Favorite Completely Original Musical Film Scores

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 4:43pm

Born to Dance with Eleanor Powell was on yesterday, and those great Cole Porter songs got me thinking about completely original film scores. Some of my favorites are:

Born to Dance (Cole Porter - 1936)
Meet Me in St. Louis (Ralph Blane & Hugh Martin - 1944)
Royal Wedding (Burton Lane & Alan Jay Lerner - 1951)
Athena (Ralph Blane & Hugh Martin - 1954)
Gigi (Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Lowe - 195
Mary Poppins (Sherman Brothers - 1964)
Doctor Dolittle (Leslie Bricusse - 1967)
Goodbye Mr. Chips (Leslie Bricusse - 1969)
Bugsy Malone (Paul Williams - 1976)
Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menken & Howard Ashman - 1991)

What are some of yours?

Updated On: 3/31/14 at 04:43 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 5:33pm

Most of the above plus:

Dr Dolittle
Scrooge
That's Entertainment

Updated On: 3/31/14 at 05:33 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 5:48pm

Scrounge sounds like good family fare.

Where's Lost Horizon? (Actually I admit I love much of the music even if not the singing...)

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 5:53pm

Scrounge was good to but not as good as Scrooge.

[JoseLee_]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 5:59pm

High School Musical

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 6:22pm

The Nightmare Before Christmas

In all seriousness, none of the High School Musical movies are any good as musicals, really, but as stylistic experiments they are incredibly successful- one of the only recent examples of fusing genuinely "current" pop music styles with the elements of musical theatre and having it not only work, but be successful as both.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 6:40pm

Xanadu

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 6:47pm

Scrooge (1970)
Mary Poppins
Dr. Dolittle (1967)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Tom Sawyer (1973)
Charlotte's Web
Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid
Lost Horizon (1973)
Goodbye Mr. Chips

[After Eight]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 6:57pm

In addition to many of those already mentioned, the Busby Berkeley musicals.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 7:30pm

How did I miss Willy Wonka! I also forgot Summer Holiday from 1947.

Despite my love for "B" musicals (and "B" movies of any genre for that matter), I have sadly neither seen nor heard Lost Horizon. Never heard the music, that is - I've heard loads about its dubious contents.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 7:34pm

Beauty and the Beast
Hunchback of Notre Dame
42nd Street
Xanadu

[ShakinBaconGirl]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 7:35pm

South Park: Bigger, longer and uncut.

[NoName3]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 7:47pm

Love me some Harry Warren, After Eight. Let's not forget the Astaire/Rogers films (Berlin, Porter, Kern and Gershwin in their primes) and early Rodgers & Hart (Love Me Tonight among others they contributed to). I'm also fond of Kern's High, Wide and Handsome and Michel Legrand's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort.

Leigh Harline's Snow White and Pinocchio for Disney.

Nobody's mentioned The Wizard of Oz or A Star is Born by Harold Arlen!

I can't think of any score by Leslie Bricusse I care for.

Updated On: 3/31/14 at 07:47 PM

[luvcaroline]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 9:08pm

Purple Rain

Phantom of the Paradise - haven't listened to it since I was a teen, but back then I thought it was awesome

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 9:32pm

Two more:

Swing Time
A Damsel In Distress

And not to split hairs here, but Hugh Martin himself would correct people when they complimented him on his fine score to "Meet Me In St. Louis." He said it wasn't a score, really just three songs: The Boy Next Door, The Trolly Song, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. The rest of the songs in the movie are all "oldies" from the period and not original.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 10:07pm

Nashville
Gigi
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Eight Women
The Wizard of Oz
The Young Girls of Rochefort
New York New York (to the extent the songs were new)
Meet Me in St. Louis (ditto)
The Harvey Girls
Peter Pan
Beauty and the Beast
The Little Mermaid
Snow White
Sleeping Beauty
Cinderella
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Evening Primrose
Cinderella
It's Always Fair Weather
Valley of the Dolls
Shall We Dance
A Damsel in Distress
Follow the Fleet
The Pirate
Swing Time
Dick Tracy




Updated On: 3/31/14 at 10:07 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 10:11pm

Yes! Young Girls of Rochefort! Most definitely.
Technically not a musical but I love the musical numbers in Streets of Fire.

Updated On: 3/31/14 at 10:11 PM

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 10:21pm

Very true about Meet Me In St. Louis, brilliant as it is I guess it technically doesn't qualify. I do love those three songs though, and the arrangements of the the oldies are really good. "Skip To My Lou" never sounded better.

I also found it interesting when I recently discovered Athena and found that it re-used "The Boy (Girl) Next Door" from Meet Me In St. Louis a decade earlier and its cut opening "Faster Than Sound" would be finally used properly a decade after that in HIGH SPIRITS.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/31/14 at 10:27pm

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

[bk]

Posted: 4/1/14 at 1:40am

Um… :)

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/1/14 at 6:22am

Gosh darn it..how could I forget The First Nudie Musical!

Annette O'Toole: "The Light and the Smiles.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/1/14 at 7:41am

I can't believe no one's mentioned "State Fair," so ...

State Fair.