97 Fun Facts About Movie Musical

Which 1927 film was the first feature with synchronized music and lip-synced speech?

The Jazz Singer: outside its songs it has barely two minutes of synchronized talking, and the rest of its dialogue still appears on title cards.

Which 1929 musical, advertised as 'All-Talking, All-Singing, All-Dancing', won Best Picture?

The Broadway Melody: MGM followed it with three more Broadway Melody films, and its song 'You Were Meant for Me' later turned up in Singin' in the Rain.

Which song from The Wizard of Oz won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

Over the Rainbow: the costly film needed re-releases in 1949 and 1955, then regular TV screenings, to become the favourite it is today.

Which actor was originally cast as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz before being replaced by Jack Haley?

Buddy Ebsen: aluminium dust in his make-up coated his lungs, and his recording of 'If I Only Had a Heart' never made the finished film.

Singin' in the Rain (1952) follows performers caught up in which Hollywood change?

The switch from silents to talkies: the plot turns on a silent star whose grating voice has to be secretly dubbed for her first talkie.

Who co-directed and co-choreographed Singin' in the Rain with Gene Kelly?

Stanley Donen: apart from two new numbers, every song in this classic had already been written for earlier pictures.

In MGM's 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz, what colour are Dorothy's magic slippers?

Ruby red: in L. Frank Baum's novel they are silver, but MGM changed the colour to show off its Technicolor.

Which musical won all nine of the Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture?

Gigi: Hollywood's censors had earlier ruled that its story of a girl raised to be a courtesan broke the Production Code.

Who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Anita in West Side Story (1961)?

Rita Moreno: Chita Rivera had created the role of Anita on Broadway, but the film gave the part to Moreno.

In West Side Story, the Jets fight which rival gang?

The Sharks: George Chakiris, who plays their leader Bernardo, had played Riff, leader of the rival Jets, in the London stage show.

Who provided Natalie Wood's singing voice as Maria in West Side Story?

Marni Nixon: Natalie Wood recorded the songs herself, not knowing that almost all of her singing would be replaced.

Who played Eliza Doolittle in the 1964 film of My Fair Lady, replacing the stage star Julie Andrews?

Audrey Hepburn: yet Julie Andrews, dropped because the studio wanted a bigger name, won that year's Best Actress Oscar, a race Hepburn wasn't even in.

Which song from Mary Poppins (1964) won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

Chim Chim Cher-ee: the film came only after Walt Disney spent more than 20 years persuading author P. L. Travers to let him make it.

Which songwriting duo, under contract to Disney, wrote the songs for Mary Poppins?

The Sherman Brothers: Walt Disney loved their 'Feed the Birds' so much that he asked them to play it for him in his office.

The Sound of Music became the highest-grossing film in history in 1966, overtaking which movie?

Gone with the Wind: yet the real von Trapps saw little of the profits, having signed away the rights to their story to a German producer.

In which city is The Sound of Music set?

Salzburg: as in the film, the real von Trapps won a prize at a Salzburg singing competition in 1936, then toured Europe as a choir.

Which film became the next musical to win Best Picture, 34 years after Oliver!?

Chicago: most of its songs are staged as fantasies playing out inside Roxie Hart's imagination.

In Funny Girl (1968), Barbra Streisand won Best Actress playing which real-life comedian?

Fanny Brice: a publicity photo of Streisand kissing her Egyptian co-star, Omar Sharif, led Egypt's press to campaign to strip him of his citizenship.

Fiddler on the Roof (1971) follows Tevye, a poor Jewish man in what trade?

Milkman: director Norman Jewison cast Topol over Broadway's Zero Mostel, feeling Mostel's big stage persona would not work on film.

Cabaret (1972) won eight Oscars but lost Best Picture to which film?

The Godfather: yet Cabaret's Bob Fosse beat Francis Ford Coppola for Best Director that same night.

In Cabaret, which is the only musical number not performed inside the Kit Kat Klub?

