Musical (Song and Dance) Movie Moments and Scenes

Greatest Musical (Song and Dance) Movie Moments and Scenes

The following listing (in multiple parts) was an attempt to compile a collection of many of the greatest song and dance moments in film history. Though the list appears to be dominated by musicals, other genres were examined and included.

Those that are exceptional examples of the development of song/dance are marked with this symbol:

AFI's 25 Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time are marked with an icon and their ranking number (#)

Another point of reference for this kind of material may be found in the AFI's selections of 100 Years...100 Songs and in this site's genre writeup of "Musical Films".

Greatest Musical - Song and Dance Movie Moments and Scenes (alphabetical) - Part 17 Part 1 \| Part 2 \| Part 3 \| Part 4 \| Part 5 \| Part 6 \| Part 7 \| Part 8 \| Part 9 \| Part 10 \| Part 11 \| Part 12 \| Part 13 \| Part 14 \| Part 15 \| Part 16 \| Part 17 \| Part 18 \| Part 19 \| Part 20 \| Part 21 \| Part 22 \| Part 23 \| Part 24 \| Part 25
Movie Title	Brief Scene Description	Example
Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)	This MGM film has been considered the best of Esther Williams' aquacade ballets - with two sequences directed by Busby Berkeley; in this one, she portrayed 1920s Australian swimming champion Annette Kellerman in a recreation of her underwater aquatic tank performance at the NY Hippodrome; in the first spectacular set, four hundred water fountain streams shot up 30 feet to form a giant waterfall in which Esther Williams arose from the center of the geyser to perform a 40-foot swan dive into multi-colored water; in a second major number, The Smoke Number, giant 4th of July-type fiery sparklers, flame plumes and colored smoke streams shooting up fifty feet combined with trapeze performers who dove from giant swings above the water.
Modern Times (1936)	Actor-director Charlie Chaplin's own film was a final stand against the synchronized sound film - and his last full-length "silent film" - although it was technically a quasi-silent film, in which Chaplin's actual voice was heard singing an imaginary, nonsense song of gibberish (as a singing waiter).
Monterey Pop (1968)	This was the first contemporary music (rock 'n roll concert) industry film; it was filmed at the historic Monterey International Pop Festival in California, featuring such performers as Jimi Hendrix (setting his guitar on fire), The Who, The Mamas and the Papas, Janis Joplin (singing the incredible Ball and Chain), The Who (smashing their equipment), and more.
Morocco (1930)	This film featured sultry seductress and bewitching singer Amy Jolly's (Marlene Dietrich in her American film debut) famous gender-challenging cigarette-smoking, tuxedo-clad androgynous cabaret act in Lo Tinto's North African cabaret - in an early scene, she sang Quand L'amour Est Mort with smoky eroticism, and topped it off by kissing a woman in the audience full on the mouth - one of the earliest (if not the first) female-to-female kisses; in a slightly later scene, the seductive Dietrich, wearing a skimpy black dress and with a feathery boa draped over her shoulders, also performed What Am I Bid for My Apple?: ("An apple they say, keeps the doctor away, while his pretty young wife has the time of her life, with the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, oh what am I bid for my apple?")
Moulin Rouge! (2001) #25	In Baz Luhrmann's dazzlingly colorful, whirling and kinetic modern musical with stunning Oscar-winning costuming and its story about a tragic love, there were many popular rock and soul songs performed by actors and singers, highlighted by Lady Marmalade performed by Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya and Pink; also included were Ewan McGregor's (as penniless but lovelorn writer/poet Christian) performances of The Sound of Music and Elton John's Your Song with Placido Domingo; other songs were sung by McGregor and Nicole Kidman (as tubuculosis-afflicted courtesan Satine) - including the Elephant Love Medley (featuring over a half-dozen love songs and ballads) on a Parisian rooftop under a heavenly blue sky, and their duet Come What May; the film introduced the Moulin Rouge with the feverishly dreamlike can-can musical performance of red-lipped chorine Kidman perched on a flying trapeze-like swing above an audience of top-hatted gentlemen in cool-blue light and singing a Marilyn-to-Madonna Sparkling Diamonds medley (""Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" and "Material Girl") .
The Muppet Movie (1979) and subsequent Muppet films	The film's opening crane shot contained the astonishing image of Kermit the Frog (voice of Jim Henson) sitting on a log in a Mississippi swamp, strumming a banjo and singing the Oscar-nominated The Rainbow Connection; other highlights included Kermit and Fozzie Bear's (voice of Frank Oz) road song Movin' Right Along, Miss Piggy's (also voice of Oz) ode to love at first sight for Kermit Never Before and Never Again, Dr. Teeth (also voice of Henson) and the Electric Meyhem's psychedelic Can You Picture That?; Kermit and pianist Rowlf the Dog's (also voice of Henson) torch song I Hope That Something Better Comes Along, and Gonzo's (voice of Dave Goelz) sweet, wistful song I'm Going To Go Back There Someday around a nighttime desert campfire; and in the climactic Magic Show culminating in a hole being blasted through the roof of the studio set to allow a rainbow to cascade in, the cast reprised The Rainbow Connection: ("Life's like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending, we did what we set out to do..."); all of the subsequent Muppet films would feature catchy original tunes, including The Great Muppet Caper (1981) which featured the romantic Oscar-nominated song The First Time It Happens, followed by The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) with all the familiar puppet characters reprising their roles in the Big Apple and referencing the classic Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let's put on a show" musicals - and with Miss Piggy in a diva role; later, A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) featured many Christmas-themed songs including Kermit's (as Bob Cratchit) One More Sleep 'Til Christmas.
