10 Easy Questions about Songs From The Movies

Answer: Gigi

Released in 1958, "Gigi" won nine Oscars. It was set in Paris in the early part of the 20th Century and was the story of a platonic friendship between a rich playboy and a young woman.
She had been brought up to be a wealthy man's mistress, but would platonic friendship turn to true romance instead? - that was the question for cinema goers.
Leslie Caron starred as Gigi and Maurice Chevalier as her friend, Honoré Lachaille.
Chevalier sang "Thank Heaven For Little Girls."
Music for the movie was written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

Answer: The Woman In Red

Released in 1984, "The Woman In Red" was a romantic comedy that starred Gene Wilder and Kelly Le Brock.
Wilder starred as a young man who was enraptured by the sight of a young woman, Le Brock, on seeing her red dress blown up around her by a gust of wind.
He was married, but that did not stop him pursuing her. Eventually they got together in her bedroom - only for her husband to return.
Trying to escape, he ended up on a ledge of her high-rise apartment, with his peril captured by a television crew down below.
"I Just Called to Say I Love You" was written and sung by Stevie Wonder and won an Academy Award for best original song.

Answer: Dr Doolittle

"Dr Doolittle" was first made as a movie in 1967 and remade in 1988.
Set in Victorian England, this was the story of a man who could talk to animals. Much of the drama revolved around his attempts to take a circus seal, dressed in women's clothing, back to the North Pole. Their ship was lost in a storm and they washed up on a deserted island. Love blossomed between the doctor and an assistant (a human assistant, to be clear.)
Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, Anthony Newley and Richard Attenborough starred in the adaption of three earlier novels by Hugh Lofting.
Sung in 1967 by Rex Harrison, "Talk To The Animals" won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Eddie Murphy sang it in the re-make.

Answer: Oliver!

Released in 1968, "Oliver!" was based on a stage musical, which was adapted from the novel "OliverTwist" by Charles Dickens.
All told the story of a young orphan boy sent to a workhouse in mid 19th Century England.
The boy, played in the movie by Mark Lester, escaped the cruel treatment and made his way to London.
There, he fell in with a criminal gang and became a pickpocket.
His situation took a turn for the better when a genial bookseller saved him from a jail sentence and gave him a home.
The criminal gang, though, was not finished with him and there were more twists and turns before an (apparently) happy ending.
"Oliver!" was nominated for 11 Oscars and won six. It starred Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed, Jack Wild, Harry Secombe, and Mark Lester.
The movie and the earlier stage show featured a number of songs, all written by Lionel Bart.

Answer: The Jazz Singer

Released in 1927, and remade in 1980, "The Jazz Singer" was the story of a New York Jewish boy who dreamt about becoming a famous singer, much against his family's wishes.
It traced his growing career and his success leading up to the production of a big Broadway show, "April Follies."
It also brought the singer, played first of all by Al Jolson, back to his family.
It was the first full-length movie with synchronized sound, even if the dialogue was minimal.
It won producer Darryl F. Zanuck a Special Academy Award .
Al Jolson sang "My Mammy" in the movie, although he was not the first to cover it, and it became one of his signature songs thereafter.

Answer: Midnight Cowboy

Released in 1969, "Midnight Cowboy" was based on a novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy.
It told the tale of a young Texan (played by Jon Voight) trying to escape his humdrum life by travelling to the exciting New York City.
He quickly learnt that city life was not easy, either. He was befriended by a street conman (Dustin Hoffman) who introduced him to the seedier side of life.
"Midnight Cowboy" won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first X-rated movie to win an Oscar, although it was subsequently downrated.
The song "Everybody's Talkin'" was written by Fred Neil and recorded by him in 1966. Harry Nilsson sang it in the movie and it became a hit.

Answer: Blackboard Jungle

Released in 1955, "Blackboard Jungle" was based on the novel of the same name by Evan Hunter.
It was the story of a young teacher (Glenn Ford), newly arrived at a tough inner-city high school to find that the pupils were less interested in education than life on the street.
The movie showed his attempts to prove to the pupils that, through education, there was a better way.
Not all accepted that and it led to a classroom showdown with the chief delinquent (Vic Morrow).
"Rock Around the Clock" was written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers in 1952. It was first recorded by Sonny Dae and His Knights on March 20, 1954. Bill Haley & His Comets released their version a month later. It became a hit when chosen for the soundtrack of "Blackboard Jungle".

Answer: M*A*S*H

Released in 1970, "M*A*S*H" was a black comedy that satirised warfare.
It was set in a US Army 'Mobile Army Surgical Hospital' during the Korean War.
It starred Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt, and Elliott Gould as wise-cracking surgeons, with support by Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, and Gary Burghoff.
Humour was their way of coping with the trauma and destruction of bodies they saw every day.
Robert Altman directed the movie, which set out to show the absurdities of war. Although set in Korea, the feeling was that Altman was making a point or two about the ongoing Vietnam War. It was nominated for five Oscars, but won only one, Best Screenplay.
Subsequently, the movie was adapted for television and became a critical and popular success.
"Suicide Is Painless" was written by Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman to be sung by a character during the movie (Ken Prymus playing Private Seidman), and was adapted to be the theme song, and was recorded by session singers.
The TV show used an instrumental version as its theme.

Answer: The Producers

Released in 1968, "The Producers" was a satirical comedy written and directed by Mel Brooks.
Zero Mostel starred as a corrupt Broadway producer who had a brainwave when he realised that he could make a lot of money from a flop show by selling a lot of shares in it.
He set out to find a sure-fire flop, and it looked like he had found one with a show called "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden", written by a Nazi sympathiser.
He acquired the rights and then he and a producer, Gene Wilder, set about making the worst show they could.
The trouble was the audience loved the show. What was intended to be a loving homage to Hitler they saw as a satire.
The original writer was not, though, best pleased and confronted Mosten and Wilder with a gun.
Brooks won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay,
Brooks also wrote the songs, including "Springtime for Hitler", which was performed in the movie by goose-stepping can can dancers led by a sinister officer dressed in SS black.

Answer: My Fair Lady

Released in 1964, "My Fair Lady" was adapted from a stage musical, which in turn was based on the stage play "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw, written in 1913.
It was set in London in Edwardian times and focussed on Professor Henry Higgins (played by Rex Harrison) who was a scholar of phonetics. He believed that the way a person spoke could influence their entire life.
He also believed that he could teach anyone to speak like nobility. Challenged to do so, he chose young flower seller Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) as a subject to 'improve' her strong Cockney accent.
After months of training, all seemed to be going well. Then, Eliza became disillusioned by the callousness of her treatment by Higgins and walked out, to be with a young man she met and resume her former life.
Higgins started to accept that he had lost her, but then she reappeared...and that is where the film ended. What happened next?...the audience never found out.
"I Could Have Danced All Night" was taken from the Lerner and Loewe stage musical. Although cinema audiences saw Audrey Hepburn 'sing' the song, the voice they heard was that of Marni Nixon, a talented soprano who was the voice double (if such a job description exists) for more stars in more movies than many people know.