Tomorrow Belongs to Me: a boy's sweet song in a country beer garden swells into a Nazi anthem as the crowd rises to join in.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) became a hit as what?

A midnight movie: it did only middling business at first, until late-night audiences began dressing up as the characters and joining in.

Who wrote The Rocky Horror Show and played Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Richard O'Brien: his show was a hit in London, yet its 1975 Broadway run closed after only about 50 performances.

Who plays Danny Zuko in Grease?

John Travolta: he had once toured in the stage show as Doody, a minor member of Danny's gang, before landing the lead.

Grease was 1978's second-best-selling US album, behind the soundtrack of which 1977 film?

Grease was the highest-grossing film of 1978 and the highest-grossing musical ever at the time.

Which film began the Disney Renaissance and won Oscars for Best Score and Best Song?

The Little Mermaid: Disney first turned the idea down because a sequel to the live-action mermaid film Splash was already in the works.

Which song, written specially for Madonna's 1996 Evita, won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

You Must Love Me: director Alan Parker persuaded Lloyd Webber and Rice, who had not written together for years, to create it.

Moulin Rouge! is the third and final entry in which Baz Luhrmann series?

It followed Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet, and won Oscars for production and costume design.

Which choreographer earned a Best Director Oscar nomination for their very first feature film, in 2002?

Rob Marshall: a herniated disc suffered while dancing in Cats on Broadway moved him from performing into choreography.

Dreamgirls, whose Dreams echo the Supremes, was the acting debut of which American Idol alum?

Jennifer Hudson: she had finished only seventh on American Idol, yet won an Oscar for her very first film role.

Which drag performer played Edna Turnblad in John Waters's original 1988 film Hairspray?

Divine: ever since, Edna has usually gone to a man, from Harvey Fierstein on Broadway to a Hollywood star in the 2007 film.

Mamma Mia! was filmed mainly on which Greek island?

ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus composed the score, and it grossed $706 million on a $52 million budget.

How were the vocals recorded for the 2012 film of Les Misérables?

They were sung live on set: actors heard a piano through earpieces, and the film went on to win the Oscar for Sound Mixing.

In Les Misérables (2012), which actress had her real hair cut off on camera for her role as Fantine?

Anne Hathaway: as a young girl she watched her mother perform in Les Misérables on stage, and it left her stage-struck.

Frozen's 'Let It Go' won the Oscar for Best Original Song. Who wrote it?

The song reshaped Elsa into a sympathetic character and forced a rewrite of the first act.

Who won the Best Actress Oscar for La La Land (2016)?

Emma Stone: the film opens with a song-and-dance number in a freeway traffic jam, shot to play as one continuous take.

Which film beat La La Land to the Best Picture Oscar at the 2017 ceremony?

Moonlight: La La Land was announced as the winner by mistake, before the error was corrected on stage.

The Greatest Showman is a heavily fictionalised life of which real showman?

P. T. Barnum: the real Barnum made his name with his American Museum in New York and went into the circus only at about 60.

Who plays Elphaba in the 2024 film of Wicked?

Cynthia Erivo: the story was split into two films, partly because songwriter Stephen Schwartz felt nothing could follow 'Defying Gravity'.

Besides costumes, which other Oscar did Wicked (2024) win?

Best Production Design: director Jon M. Chu avoided heavy CGI, building real sets inspired by Spielberg's Hook, down to a muddy yellow brick road.

Which choreographer staged the kaleidoscopic production numbers of 42nd Street (1933)?

Busby Berkeley: he shot his numbers with one camera instead of the usual four, so no editor could choose different shots.

Which producer headed the MGM unit behind Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris?

Arthur Freed: before producing, he was a lyricist, and Singin' in the Rain was built around old songs he had written with Nacio Herb Brown.

Which 1931 film, directed by Ardeshir Irani, was India's first sound film?

Alam Ara: Irani first chose newcomer Mehboob Khan as its hero, then swapped him for star Master Vithal to get a bigger name.

