I adore musicals, have done ever since I was about 10 and saw Singing in the Rain on the telly. I was totally hooked and have been ever since. Then I saw Swing Time with Fred and Ginger and was hooked all over again. Now who is best, Fred or Gene? Well, there is no contest. They are both brilliant. Gene Kelly's style was once described as that of a 'truck driver' whereas Fred Astaire was all elegance and grace.
When the video was invented it opened a whole new exciting world of taping movies I did not know existed and being able to keep them! Now we have DVDs and heavens knows what else, but I can remember the first film I taped and and how thrilled I was that there was this facility available to me. I used to scour the Radio Times listings each week to search out Fred and Gene movies I could tape and found lots that I had never heard of. I didn't know that Fred Astaire had had so many partners, I assumed that Ginger Rogers was the only one but there was Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth, Pauline Goddard, Cyd Charisse (this lady had legs going up to her armpits...) and later Leslie Caron.
Over the last few years I have been gradually replacing all my old battered videos with DVDs and am 
delighted that the lesser well know musicals are also being remastered and reissued. You were Never Lovelier, Three Little Words and You'll Never Get Rich are three examples of some of the Astaire mini-masterpieces now available and some of them for as little as £5. One of my favourites I am keeping an eye out for is Take me Out to the Ballgame with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin (the same trio who starred in On the Town) with Esther Williams as the romantic interest. She could not act but she could swim and her first appearance in the film was in the swimming pool.
The Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals were also among my favourites and I remember being taken to the cinema with my mother and sister to see Carousel in brand new wide screen Cinemascope and being totally overwhelmed by the size of this screen which looked HUGE then, and the colour and the dancing and the music. I also fell in love with Gordon McRae who went on to star in Oklahoma and then later on, made two simply delightful musicals with Doris Day, On Moonlight Bay and By the Light of the Silvery Moon, set in the kind of small American town which I believe only existed in musicals such as this and Meet me in St Louis.
The West End is full of musicals at the moment. Lots of them are new, but there is a revival of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers doing great business and Chicago is now in its 20th year so some of the oldies are holding up, though I tend to think of Chicago as a new kid on the block even after all this time. For me great musicals ended around 1960, with the possible exception of Grease, and yes I know that is a sweeping statement but I don't care.....
'I'm singing in the rain just singing in the rain, what a glorious feeling I'm happy again...'
