Oklahoma! (1955) Reviews

To be honest, since I’m not a huge fan of musicals, I didn’t have such huge expectations regarding this movie but since it has a decent reputation, I thought I might as well check it out. Indeed, not only it was directed by Fred Zinnemann but it is also included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must Before You Die’ list which was the main reason why I wanted to watch the damned thing. Well, at least, Zinnemann once again impressed me with his versatility. Indeed, I had seen 6 of his movie before and this one was again completely different which was pretty neat. However, I’m afraid it was pretty much the only really interesting thing about this movie. Indeed, it was a perfect example on how fluffy and shallow musicals can be. I mean, it starts with a fairly cute couple and while it was pretty obvious that they should be together, it took them around 150 mins to finally get married. I mean, there was barely any drama and the humor was at best cute but not exactly hilarious. So, there was nothing else resembling a plot and, instead you had a bunch of rather colorful supporting characters trying to be funny or breaking into a song every 2 mins. At least, I have to admit that the dancing and the singing were not bad. There was also some kind of ‘dream’ sequence which was intriguing, with no dialogues whatsoever, and it really stood out from the rest of the movie but everything else was borderline tedious. Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn’t connect with the damned thing at all, it is still a well made musical and it is worth a look, if you like the genre.