The Sound of Music shows the von Trapps hiking to Switzerland; which country did the real family reach by train?

Italy: Georg von Trapp was born in Zadar, which later became Italian, so the whole family held Italian citizenship.

The Sound of Music's Captain von Trapp was based on a real naval officer who commanded what in World War I?

Submarines: after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Georg von Trapp turned down a naval command from the new regime.

Which Happy Days star turned down the role of Danny in Grease for fear of being typecast?

Henry Winkler: he later called the decision stupid, since he ended up typecast anyway and struggled to find roles for years after Happy Days.

Who sang the title song of the 1978 film Grease, despite having no other role in it?

Frankie Valli: his manager at the time, Allan Carr, was also one of the film's producers.

Which spy novelist wrote the children's book behind the flying-car musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?

Ian Fleming wrote it for his young son after a heart attack in 1961. Bond producer Albert Broccoli made the 1968 film, with a script co-written by Roald Dahl.

The lonely hero of which animated film treasures a videotape of the 1969 musical Hello, Dolly!?

WALL-E replays the tape and copies its dance steps. Director Andrew Stanton picked the songs after playing the sidekick Barnaby Tucker in a student staging of the show.

Mamma Mia! (2008) builds its whole story around the hit songs of which 1970s pop group?

ABBA songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus both slip into the film in uncredited cameos. Andersson turns up as a piano player, and Ulvaeus as a Greek god.

West Side Story moves which Shakespeare play to the gang-ruled streets of 1950s New York?

Romeo and Juliet became Tony and Maria, divided by rival street gangs instead of feuding families. An early draft, East Side Story, set a Catholic family against a Jewish one.

Which song from The Sound of Music is so convincing that many take it for a real Austrian folk tune?

Edelweiss was written for the 1959 stage show, as the Captain's goodbye to the homeland he loved. It was the last song its famous writing duo finished together.

Which American comedian played Bert, the cockney chimney sweep, in Mary Poppins (1964)?

Dick Van Dyke also plays the ancient banker Mr Dawes Sr, a part he lobbied for. A 2003 Empire poll ranked his cockney accent the second-worst in film.

Which pop star played the Scarecrow in The Wiz (1978), a Black-cast retelling of a classic fantasy tale?

Michael Jackson met Quincy Jones on the film and asked him to suggest a producer for a solo album. Jones took the job himself and went on to produce Thriller.

Which Disney musical was the first animated film ever nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?

Beauty and the Beast stood alone for 18 years. No other animated film was nominated until Up, after the Best Picture field had grown to ten.

Which Australian actor sang as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables and as the ringmaster in The Greatest Showman?

Hugh Jackman earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Valjean in 2012. His circus musical five years later brought him a Grammy for its soundtrack.

Which pop star wrote the songs for The Lion King (1994) with the lyricist Tim Rice?

Elton John got the job on Rice's suggestion, because Disney's regular composer Alan Menken was unavailable. The pair wrote five songs for the film, from Circle of Life to Hakuna Matata.

Which stand-up comedian voiced the shape-shifting Genie in Disney's animated Aladdin (1992)?

Robin Williams signed on after the animators set one of his old stand-up routines to a test drawing of the Genie. The part had been written with him in mind.

Which actress plays Satine, the star courtesan of a Paris nightclub, in Moulin Rouge! (2001)?

Nicole Kidman broke her ribs twice while making the film. She has said one break came from pulling her corset as tight as it would go.

Which actor did all his own on-screen piano playing as the jazz purist Sebastian in La La Land (2016)?

Ryan Gosling practised for about three months before the shoot, and the film used no hand doubles. Every close-up at the keyboard shows his own fingers.

Who wrote the songs for In the Heights (2021) and appears on screen as a shaved-ice seller?

Lin-Manuel Miranda played the lead, Usnavi, on Broadway, but decided he was too old for it by the time of the film. He took the small piragua-cart role instead.

