Did the American movie musical die with Doctor Dolittle? Definitely not! This June, Anthology sets out to prove that movies went on singing and dancing throughout Vietnam, Watergate, Women's Lib, stagflation, and the energy crisis. Though the mood was less hospitable to the genre's optimism, the '70s had no shortage of musicals, from existential critiques of showbiz to rockin' sex comedies.

The series begins in the aftermath of the Beatles breakup, with 200 Motels, Tony Palmer and Frank Zappa's experimental musical starring Ringo as Zappa. It ends on the eve of MTV with Herbert Ross's emotional deconstruction of pop music in the American psyche, Pennies From Heaven. Between these cultural benchmarks, disco and punk emerge, along with more nuanced trends, like groovy "Me Decade" self-help crusades (The Wiz), nostalgic revivals of Old Hollywood art deco (New York, New York and At Long Last Love) and doo-wop/surf-rock bubblegum (Phantom of the Paradise).

Clearing away the cobwebs, common threads are elusive. It's tempting to use the word "postmodern," but is anything in this lineup really darker, campier, more ironic, or more self-reflexive than Gold Diggers of 1933? Such was the rich diversity of '70s "Hollywood" that half of these films were produced outside California. Some are independent, low-budget creations, others Broadway-export mega-productions. Celebrity filmmakers Scorsese, De Palma, Lumet, Altman, and Bogdanovich bring their signatures to the genre. Bob Fosse co-writes and directs All That Jazz, a psychotropic, semi-autobiographical extravaganza-terrain weirdly similar to 200 Motels. And Roger Corman casts Joey Ramone as a heartthrob bedroom balladeer in Rock 'n' Roll High School. Unorthodoxy is indeed the norm, but even purists will vouch for the genius choreography in The Little Prince (Fosse's "Snake in the Grass") and Pennies From Heaven (Christopher Walken's "Let's Misbehave").

This medley of musicals puts critical darlings together in the spotlight with historic train wrecks. Let's face the music!

Curated by Leah Churner; special thanks to Nick Pinkerton, Brian Block (Criterion USA), Kathryn Brennan (Paramount), Paul Ginsburg (Universal), Jim Orr (MGM), Caitlin Robertson (20th Century Fox), Germaine Simiens (New Horizons Picture Corp.), Todd Wiener and Steven Hill (UCLA Film and Television Archive), and Marilee Womack and Sean Domachowski (Warner Bros.).

Featured Works:

200 Motels (Tony Palmer and Frank Zappa, 1971); Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974); The Little Prince (Stanley Donen, 1974); At Long Last Love (Peter Bogdanovich, 1975); New York, New York (Martin Scorsese, 1977, pictured); The Wiz (Sidney Lumet, 1978); All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979); Rock 'n' Roll High School (Allan Arkush, 1979); Pennies From Heaven (Herbert Ross, 1981)

Program information:

Hollywood Musicals of the 1970s and 1980s, Part 1: The 1970s

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One Through the Heart by Leah Churner posted Jun. 20, 2011