Richard Barrios – författare

Singin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Camelot--love them or love to hate them, movie musicals have been a major part of all our lives. They're so glitzy and catchy that it seems impossible that they could have ever gone any other way. But the ease in which they unfold on the screen is deceptive. Dorothy's dream of finding a land "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut, and even a film as great as The Band Wagon was, at the time, a major flop. In Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter, award winning historian Richard Barrios explores movie musicals from those first hits, The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody, to present-day Oscar winners Chicago and Les Misérables. History, film analysis, and a touch of backstage gossip combine to make Dangerous Rhythm a compelling look at musicals and the powerful, complex bond they forge with their audiences. Going behind the scenes, Barrios uncovers the rocky relationship between Broadway and Hollywood, the unpublicized off-camera struggles of directors, stars, and producers, and all the various ways by which some films became our most indelible cultural touchstones -- and others ended up as train wrecks.Not content to leave any format untouched, Barrios examines animated musicals and popular music with insight and enthusiasm. Cartoons have been intimately connected with musicals since Steamboat Willie. Disney's short Silly Symphonies grew into the instant classic Snow White, which paved the way for that modern masterpiece, South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut. Without movie musicals, Barrios argues, MTV would have never existed. On the flip side, without MTV we might have been spared Evita. Informed, energetic, and humorous, Dangerous Rhythm is both an impressive piece of scholarship and a joy to read.

Drawing on meticulous research, sharp wit, and insightful analysis, Richard Barrios illuminates the origins of the movie musical in this extensively revised and updated edition of his highly acclaimed A Song in the Dark. From Warner Bros. and Jolson, to the Oscar-winning Broadway Melody and beyond, here is the whole funny and peculiar history of these films, their creators, and their audiences. Ranging from the smash hits of The Singing Fool and Sunny Side Up to bizarre flops like Golden Dawn and Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan, they form a body of work unlike anything else in the history of popular entertainment. Here too are legendary performers, directors, and composers: from Fannie Brice, James Cagney, and Mae West, to Busby Berkeley, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, and countless others. With many new rare photographs, some not published in nearly 80 years, this new edition traces the rise and fall, and rise again, of this quintessential piece of the American experience.

Marilyn Monroe has been gone for over sixty years, and yet people are still talking about her. What, exactly, is the spell she casts on so many? Stunning, exciting to watch, incredibly famous, Monroe lived a very public life and died young, with a sad suddenness. All of this is true, and yet there is so much more to her story. On Marilyn Monroe: An Opinionated Guide looks past the sensation to the real legacy -her richly varied body of work. Both during her life and following her death, Monroe was dismissed as more of a phenomenon than an actor, often an object of ridicule instead of a performer whose work could be taken seriously. Even when films such as The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot saw immense success, Monroe seldom got her due as the inventive and accomplished performer she was. The truth that lay behind the dazzling surface was that she was one of the hardest working of actors. Rigorously applying both skillful technique and an inherent charisma, she was able to create truly unforgettable performances. In this lively guide, Richard Barrios looks beyond the ballyhoo and legend at Monroe's best-known films, and some that even today remain obscure. Besides her films, it also addresses the work she did on television and the stage, as well as her underrated abilities as a vocalist. Both an informative study and a perceptive critical assessment, On Marilyn Monroe: An Opinionated Guide gives this brilliant performer the attention she desired-that of an artist whose work deserves both examination and celebration.

Intense, ambitious, charismatic, and brilliantly gifted, Bette Davis revolutionized the art of acting and permanently altered the face of cinema. Over six decades, she built a career second to none in its variety, enterprise, and audacity. While her somewhat turbulent life has received a great deal of attention, as has her work in films such as Jezebel, All About Eve, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, there remain any number of brilliant performances that are less celebrated, if equally unforgettable. In film and later on television, she drove herself to make the most of great scripts and to give lesser ones far more than they deserved. Both her intelligence and her drive are evident in her breakthrough role in Of Human Bondage, her Academy Award performance in Dangerous, and such varied films as Dark Victory, Now, Voyager, and even the notorious Beyond the Forest. Later, she seized the world's attention and opened a new phase of her career with the horrifying Baby Jane and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte. In even the least of her films and television shows, she expended her formidable talents to their utmost capacity. It is a small wonder that, long after her death, she has remained one of the most imitated of actors as well as one of the most revered. This Opinionated Guide examines and pays informed and witty tribute to Bette's entire body of work and to the complex, dynamic woman behind it.