Which pop star plays Glinda, the bubbly future Good Witch, in the 2024 film of Wicked?

Ariana Grande earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for the part. Her career had begun on stage, as a teenager in the Broadway musical 13.

Which actress plays hotel owner Donna in Mamma Mia! and the Witch in Into the Woods (2014)?

Meryl Streep had sworn off witch roles after being offered three of them when she turned 40. She broke her own rule for this one and earned an Oscar nomination.

Which actress won the Best Actress Oscar as Sally Bowles, the Kit Kat Klub singer in Cabaret (1972)?

Liza Minnelli had been turned down for the same part on Broadway as too inexperienced. She had already won a Tony by then, and the film finally gave her the role.

Which girls' clique, led by Betty Rizzo, takes in newcomer Sandy at Rydell in Grease (1978)?

The Pink Ladies got a prequel series of their own in 2023, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. It lasted a single season.

In The Wizard of Oz (1939), a tornado sweeps Dorothy away from a farm in which US state?

Kansas was filmed in black and white and tinted sepia, so colour arrives only when Dorothy opens the farmhouse door onto Oz.

Which dancer partnered Fred Astaire in ten Hollywood musicals, including Top Hat and Swing Time?

Ginger Rogers won her Oscar not for a musical but for the 1940 drama Kitty Foyle. She turned to dramas and comedies after two of the dance films lost money.

Which star first sang Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, to cheer up a little sister, in a 1944 MGM musical?

Judy Garland and her director found the first draft too depressing and asked the songwriter to change the words. The scene comes from Meet Me in St. Louis.

Which newcomer got her breakout role as Kathy Selden, opposite Gene Kelly, in Singin' in the Rain (1952)?

Debbie Reynolds was a gymnast rather than a trained dancer when she made the film. Her daughter, Carrie Fisher, grew up to become a film star too.

My Fair Lady (1964) is a musical version of which George Bernard Shaw play about a flower seller?

Pygmalion is named after a figure of Greek myth who fell in love with one of his own sculptures, which then came to life. Shaw's sculptor is a professor of phonetics.

Which composer wrote the music of Oklahoma! and The King and I with the lyricist Oscar Hammerstein?

Richard Rodgers and his partner had four shows playing on Broadway at once in 1953. Their shows, and the films made from them, won 34 Tonys and fifteen Academy Awards.

Oliver!, the Best Picture winner for 1968, sets to music a novel by which Victorian author?

Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist in the 1830s. Ron Moody said he played Fagin as a clown, to pull the part away from the novel's harsh portrait.

Which choreographer won the Best Director Oscar for Cabaret and later made the film All That Jazz?

Bob Fosse swept the board in 1973: the Oscar for the film, Tony Awards for Pippin and Emmy Awards for a television special, all in a single year.

Hairspray, in both its 1988 and 2007 film versions, is set in which American city in 1962?

Baltimore really did have a teen dance show like the one in the film. The host Corny Collins is modelled on a local television personality, Buddy Deane.

Which composer-lyricist wrote Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd, and the lyrics for West Side Story?

Stephen Sondheim learned his craft as a teenager from Oscar Hammerstein, who became his mentor. He began on Broadway as a lyricist only, in the 1950s.

Which director cast Johnny Depp as a throat-slitting barber in the 2007 musical Sweeney Todd?

Tim Burton first saw the stage show as a student in London in 1980. Depp was not known as a singer, and the film's producer admitted that casting him was a gamble.

Which composer wrote the stage musicals behind the films Evita, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera?

Andrew Lloyd Webber's first show to reach cinemas was Jesus Christ Superstar, in 1973. He co-produced the 2004 Phantom film himself.

Which band's songbook supplies every number in Julie Taymor's 2007 musical Across the Universe?

The Beatles wrote every song in the film between 1962 and 1969. Seven of them come from the White Album alone.

Les Misérables (2012) is the film of a stage musical drawn from an 1862 novel by which French author?

