Oklahoma!

I love this movie! It's one of the all time best musicals ever to be made. The songs are wonderful and the acting is great. Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones are great together in this movie (also in Carousel). It's one of my top movies and musicals. Rodgers and Hammerstein put out the best musicals of all time.

The story follows various characters in the Oklahoma territory at the turn of the century. Much of the drama concerns who's taking who to the big dance: Laurey Williams (Shirley Jones) wants to go with Curly McLain (Gordon MacRae), but ends up being asked by the creepy Jud Fry (Rod Steiger). Cowboy Will Parker (Gene Nelson) pines for Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame), but she's with traveling salesman Ali Hakim (Eddie Albert).

Charlotte Greenwood, with whom I am most familiar in her early talking picture days, shows up in several of these Fox musicals in supporting roles and adds punch to any part she takes.

This movie is notable for a few reasons. It was the first movie made in the Todd-AO 70mm format, a process so new that, just in case things went wrong, the movie was simultaneously shot in CinemaScope. Most theatergoers saw the CinemaScope version which was distributed by first RKO and then Fox, while the Todd-AO version was taken out by the Magna Theater Corporation as the first of the "roadshow" musicals that began to dominate the genre for the next 20 years.

Director Fred Zinnemann does a terrific job of utilizing the widescreen format, filling the screen with activity and beautiful scenery. The songs, many of which have become standards, are infectious if occasionally overlong, much like the movie itself. The performances are all BIG, too, from Steiger's method intensity to MacRae's wholesome hero. Lovely Shirley Jones makes her film debut and acquits herself well enough. Gene Nelson gets some of the best dance numbers, naturally. It may be blasphemous, but I could have done without the lengthy vocal-less dancing dream sequence. The movie earned Oscar nominations for Best Color Cinematography (Robert Surtees) and Best Editing (Gene Ruggiero, George Boemler), and it won for Best Score (Robert Russell Bennett, Jay Blackton, Adolph Deutsch) and Best Sound.

I emphasize 60 because the musical debuted on Broadway in 1943, even though the film version was released 12 years later.

An unforgettable score. Perfect singer-actors. Tantalizing cinematography. It does not seem to get much better than this.

The main thing I admire about Oklahoma is that like the Rodgers and Hammerstein adaptations that would follow it (Carousel, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song, and, of course, The Sound of Music), the movie was fronted by legitimate musical talent, unlike in My Fair Lady and West Side Story. Further, it was a movie that did not rely on major stars, Rod Steiger notwithstanding, to make it an enjoyable picture. (Lest you forget this movie 'introduced' Shirley Jones as Laurey. Lest you would also like to know, the stage musical Oklahoma debuted on March 31, 1943, which coincidentally was a birthday of Miss Jones (I won't say which one). Prophetic? Maybe.

I just acquired the set of Rogers and Hammerstein's musicals on DVD, and am enjoying them immensely; the picture clarity and sound are outstanding and the music and story good to boot!! I believe this was Shirley Jones' debut in a movie, and she portrays Laurie to a tee, and has ample support from all of the other actors, with fine comedy support from Gloria Grahame and Charlotte Greenwood; have enjoyed Ms Greenwood in earlier films she did at Fox, and am wondering if she played Aunt Eller on Broadway.... The ballet sequence is exquisitely handled by Agnes DeMille, and the dancing in all scenes superb; if there was any complaint it would only be that the scenes with Jud seem a little prolonged and drawn out, but overall, an excellent film...

After seeing OKLAHOMA! on the screen in Todd-AO for the first time 44 years ago, it immediately became my all-time favorite film. Today, it still holds that lofty ranking.

The beautiful Rodgers & Hammerstein score includes some of the greatest music ever written. The two collaborated on nine broadway musicals, many of which were adapted to the screen, notably CAROUSEL, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I, and THE SOUND OF MUSIC, but OKLAHOMA! tops them all.

Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones are perfectly cast as the young couple experiencing the magic of first love, and their singing of some of the show's classic tunes, such as "Surry With the Fringe On Top" and "People Will Say We're In Love" is a pleasure to listen to.

Miss Jones, making her screen debut as Laurie Williams, instantly establishes her image of the "girl next door"--did I grow up in the wrong neighborhood? She is captivatingly charming as she tries to make Curly (MacRae) jealous by accepting a date to the box social with her Aunt Eller's hired farmhand, Jud Fry, played menacingly by Rod Steiger.

It is the supporting cast of characters that really bring this musical to life--particularly Aunt Eller, played by Charlotte Greenwood. Doesn't everyone have an Aunt Eller in their life? Then there's Ado Annie Carnes (Gloria Grahame) and her longsuffering boyfriend Will Parker (Gene Nelson), who lights up the screen with a great dance number. Throw in a travelling salesman, Ali Hakim (Eddie Albert); Gertie Cummings (Barbara Lawrence), who tries to steal Curly away from Laurie; and Mr. Carnes (James Whitmore), who insists on a shotgun wedding for his daughter, Ado Annie, rather than see her marry Will; and you have some unforgettable characters indeed.

The film's one dissenting note was the class distinction warfare between the handsome, clean-cut Curly, who everyone knows "Laurie has her cap set fer" and the rough and dirty, working-class Jud. Jud meets his untimely end, but, after all, he is the villain.

Not to fear, it's a happy ending for all. Curly gets Laurie, Will gets Ado Annie, and Ali Hakim gets....Gertie? When Ado Annie and Gertie get into a jealous fight which Will attempts to break up, explaining "I'm trying to keep Ado Annie from killing your wife", Ali Hakim responds, "Why don't you mind your own business?" In the end, the farmer and the cowman do learn to get along and become friends, the new schoolhouse gets built, and the Oklahoma territory is about to become a state.

OKLAHOMA! won two Oscars, for Best Sound Recording and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. How could they go wrong with great orchestral direction by Robert Russell Bennett and the musical score by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II? The American theatre will never see their equal again.