When Hollywood breaks into song!

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:00:00 +0000

There was a time, long ago, when Hollywood musicals were made with performers with genuine musical aptitude. It was the era of luminaries like Judy Garland and Julie Andrews. And when a big-budget extravaganza demanded a famous name who happened to have a lesser voice, they'd just film the star and let Marni Nixon or Andy Williams do the singing.

But ever since somewhere around the time Woody Allen studded his nostalgic 1996 romance "Everyone Says I Love You" with a bevy of decidedly unmusical A-listers, the movies have become a parade of less than triple- — or even double- — threat actors flaunting their show-tunes-loving sides. Sometimes it works – evidenced by the heady Oscar buzz for Anne Hathaway's going-for-broke performance in "Les Misérables," a role that basically boils down to one show-stopping "I Dreamed a Dream." But sometimes, right within the same film, well, Russell Crowe happens.

Salon.com > Enchanted

When Hollywood breaks into song!