Let us now praise a great musical
What makes a great movie musical?  Plot?  Well, it can help, but that isn't as important as one with no music at all.  The ability to take us to new worlds?  By it's nature, yes, as ordinary life doesn't break out into song at the drop of a hat.  It can fail, as I think "Moulin Rouge" did, but "Oklahoma" presents the real world as well as any musical can and does succeed.<br />How about number of memorable musical numbers?  Now there's something.  The musical "Showboat" is considered one of the greats, and has a moving plot.  But aside from "Old Man River", how many memorable songs can you count off from that production?<br />With all that in mind, I believe that "The Rocky Horror Picture Snow" is one of the great movie musicals of all time, and I've seen quite a few.  Of the three criteria above, pure plot may be the weakest, but even there I think there is something.  First, it is a comedy, and at times is very funny.  But the subtle (and not so subtle) reminders of 1950's science fiction films make it in it's own way a touching tribute.<br />It succeeds much, much more in taking us to new worlds.  I just got done reviewing "Guys and Dolls", a musical as far removed from this as you can get.  But that one succeeds partially because it creates an underworld that is real only in our dreams.  "Rocky Horror" goes way beyond that, creating something truly unique in the area of cinematic story-telling.  There is nothing quite like it.<br />But the songs.  Richard O'Brian evidently hit lightening in a bottle with this one, as shown by the fact that he hasn't really done anything else of note since then.  But much better to get all the good stuff in one work than a career of one or two-hit song albums.  From the hauntingly beautiful opener "Science Fiction/Double Feature", the soundtrack doesn't have a clunker in it.  Yes, it's primarily rock and roll, and "Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?" would have fit right into Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" album.  But the comedic "Toucha Toucha..." does advance the plot, and "The Time Warp" is as good as any musical production number.<br />I saw it about thirty times back in college, and was apprehensive about getting it for home viewing.  Could the experience be the same? Well, not exactly, but it's well worth getting it for home viewing.
Rating: 5 stars