Better than most musicals, but far from perfect. A very limited plot that mostly consists of just one party. Some brilliant songs, backed up with a couple of decent dance numbers. The cast do a good job - though the women give the best performances. Shirley Jones is luminescent in her first film. Gloria Grahame & Charlotte Greenwood are feisty and witty. The film sags a bit in the middle. Laurey's extended dream sequence (aided by smelling salts) is a strange narrative departure - equally bizarre as it is boring. The overlong film would benefit greatly from it being removed.For me, the character of Jud could also be removed completely - his main song is the musical low-point. Although he does provide a genuinely thrilling scene, and the greatest cinematic moment. The camera follows his carriage racing through the plains, crashing through rivers and trees and narrowly avoids colliding with a train. The conclusion to his character seemed unnecessary and over-dramatic though - even for a musical!

Oklahoma (1955): Dir: Fred Zinnemann / Cast: Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Gene Nelson, Gloria Grahame, Charlotte Greenwood: Corny yet festive musical set in a land where horse and carriage are still in, and cowboys and farmers attempt to live together. Gordon MacRae plays Curly, a cowboy who guides in the cattle yet really desires to take the lovely Laurey to the local dance. She is played by Shirley Jones with sunny appeal but she is also sighted by a creepy hired hand named Jud. Gene Nelson plays cowboy Will Parker who arrives back in town to marry Ado Annie with the fifty dollars he promised her father he would have. She is played with great comic flare by Gloria Grahame who is also promised to a sneaky peddler. Charlotte Greenwood oversees everything as Aunt Eller and with the local auction tied in with the dance she hopes to raise enough funds for a new school house. Directed by Fred Zinnemann who previously made High Noon and From Here to Eternity. His screenplay is flawed by pointless and overlong musical numbers, some of which are way too corny. Also the concluding court session held in a kitchen is also pathetically contrived. The villain seems unfairly outcast with even a horrid suicidal song sung to his suggestion. The musical numbers look festive with a slice of country life that drives home the theme of togetherness. Score: 7 / 10

Great dancing. Gene Nelson and Charlotte Greenwood at the train station. Plus all the cowboy dancers. Fantasy dream ballet had lovely parts, but evil parts with Jud Fry and evil women were really scary. Of course, Laurey was having a drug-dream via elixir from good ole Ali Hakim. Eddie Albert: what a ham!8/10 the movie. Too much ugliness. Fry living in an underground type shack smokehouse. Ugh. And he must have wanted to marry Laurey and make a home for her. Was he nuts? Yes. Scary? Yes. Goofy? Of course. Bad ppl in dream ballet did not help, either. Fry setting the hay mounds on fire certainly did not endear him to the audience. Jealous? In a rage? Yes. Rod Steiger was also pretty creepy in On the Waterfront, in support of my dear Marlon Brando. Great songs. Gloria Grahame a coy cutie. Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae were in marvelous voice.More observations: historically, open spacers vs. fencer-inners. Cowboys and ranchers vs. farmers and agriculturalists. Frederick Jackson Turner (not in this movie) was ready to envelop the West in barbed wire fencing. Years before 1912, when Oklahoma became a state, I think? Also year of Titanic disaster. Two years before World War One. The world's first sustained powered airplane 1903 was brought into being by Orville and Wilbur Wright. Motion pictures and automobiles had been invented. Oklahoma movie is what it is. Surrey with the fringe on top. Sell/trade my horse for your goody-filled picnic basket. White man plays Middle Easterner. Good Time Sally wants to two-time or three-time her naive, dancing cowboy. Older woman has no man. Neighborhood Good Time Charlie dreams up a fake limo ride aka that fringed surrey pulled by white stallions. Wicked Wanda tries to steal GT Charlie away from ignorant, backward, beautiful singing farm girl. Take that, you wicked witch. Gordon and Shirley ride off into the sunset, in this movie. 'Tain't so in their Carousel movie, where they get permanently separated by The Pearly Gates. R&H musicals and movies. Oklahoma vicious villain; darkly dressed dance hall women in dream sequence. Carousel cranky husband; best friend villain; spousal abuse and child abuse--glammed up as a "kiss", and darkly dressed evil-carousel-horse-women in fantasy sequence. South Pacific racism; ethnicism; ageism. Cinderella 1957 mean, ugly step- family amid palace splendor (of course, R&H did not invent Cinderella). Flower Drum Song more racism and looking down upon mores of Asian immigrants.

It took seemingly forever for the first Broadway musical teaming of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein to make it to the screen. The Broadway production lasted 7 years, and the touring production, which would later come back to Broadway, kept the anticipation for the movie version at a great height. New York has been revisited by the musical numerous times, through brief City Center revivals in the 1950's and 60's, a Lincoln Center production in 1969, a successful production in 1979 and as recently as 2002, a revival based upon a successful London revision which was filmed for BBC and PBS starring Hugh Jackmann. I saw that brilliant Broadway production which only increased my admiration for the film, one of the very first movie versions of a Broadway musical I saw in my youth.It is ironic that the play, "Green Grows the Lilacs", has pretty much disappeared other than as a script since the first production of the musical in 1943. A folksy reminder of home, family, friendship and the power of the land, it was the definitive Broadway show for the era of World War II. While the movie opened long after the war had ended, it was greeted with cheers and has remained a favorite among connoisseurs of Broadway musicals, praised for remaining faithful to the original book. The film has perfect casting with Gordon MacRae as the cowboy Curly, Shirley Jones as the sweet but feisty Laurie, Charlotte Greenwood as the leggy Aunt Eller, Gene Nelson as good ole' boy Will, Gloria Grahame as the flirty Ado Annie (as far from her film noir roles as you can get!) and Rod Steiger as the misunderstood Jud, a villain you empathize with.MacRae and Jones are as memorable a team as Jeanette and Nelson, Judy and Mickey, Kathryn and Howard, and of course, Gordon and Doris. It is sad that their teaming came towards the end of the big movie musical era with only one other pairing ("Carousel") and that Jones is more remembered as a mother on a TV sitcom than for her musical talents and dramatic abilities which won her an Oscar for the powerful "Elmer Gantry". MacRae is masculine without being macho, rugged without being a bully, and confidant without being egocentric. Greenwood utilizes her trademark kick in the big "Kansas City" production number, still able to do this 30 years after her success as a singing and dancing Broadway comic. Grahame manages to instill Ado Annie with heart as well as feistiness, and while maybe a tad too old for the part, is still convincing. As for the songs, it is one of the most sung Broadway scores in history, but some of these songs ("Many a New Day" and "All Er' Nuthin'" to name a few) have been lost in the success of the score. "Many a New Day", in particularly, has been beautifully filmed, and is one of my favorite moments in the film. Of the songs cut from the original score and not utilized in the film, their absence doesn't take anything away from the movie and has helped speed it up a bit as well. Director Fred Zinneman gives the film a perfect pacing, and the entire ensemble pitches in to make this a rousing classic that will remain legendary while other films will fade into obscurity.