Best 1930s musical ever made

Rating: 8/10 (11 October 2011)

Singin' in the Rain is the best musical ever made, according to the MGM publicity department. Except, perhaps, for Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, The King and I, Carousel, the Sound of Music, The Music Man, West Side Story or My Fair Lady.
And then there are those who say Meet Me in St. Louis or Hello, Dolly! were the best musicals ever made, which is true, if those are the only movies they have ever seen in their lives.
The big problem is that Singin' in the Rain is not a modern musical, one in which the music expresses the inner thoughts of the characters, that advances the plot, and that is not performed by actors playing actors or musicians, performing on stage.
MGM never really got the hang of producing artistically great, modern musicals. They were never able to fully integrate a great plot with great music and dancing. The plot was usually a weak skeleton to hold the musical numbers together. The musical numbers often written earlier, and the writers had to strain to find an excuse to tack them on to the story line; An American in Paris is a prime example. Even the title song Singin' in the Rain had already been recycled many times by MGM. MGM spared no expense on the lavish song and dance numbers, and figured that was good enough reason for people to pay admission.
MGM's musicals are mostly fluff, although perhaps the world's most magical fluff. These are stress-free shows, lacking depth, thought provoking controversy, or social message. They tend to be modified revues, the earliest form of film musical. Yet the beginning of the modern musical had already appeared on Broadway in the 1920s with Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat. It was first filmed in 1936, and its theme was the evils of racial discrimination.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein later teamed up to produce Oklahoma! on Broadway in 1942, and then on film in 1955. Hammerstein, whose grandfather had been an opera impresario, brought much greater artistic sophistication to musicals, strongly linking the story and lyrics.
Ultimately, it is difficult to name one "greatest" musical because they are unique and appeal to different audiences. However, if you establish the criteria of strongest story, strongest writing, most memorable music, best dancing and most lavish sets, I think there is a clear winner: My Fair Lady. What gives it the edge is that the screenplay is based faithfully on Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, who was the 20th century's Shakespeare (aka, Edward De Vere). (Guys and Dolls, and The Music Man would be strong runners up in my book.)
And which studio made My Fair Lady? MGM? Heck, no! It was Warner Bros., the rebel, non-conformist studio -- the antithesis of MGM.
Singin' in the Rain is a fun musical, and one you can watch several times before getting sick of it. It is certainly important, and a must see for film literacy, not to mention commercial literacy, such as the old Donald O'Connor athlete's foot ads.
What Singin' in the Rain really is, is the world's best 1930s musical, which happens to be when it was set.
Or, on second thought, the second best. The best 1930s musical was Top Hat, by a mile.