The Music Man (1962)	Warners' adapted composer Meredith Willson's story/score and the spirited 1957 stage musical into this popular and cheerful production set in 1912 in River City, Iowa, with well-known songs sung by infamous con-man "Professor" Harold Hill (Robert Preston reprising his stage role) including Ya Got Trouble ("Ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for 'pool'!") (pictured), Marian the Librarian (portrayed by Shirley Jones) (pictured), and the climactic end credits reprise of the hit song 76 Trombones (pictured), with Hill striding triumphantly in front of the now- 'professional' marching band in the town composed of dozens of teens; ensemble musical numbers include the town's singing of The Wells-Fargo Wagon (highlighted by then-child actor Ron "Ronny" Howard's lisping, singing climax) (pictured), the town ladies' disapproving Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little merged with The Buffalo Bills barbershop quartet rendition of Goodnight, Ladies, and Buddy Hackett's (portraying Hill's ex-con partner Marcellus Washburn) lively song and dance Shipoopi (pictured); also memorable was the singing of the charming tune Gary, Indiana and the inventive opening Salesman Song in which a train car full of salesmen mimicked train sounds while complaining about the fraudulent Hill ("Yesssssss, ssssssssssir! Yesssssss, ssssssssssir!")
My Darling Clementine (1946)	Although this was a John Ford western, it contained one memorable dance sequence in the town of Tombstone to celebrate the half-erected construction of a church a delightful open-air dance; Marshall Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) asked schoolmarm Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs): "Oblige me ma'am?" She accepted and as they made their way up to the raised dance floor, everyone was told to part deferentially around them and make way: "Sashay back and make room for our new Marshal and his lady-fair"; Wyatt gracefully whirled her around in a rigid mechanical waltz step, as everyone clapped from an outer circle.
My Dream is Yours (1949)	In this Michael Curtiz-directed Warner Bros. musical comedy (a Technicolored remake of the musical Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934)), a young mid-20s Doris Day (in her second film as war widow and aspiring radio singer/star Martha Gibson) starred with Jack Carson (as hot-shot promoter Doug Blake), and sang the film's highlighted hit I'll String Along With You to her young son; this film was most notable for its animated dream sequence (directed by Friz Freleng) using Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody" as the basis for the Freddy Get Ready sequence that combined live action with an animated Bugs Bunny (voice of Mel Blanc) and Tweety.
My Fair Lady (1964) #8	Best Director George Cukor's and Warners' Best Picture-winning screen musical (eight years after the amazing success of the Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe Broadway play of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion) told the rags-to-riches story of an incorrigible phonetics instructor - Professor Henry Higgins (Oscar-winning Rex Harrison) - and his bet that he could pass off a street urchin flower seller - Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn replacing the stage's Julie Andrews, with singing dubbed by Marni Nixon) - as a lady; the many memorable songs set in an idealized Edwardian London included Eliza's wistful dreams and desires for success (and chocolates) in Wouldn't It Be Loverly? (pictured), and her triumphant and joyful song with Higgins' friend Col. Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) and Higgins entitled The Rain in Spain (I Think She's Got It) (pictured) after Eliza showed marked improvement in her speech tutoring; early on, Higgins sang Why Can't the English? (pictured) to reveal his snobbery about the misuse of the English language, and he eloquently proclaimed his eternal bachelorhood in I'm an Ordinary Man; Eliza's scoundrel father Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway) delivered two rousing songs: With a Little Bit of Luck and Get Me To the Church On Time (pictured); toward the middle of the film, Eliza expressed her bitter and vengeful fantasies toward Higgins in Just You Wait (pictured): ("Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait! / You'll be sorry, but your tears'll be too late!"); one of the musical's best-known songs was Freddy Eynsford-Hill's (Jeremy Brett) ode to Eliza titled On the Street Where You Live (pictured); Eliza also sang the demanding Show Me: ("Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words... Don't talk of stars, burning above. If you're in love, show me! / Tell me no dreams filled with desire. If you're on fire, show me!") and the beautifully romantic I Could Have Danced All Night; and a baffled and confused Higgins queried with the misogynistic Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man!, while Eliza claimed she no longer needed Henry and could be independent in her rendition of Without You: ("There'll be spring every year without you / England still will be here without you"); one of the loveliest songs in the soundtrack was Higgins' regretful I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face (pictured) when he finally realized his love for Eliza.
Nashville (1975)	In director Robert Altman's country-western character study that interweaved and crisscrossed the lives and destinies of 24 different characters in a free-flowing tapestry or kaleidoscope, one of the musical highlights included the scene in which folk singer Tommy Brown (Keith Carradine) strummed his guitar and sang It Don't Worry Me and also delivered the seductive I'm Easy (pictured) to a crowd - with the camera slowly showing the face of aroused audience member Linnea (Lily Tomlin) in the back; also memorable was Barbara Jean's (Oscar-nominated Ronee Blakely) duet titled One, I Love You (pictured) with Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) and her last moving performance of My Idaho Home (pictured) at a political rally at the Nashville Parthenon when she was suddenly assassinated - and quickly replaced with unknown performer Albuquerque (Barbara Harris) who calmed the crowd with It Don't Worry Me.
Naughty Marietta (1935)	This box-office success, the first of the profitable MGM musicals starring MacDonald and Eddy, was a new version (directed by W.S. Van Dyke) of the 1910 operetta by Victor Herbert and Rida Johnson Young; it starred Jeanette MacDonald (as disguised 18th century French Princess Marie) and newcomer Nelson Eddy (as Captain Dick Warrington, head of a troop of mercenary scouts) in a pre-Revolutionary America setting; the best of their performed songs was Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life (pictured) - one of MacDonald's signature tunes, as well as I'm Falling in Love With Someone.