To celebrate National Classic Movie Day in style, I arbitrarily yet joyfully offer five of my favorite musical numbers in non-musical films. Only one is from noir, but all are classics in my world. From the sublime to the silly, enjoy.
In the melodrama with music that is 1954’s A Star is Born, “The Man That Got Away” shows Garland’s incredible emotional range, the power in her voice, and how she sings with her whole body.
Though I wish they’d have let her sing it herself, the “Put the Blame on Mame” number in Gilda (1946) is the film’s climax, as Rita Hayworth illustrates the impossibility of escaping the label of whore, even when you’re far more sinned against than sinning.
Monroe, Lemmon, and Curtis are utterly adorable in this wickedly adorable rending of “Running Wild” in Some Like It Hot (1959).
How many ways can you dally with a classic? Mel Brooks knows, and Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle carry off “Puttin’ on the Ritz” with inimitable style in the exquisite satire/homage Young Frankenstein (1974).
I adore the original The Producers (1968), and no other musical number can boast a Nazi theme with such wit and panache as “Springtime for Hitler.”
B Noir Detour 
May 16, 2016 at 5:32 PM
Good choices, for some reason I like songs in non-musicals but I am not too keen on musicals themselves. Springtime for Hitler is brilliant
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May 16, 2016 at 5:55 PM
Musicals have their own logic as a genre and that absurd situation of characters suddenly breaking into song and dance. When you have music in a non-musical, you have to think more about its logical placement. Yet, musicals can be read queerly for their moments of excess, where the heteronormative demands disappear momentarily as single-gendered groups enjoy singing and dancing together and the like.
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May 16, 2016 at 6:26 PM
I know but the part of me that is grow up in the industrial city of Birmingham and is quite dour and no nonsense thinks every time I see a musical ‘Why the fuck are they singing and dancing for?’. Not the most intelligent and considered of opinions but some reactions you can’t overcome.
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May 16, 2016 at 8:23 PM
Things like genre and Japanese toilets only make sense in their proper context.
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May 16, 2016 at 8:26 PM
I know and I didn’t mean to be offensive it’s just my reaction…the one movie I love that has a lot of musical interludes is the The Wicker Man, which I must post about soon
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May 16, 2016 at 8:37 PM
You’re not at all being offensive. I’m agreeing with you. It’s all context.
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May 16, 2016 at 6:15 PM
Rita and Marilyn’s numbers are my favourites!!
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May 26, 2016 at 6:55 PM
Sweden has never produced any notable musicals, but two of my favourite musical scenes are from Sweden. First, PENSIONAT PARADISET – that utterly deranged piece of nonsense from 1937. The great Thor Modéen plays a tailor who is forced to pose as latin american opera singer at a summer resort (don’t ask – this movie makes no sense plotwise) and when he gets a request a to sing – oh boy… Be sure to watch it all the way through…
“Bravo! Bravo! Oh my god! What a voice! Such TEMPEREMANTO! I should have met you – uh – two years ago…”
“You don’t say?”
“YESSS!!!”
(and then…)
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May 26, 2016 at 7:05 PM
And then there’s SWING iT MAGISTERN (appr. SWING IT TEACHER) from 1940. There’s a new music teacher at school and when the talented Inga (Alice Babs, later with e.g. Duke Ellington) bursts into the hep title song the whole class goes absolutely bonkers, To the extent that the ultra-conservative principal hears the noise from below and controversy ensues. This is probably the first teen rebellion in Swedish screen history. The great Thor Modéen is in this too, albeit in a minor role. But damn, he’s good.
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May 27, 2016 at 1:19 AM
Glad to see the comedy stuff included. PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ never fails to amuse.
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May 27, 2016 at 1:25 AM
I love comedy. It’s hard being a noir blog sometimes. 😉
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