Victor Hugo's novel became a musical after its lyricist watched the Artful Dodger in Oliver! and found himself picturing the street urchin Gavroche.

Which Hollywood director remade West Side Story in 2021, sixty years after the Oscar-winning 1961 version?

Steven Spielberg dedicated the film to his father, Arnold, who died during production at the age of 103.

In Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Steve Martin plays Orin Scrivello, a sadistic member of which profession?

Dentist Orin meets his match in a pain-loving patient played by Bill Murray. The part echoes one taken by a young Jack Nicholson in the 1960 original.

Pixar's musical Coco (2017) follows a music-mad boy named Miguel during which Mexican festival?

Day of the Dead was nearly a Disney trademark. The studio filed for the Spanish name in 2013, then withdrew within a week after a public outcry.

We Don't Talk About Bruno, a Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper in 2022, comes from which Disney animated film?

Encanto made it only the second song from a Disney animated film to reach number one in the US, after A Whole New World from Aladdin in 1993.

Which Disney Channel film stars Zac Efron as Troy Bolton, a basketball captain who auditions for a show?

High School Musical drew 7.7 million viewers on its first night, then a record premiere for the network. Its sequel more than doubled that a year and a half later.

Which Method actor sang his own songs, undubbed, as the gambler Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (1955)?

Marlon Brando won a part that Frank Sinatra had coveted, which soured things between them on set. Sinatra took to calling his co-star Mumbles.

Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar as the King of Siam in The King and I (1956)?

Yul Brynner first shaved his head for the stage version in 1951 and kept the look as a trademark. He played the king 4,625 times in the theatre.

Bing Crosby introduced White Christmas in which 1942 film, twelve years before the movie named after the song?

Holiday Inn went on to inspire the name of the hotel chain. Its composer had first conceived the song in 1935, on the set of another film.

Which actor, famous for tough-guy roles, won an Oscar as showman George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy?

James Cagney had spent years in vaudeville as a dancer before Hollywood cast him as a hoodlum. He took great pride in the film and considered it his best.

Which band's 1969 rock opera became Ken Russell's film Tommy, with Tina Turner as the Acid Queen?

The Who appear in the film themselves, with their lead singer in the title role. Mick Jagger was reportedly offered the Acid Queen first.

Which 1980 roller-disco fantasy with Olivia Newton-John helped inspire the Golden Raspberry Awards?

Xanadu was also Gene Kelly's final film role. The movie flopped, but its soundtrack went double platinum in the United States.

Rent, filmed in 2005, moves which Puccini opera from 1800s Paris to New York's East Village?

La bohème's tuberculosis became HIV/AIDS in the update. The stage show opened in 1996, a century after the opera's premiere.

Which 1964 French film by Jacques Demy sets every line of dialogue to music, even casual small talk?

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1964. Decades later, Greta Gerwig named it as an inspiration for Barbie.

In Bugsy Malone (1976), the child gangsters' machine guns fire gobs of what instead of bullets?

Whipped cream never left the prop guns. Tests with cream-filled wax balls hurt, so the guns fired ping-pong balls and the film cut fast to each victim being splattered.

Cats (2019) and the stage hit behind it set to music the feline verses of which poet?

T. S. Eliot wrote the poems in the 1930s for his godchildren, signing his letters to them as Old Possum.

In which city do the busker and the young immigrant of Once (2007) write and record their songs?

Dublin's Grafton Street is where the busker plays. The two leads were real musicians, and their duet Falling Slowly won the Best Original Song Oscar.

Which author's reluctance to let Walt Disney film her Mary Poppins books is dramatised in Saving Mr. Banks?

P. L. Travers so disliked the finished film that she later agreed to a stage musical only if nobody from the Disney production took part.

Which 2012 comedy follows the Barden Bellas, an all-female college a cappella group chasing a championship?

Pitch Perfect is loosely based on a non-fiction book, for which a magazine editor spent a season following real college a cappella groups.