Posts from Paula in thread „Western Musicals-Index/Discussion“

    Here's another -- The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. ;) The film version stars Burt Reynolds and Dollie Parton.


    Also, this was never made into a film that I know of, but 110 in the Shade is a terrific musical. It was based on a play by N. Richard Nash, The Rainmaker, which was turned into a 1956 film starring Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn.


    The story is about a unmarried woman who keeps house for her brothers and father in a small Western town plagued by drought during the Depression era. Her family worries about her unmarried state but nothing happens -- to Lizzie or anyone else -- until a charming drifter named Starbuck arrives in town claiming he can make it rain for $100.


    Nash also wrote the book for the musical version, 110 in the Shade, with lyrics by Tom Jones, and music by Harvey Schmidt. Fans of Westerns should recognize the name of the performer who played Starbuck in the original Broadway production: Robert Horton, who had just spent the past five years playing Flint on the popular Western TV series Wagon Train. :)

    Annie Get Your Gun, of course!


    The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which was Debby Reynolds' favorite musical role.


    I'm strangely fond of The Kissing Bandit, though I'm sure Frank Sinatra would want my head examined. But it does have that beautiful song, "What's Wrong with Me?" and that incendiary dance number, "The Dance of Fury," with Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse and Ricardo Montalban.


    Don't forget the Western OPERA -- "La Fanciulla del West" -- Girl of the Golden West, by Giacomo Puccini.


    Enrico Caruso as Dick Johnson, a.k.a. Ramerrez, the bandit-hero of Girl of the Golden West