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 20 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
Reaching for the Moon (1930)	This Edmund Goulding-directed romantic comedy/farce, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Bebe Daniels, was initially the first musical showcasing of Irving Berlin songs - but all of his songs were removed except for (When the Folks High-Up Do the Mean) Low-Down; the song was notably sung by Bing Crosby in his feature film screen debut as a lead actor (in the same year, he appeared in The King of Jazz (1930) as a member of the Rhythm Boys in a couple of musical skits).
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)	In this Fox film's final scene, Shirley Temple (as Rebecca Winstead) and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (as Aloysius) wore uniforms while tap-dancing together in the military dance number The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.
The Red Shoes (1948)	This was Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell's stylized and Technicolored adaptation of the famous Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale - considered the quintessential ballet film, especially in its 15 minute balletic sequence - it was filled with beautiful, expressive, and vibrantly photographed ballet dancing (by the exquisite Moira Shearer as aspiring ballerina Victoria Page), often led by the authoritarian rule of charismatic ballet impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook).
Rhapsody in Blue (1945)	This Warner Brothers' and Irving Rapper-directed fictionalized biography of the famed composer George Gershwin (portrayed by Robert Alda in his screen debut) began the trend to produce biopics of composers/musicians; it starred many musicians as themselves: conductor Paul Whiteman, singer Al Jolson, producer George White, pianist-singer Hazel Scott, and singer Anne Brown; it also featured almost two dozen of Gershwin's tunes, including Swanee (pictured) (sung by Al Jolson in blackface at the Winter Garden and in his first film since 1939), Summertime (sung by Anne Brown), The Man I Love (sung by Hazel Scott), and Somebody Loves Me (pictured) (sung by Joan Leslie as Gershwin's mythical girlfriend/singer Julie Adams and Tom Patricola), as well as concert performances (performed by Oscar Levant dubbing for Alda and conductor Paul Whiteman) of Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra.
Rio Rita (1929) and Rio Rita (1941)	RKO's first major all-talking production, one of the first musical spectaculars (filmed in black and white with one rare Technicolor sequence in the last half hour), starred beautiful Bebe Daniels (in her first "talkie") as the south-of-the-border Hispanic title character and John Boles (as a handsome Texas ranger); it was a popular but costly adaptation of Florenz Ziegfeld's successful 1927 Broadway stage musical hit that was filmed virtually as a faithful transcription of the play; it was later remade in 1941 by MGM as a Bud Abbott and Lou Costello vehicle and musical comedy, with Kathryn Grayson as Rita.
Risky Business (1983)	This teen comedy from first-time writer and director Paul Brickman was famed for the scene of college-bound Chicago teenager Joel Goodsen (young and mostly unknown Tom Cruise) making a floor-sliding entrance into his living room while solo dancing and wearing white socks, a pink-striped shirt, and tight underwear, and lip-synching (and air-guitaring) to the tune of Bob Seger's Old Time Rock & Roll.
Road To Morocco (1942)	This Arabian Nights comedy farce, the third Road film with Bob Hope-Bing Crosby-Dorothy Lamour teaming together (and probably the best of the lot), included the song (We're Off On The) Road To Morocco (pictured) sung by Hope and Crosby, and the hit romantic ballad Moonlight Becomes You - first performed by Crosby (to Dorothy) and then reprised by the trio in a mirage sequence in which they lip-synched to each other's voices.
Roberta (1935)	This film was the third teaming of Fred Astaire (as bandleader Huck Haines) and Ginger Rogers (in one of her greatest roles as Astaire's boyhood girlfriend and cafe singer Countess Scharwenka), in the least familiar film of the dance series, and one in which they took supporting roles; in this Broadway adaptation, they danced briefly in a reprise of Jerome Kern's Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (pictured) (also sung by co-star Irene Dunne) - their first formal dance (with graceful dips by Rogers); they also performed the role-reversed I Won't Dance song (written specifically for the film and sung by Astaire and Rogers) in which a gold-lamé-gowned Rogers was the one to coax Astaire into a tap dancing solo; the film's best number was Fred and Ginger's dance I'll Be Hard to Handle.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)	There were many wild, energetic song-and-dance numbers in this notorious midnight movie audience participation cult film, including the opening song Science Fiction/Double Feature sung by a giant pair of disembodied blood-red lips (voice of Richard O'Brien) - a tribute to Hollywood's B-horror films; Brad Majors (Barry Bostick) proposed marriage in song to Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon) with Dammit Janet; their expectant number before entering a gothic mansion on a rainy night was Over at the Frankenstein Place; and of course, the film was highlighted by the famous Time Warp ("It's just a jump to the left...") song-and-dance with unconventional dancers of all races and sizes and crazed Dr. Frank N. Furter's (Tim Curry) campy introduction Sweet Transvestite; Janet was sexually-awakened while wearing nothing but a white bra and panties as she seduced love machine Rocky (Peter Hinwood) with the song Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me - as cronies Magenta (Patricia Quinn) and Columbia ("Little" Nell Campbell) spied on them; the film climaxed with an entire "floor show" medley, first with Brad, Janet, Rocky, Columbia and Dr. Scott, all wearing garters and a feather boa like Frank, singing his praises and how they were sexually liberated in Rose Tint My World, followed by Frank's appearance at the RKO Picture logo, crooning: "Whatever happened to Fay Wray? That delicate, satin-draped frame..."
Roman Scandals (1933)	This elaborate Samuel Goldwyn production (the last film Berkeley directed for the studio before his incredibly-successful run with Warner Brothers), one of the racier movie musicals, it featured notable Harry Warren/Al Dubin songs sung by Eddie Cantor, in a fantasy daydream in ancient Rome; the best of the lot were Keep Young and Beautiful, No More Love, and Build a Little Home; it featured Cantor�s infamous blackface performances and a slave-market auction sequence in which Busby Berkeley convinced a number of the chorus girls to appear scantily-clad and some were completely nude (wearing strategically-placed long blonde wigs).
The Rose (1979)	Bettle Midler (in her film debut) gave a powerfully-electric Oscar-nominated performance as Mary Rose "The Rose" Foster - a bisexual, drug-abusing, alcoholic Janis Joplin-like singer; she delivered a sweet, melancholic performance of The Rose (pictured), as well as other performances of show-stopping, rousing defiantly-sung numbers: When a Man Loves a Woman, Sold My Soul To Rock 'N' Roll, Keep On Rockin', and the two numbers Stay With Me and Let Me Call You Sweetheart she sang before tragically collapsing and dying on stage of exhaustion and a drug overdose.
Rose Marie (1936)	This was the second screen version of the popular operetta, and the second screen partnering of Jeanette MacDonald (as popular opera singer Marie de Flor whose brother - James Stewart in his second film role - was a fugitive in the Canadian wilderness) and Nelson Eddy (as a handsome Canadian Mountie in pursuit), with their best-remembered duet of their heartfelt love song together Indian Love Call ("When I’m calling you-ou-ou-ou").
Rose of Washington Square (1939)	This Fox Studios film, loosely fictionalized and based on the difficult marriage between Fanny Brice and Nick Arnstein, headlined contralto singing star Alice Faye as musical singing star Rose Sargent; she sang the torch song My Man for her straying crook/con-man husband (Tyrone Power); one of the film's other attractions was Al Jolson reprising his hit standards, including Mammy, Toot-Toot Tootsie, Rockabye Your Baby and California Here I Come.