Even those utterly unfamiliar with American musical theatre are likely to have some passing knowledge of the work of Richard Rodgers, who composed the music for dozens of hit musicals--including The King and I, Oklahoma!, Carousel, Pal Joey, South Pacific, Babes in Arms and The Sound of Music--and worked with two of the greatest lyricists of the 20th century, Oscar Hammerstein and Lorenz Hart. Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds, from the acclaimed PBS American Masters series, provides a thorough summary of Rodgers' life and groundbreaking work in the American theatre, combining interview footage with Julie Andrews, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Trevor Nunn, Shirley Jones, and Celeste Holm (as well as archival interview footage with Rodgers himself) with notable performance clips featuring Mary Martin, Frank Sinatra, Diahann Carroll, Gordon MacRae and John Coltrane. While some of Rodgers' songs sound fairly dated today, the filmmakers have done an admirable job of placing his work in its historical context, ably underscoring the fact that Rodgers and Hart and Rodgers and Hammerstein reinvented the American musical on several occasions. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Van Vleck)
Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds
(2001) 117 min. VHS: $19.98, DVD: $24.98. Wellspring Media (avail. from most distributors). PPR. Color cover. ISBN: 0-7942-0167-9 (vhs), 0-7942-0168-7 (dvd). Volume 17, Issue 4
Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds
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