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 6 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
Carmen Jones (1954)	Oscar Hammerstein II's 1943 stage musical was updated (with new lyrics and storyline) and adapted for the screen - and directed by Otto Preminger for Fox Studios; this updating of Georges Bizet's Carmen opera starred an all-black cast with a Best Actress Oscar-nomination for Dorothy Dandridge (the first time an African-American performer had been nominated in the category); Dandridge starred as the sexily-wicked, femme fatale title character Carmen Jones (singing voice by opera singer Marilyn Horne) opposite Harry Belafonte (singing voice by LeVern Hutcherson) as her infatuated lover and army corporal Joe; the film's show-stopping number was Dat's Love set in an army camp mess hall.
Carnival of Souls (1962)	Director Herk Harvey's disturbing, low-budget horror thriller was notable for its macabre "dance of the ghouls" in Saltair - an abandoned, condemned and closed-down lakeside amusement park, where female car wreck survivor Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) was lured by a white-faced zombie.
Carousel (1956)	This downbeat Henry King-directed film, a box-office failure, was another Fox release of a Rodgers/Hammerstein musical adaptation - it was the only Rodgers and Hammerstein film to be completely devoid of Academy Awards nominations; it told about Billy Bigelow (Gordon MacRae) - a fast-talking circus barker who attracted the attention of lovely mill-worker Shirley Jones (as love interest and future wife Julie Jordan) and friend Barbara Ruick (as Carrie Pipperidge); its main songs were the energetic June Is Bustin' Out All Over (pictured) (shot on location at a dock harbor in Maine), the seven-minute meditative and moving Soliloquy, the beautiful duet between MacRae and Jones titled If I Loved You (pictured), This Was a Real Nice Clambake, the opening's Carousel Waltz, and the memorable You'll Never Walk Alone; the best song/dance was Louise's Ballet that featured dance legend Jacques d'Amboise as a seductive carnival barker.
Casablanca (1942)	In this classic romance drama, llsa (Ingrid Bergman) requested that piano player Sam (Dooley Wilson) play As Time Goes By to the consternation of cafe owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), who later drunkenly requested it himself; another memorable and stirring musical moment occurred when Rick nodded to the band leader to permit the playing of The Marseillaise - the French national anthem - followed by the memorable duel of national anthems with the patrons joining in to sing and drown out the Germans' anthem Wacht am Rhein.
Chicago (2002) # 12	The many showstopping numbers in Rob Marshall's Best Picture-winning musical, adapted from the long-running 1975 Broadway stage musical, included seductive vaudeville star diva Velma Kelly's (Oscar-winning short bobbed Catherine Zeta-Jones) spectacular opening song All That Jazz after she murdered her sister and her lover, matron Mama Morton's (Queen Latifah) When You're Good to Mama, and Roxie's naive husband Amos' (John C. Reilly) woeful Mr. Cellophane while dressed like a vaudeville clown; also the wildly fantastic and satirical We Both Reached for the Gun in which slimy, high-priced Chicago lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) was imagined as a ventriloquist and God-like puppet master (with Roxie as his dummy) who was defending both Kelley and murder suspect Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger), Razzle Dazzle ("Even if you're stiffer than a girder, they'll let you get away with murder / Razzle dazzle 'em, and they'll make you a star!"), and the show-stopping blazing finale Hot Honey Rag in which bitter rivals Roxie and Velma teamed up as a popular act.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)	This classic, colorful children's/family musical (resembling Mary Poppins (1964) but with mixed reviews, and The Love Bug (1968)), directed and co-scripted (with Roald Dahl) (and based on the novel The Magical Car by Ian Fleming) by veteran British filmmaker Ken Hughes, starred Dick Van Dyke (as eccentric flying car inventor Caractacus Potts) and Sally Ann Howes (as Truly Scrumptious), who boarded their magical "fine four-fendered friend" car for an 1910 adventure with his two children in a gaudy Mittel European kingdom; the composing team of Richard and Robert Sherman wrote twelve original songs for the film which included the Oscar-nominated title tune (pictured), Hushabye Mountain, the sweet Truly Scrumptious (pictured), P O S H (Posh) (pictured) performed by Lionel Jeffries, Lovely Lonely Man (pictured) sung by Sally Ann Howes, and the production number Toot Sweets (pictured).
A Chorus Line (1985)	This over-dramatic modern-day backstage musical directed by Richard Attenborough, an adaptation of Michael Bennett's highly-successful stage production, opened with the Broadway audition number I Hope I Get It where dozens of hopeful dancers tried to impress choreographer and ruthless director Zach (Michael Douglas) - who viewed them from the audience's seats in the darkness - for a spot in the 8-person chorus line; it also included the slightly bawdy song about plastic surgery titled Dance 10, Looks 3 sung by Val (Audrey Landers) ("Tits and ass / Bought myself a fancy pair / Tightened up the derriere"); other numbers included the soulful Who Am I, Anyway? by ill-fated auditioner Paul (Cameron English) and Zach's former girlfriend Cassie's (Alyson Reed) desperate Let Me Dance For You - performed as a sensual dance solo, both in present day and flashback; Cassie also delivered the torch song What I Did For Love; there were two renditions of One - first as a robotic, menacing vision of conformity, then reprised in the showstopping finale, featuring over a hundred identical chorus members, multiplying geometrically on stage.
Cinderella (1950)	This Disney feature film animation about a rags-to-riches transformation featured the Oscar-nominated Bibbidy-Bobbidi-Boo that was sung by the Fairy Godmother (voice of Verna Felton) as she transformed a pumpkin into a coach and Cinderella's (voice of Ilene Woods) rags into a beautiful white gown, etc.
Citizen Kane (1941)	During the newspaper office party scene, the Charlie Kane Song number was a rousing, intricately-edited song and dance production featuring a line of marching band members dressed in the costumes of Catherine the Great's Russia followed by dancing chorus girls carrying rifles; the stage show was led by a baton-wielding comic named Charles Bennett (in a white-striped blazer and a straw hat) who provided a singing tribute to Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles): ("There is a man - a certain man / And for the poor you may be sure / That he'll do all he can! / Who is this one? / This fav'rite son?...") who soon joined the chorus girls in the dance routine; the film also portrayed Kane's wife Susan Alexander's (Dorothy Comingore) disastrous debut playing the lead in the unsuccessful Salaambo (with a stagehand's wordless review high up in the theatre - holding his nose in disgust at the embarrassing performance).
A Clockwork Orange (1971)	In Stanley Kubrick's futuristic sci-fi film's chilling rape scene, Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his "droogs" beat up an old man and raped his wife while Alex incongruously sang Singin' in the Rain (the original Gene Kelly version would be reprised during the end credits with a memorably dark subtext).