard Rossiter, Hylda Baker, Kenneth Cranham, Megs Jenkins, Sheila White, James Hayter, Fred Emney and Norman Mitchell
Oliver Twist, a nine-year-old workhouse orphan, is sold to an undertaker by workhouse officials after objecting to his scant rations. He soon manages to escape from bondage and make his way to London.
There he's befriended by the precocious Artful Dodger, a pickpocket who belongs to a gang of youthful thieves run by the wily Fagin, a veteran cutpurse. This criminal mentor admits Oliver into his academy of larceny, introducing him also to the brutish Bill Sikes and Sikes's kind-hearted girlfriend, Nancy.
As time passes, Nancy becomes almost a mother to Oliver and, when the resentful Sikes falsely accuses the boy, Oliver finds out who his friends really are.
kathy's rating:
Director: Joshua Logan
Starring: Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, Jean Seberg, Harve Presnell and Ray Walston
Two unlikely prospector partners share the same wife in a California gold rush mining town.
kathy's rating:
The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, Jennifer Ellison, Ciarán Hinds, Simon Callow, Murray Melvin, Victor McGuire, Kevin McNally and James Fleet
A mysterious Phantom terrorizes the cast and crew of the Paris Opera House while secretly tutoring Christine, a chorus girl, who believes him to be an angel. He finally drives the lead Soprano crazy so she leaves and Christine is able to sing lead on opening night.
The Soprano doesn't want her show stolen so she returns but the Phantom demands they keep giving his protégé the leading role. Meanwhile, Christine has fallen in love with Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny, patron of the Opera House and Christine's childhood friend. The Phantom is outraged by their love and kidnaps Christine to be his eternal bride. Will Raoul, be able to stop this dastardly plan?
kathy's rating:
Director: Michael Schultz
Based on songs by The Beatles
Starring: Peter Frampton, Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb, Paul Nicholas, Sandy Farina, Donald Pleasence, George Burns, Steve Martin, Frankie Howerd, Alice Cooper, Earth Wind & Fire, Aerosmith, Billy Preston, Dianne Steinberg and Stargard
A small town band hits it big, but they must battle a nefarious plot in the in the music industry.
kathy's rating:
Directors: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donan
Starring: Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Cyd Charisse and Rita Moreno
1927: Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont are the darlings of the silent silver screen. Offscreen, Don, aided by his happy-go-lucky friend and piano accompanist, Cosmo Brown, has to dodge Lina's romantic overtures, especially when he falls for chorus girl Kathy Selden.
With the advent of sound in motion pictures, it is decided to turn Don and Lina's new film into a "talkie" and a musical at that. The only problem is Lina's voice, which mere words cannot describe. Thus, Kathy is brought on to dub her speaking and singing voice in secret, and Don's on top of the world. But then Lina finds out.
kathy's rating:
Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, Nicholas Hammond, Heather Menzies, Angela Cartwright and Marni Nixon
Maria had longed to be a nun since she was a young girl, yet when she became old enough discovered that it wasn't at all what she thought. Often in trouble and doing the wrong things, Maria is sent to the house of a retired naval captain Captain Von Trapp to care for his children. Von Trapp was widowed several years before and was left to care for seven 'rowdy' children.
The children have run off countless governesses. Maria soon learns that all these children need is a little love to change their attitudes. Maria teaches the children to sing and, through her, music is brought back into the hearts and home of the Von Trapp family.
kathy's rating:
Director: Bob Fosse
Based on the stage musical 'Sweet Charity: The Adventures of a Girl Who Wanted to Be Loved' written by Neil Simon, Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields
Starring: Shirley MacLaine, John McMartin, Ricardo Montalban, Chita Rivera, Paula Kelly, Stubby Kaye, Barbara Bouchet, Sammy Davis, Jr., Suzanne Charny and Ben Vereen
Taxi dancer Charity Hope Valentine continues to have faith in the human race despite apparently endless disappointments at its hands and hope that she will finally meet the nice young man to romance her away from her sleazy life. Maybe, just maybe, handsome Oscar will be the one to do it.
kathy's rating:
West Side Story (1961)
Directors: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins
Starring: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymour, Russ Tamblyn, George Chakiras, Rita Moreno, Simon Oakland, Ned Glass and William Bramley
Musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set in New York City, where rival street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, battle for territory and respect. Is the love affair between former Jets leader Tony and Maria, sister to Sharks' leader Bernardo, doomed to failure?
kathy's rating:
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Directors: Victor Fleming and George Cukor
Based on the novel 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum
Starring: Judy Garland, Roy Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Billie Burke and Clara Blandick
When a nasty neighbor tries to have her dog Toto put to sleep, Dorothy attempts to run away with him. A cyclone appears and carries her to the magical land of Oz. Wishing to return home, she begins to travel to the Emerald City where a great Wizard lives. On her way she meets a Scarecrow who needs a brain, a Tin Man who wants a heart and a Cowardly Lion who desperately needs courage. They all hope the Wizard of Oz will help them, before the Wicked Witch of the West catches up with them.
kathy's rating:
A list of my favorite musical films.
Listed in alphabetical order.