Insightful, witty, as exuberant as its subject matter, Dangerous Rhythm offers a fresh, revolutionary take on a uniquely American institution: the movie musical. In a book that is at once history, analysis, investigation, and meditation, noted film historian Richard Barrios takes on the entire musical spectrum, from Al Jolson and The Broadway Melody to hip-hop and Les Misérables. Over nine decades, the musical film has been a cornerstone of the entertainment world, yet its existence has been more erratic that any other type of film. Barrios delves deep into the genre, uncovering what makes it a commercially and artistically successful art form that, despite falling in and out of favor with the American public, has a firm and enduring hold on the American cultural imagination. Each chapter focuses on a core issue relating to the musical film: what does it take to make a successful musical performer? What is the relationship between film musicals and Broadway musicals? How does the rise of certain types of popular music, such as rock or rap, affect how the musical film is received? Through it all, Barrios argues definitively and irresistibly that, as the book's subtitle asserts, movie musicals matter -- yet, as the title implies, they are terribly difficult to do well. But when they are right, they transport and captivate viewers, striking deeply resonant chords of identification and wish-fulfillment, as well as or better than any other kind of movie.

Rapacious dykes, self-loathing closet cases, hustlers, ambiguous sophisticates, and sadomasochistic rich kids: most of what America thought it knew about gay people it learned at the movies. A fresh and revelatory look at sexuality in the Great Age of movie making, Screened Out shows how much gay and lesbian lives have shaped the Big Screen. Spanning popular American cinema from the 1900s until today, distinguished film historian Richard Barrios presents a rich, compulsively readable analysis of how Hollywood has used and depicted gays and the mixed signals it has given us: Marlene in a top hat, Cary Grant in a negligee, a pansy cowboy in The Dude Wrangler. Such iconoclastic images, Barrios argues, send powerful messages about tragedy and obsession, but also about freedom and compassion, even empowerment.Mining studio records, scripts, drafts (including cut scenes), censor notes, reviews, and recollections of viewers, Barrios paints our fullest picture yet of how gays and lesbians were portrayed by the dream factory, warning that we shouldn't congratulate ourselves quite so much on the progress movies - and the real world -- have made since Stonewall.Captivating, myth-breaking, and funny, Screened Out is for all film aficionados and for anyone who has sat in a dark movie theater and drawn strength and a sense of identity from what they saw on screen, no matter how fleeting or coded.

Rapacious dykes, self-loathing closet cases, hustlers, ambiguous sophisticates, and sadomasochistic rich kids: most of what America thought it knew about gay people it learned at the movies. A fresh and revelatory look at sexuality in the Great Age of movie making, Screened Out shows how much gay and lesbian lives have shaped the Big Screen. Spanning popular American cinema from the 1900s until today, distinguished film historian Richard Barrios presents a rich, compulsively readable analysis of how Hollywood has used and depicted gays and the mixed signals it has given us: Marlene in a top hat, Cary Grant in a negligee, a pansy cowboy in The Dude Wrangler. Such iconoclastic images, Barrios argues, send powerful messages about tragedy and obsession, but also about freedom and compassion, even empowerment.Mining studio records, scripts, drafts (including cut scenes), censor notes, reviews, and recollections of viewers, Barrios paints our fullest picture yet of how gays and lesbians were portrayed by the dream factory, warning that we shouldn't congratulate ourselves quite so much on the progress movies - and the real world -- have made since Stonewall.Captivating, myth-breaking, and funny, Screened Out is for all film aficionados and for anyone who has sat in a dark movie theater and drawn strength and a sense of identity from what they saw on screen, no matter how fleeting or coded.

Spanning nine decades and showcasing the most memorable songs, dazzling dancing, and brightest stars ever to grace the silver screen, Must-See Musicals is the guide to the greatest musicals of all time from the most trusted authority on film-Turner Classic Movies. Movie musicals have been a part of pop culture since films began to talk nine decades ago with the premiere of The Jazz Singer in the fall of 1927. Since then, musicals have sung and danced over a vast amount of territory. In their uniquely entertaining way, they can even transport us to A Hard Day's Night with the Beatles; The Sound of Music has become a religious experience for many; and eager throngs will still throw rice as they watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A great musical film is a timeless joy. Covering 50 of the best spanning the dawn of sound to the high-def present, Turner Classic Movies Must-See Musicals will be lushly illustrated and brightly written with reviews and "backstage" stories.

A captivating full account of a vital, exciting, and turbulent cultural moment: the making of ground-breaking classic West Side Story (1961).A major hit on Broadway, on film West Side Story became immortal. Unforgettable songs, an urgent love story, audacious choreography in real New York locations: West Side Story was a movie different from anything that had come before, but this cinematic victory came at a price.The film's enormous budget and complicated logistics made it a difficult production, and massive overruns in both cost and schedule led to tension between co-directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The result was Robbins being fired midway through the filming, a termination devastating to the film's star, Natalie Wood, who was also shattered upon discovering that she would not be permitted to do her own singing.Over nearly six decades, West Side Story has endured, past its off-screen dramas, as a classic. What other film makes such intrinsically powerful and brilliant use of dance? How many have been so emotionally meaningful, as set to Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics? Plus, given its Shakespearean roots (Romeo and Juliet), how often is any film -- let alone a musical -- so simultaneously timeless and current? Small wonder that the film continues to be a favorite.The production and impact of this classic have been recounted, so far, only in vestiges. As written by film historian Richard Barrios, this book is a captivating account of a crucial and exciting cultural moment. West Side Story was a triumph that appeared to be very much of its time; over the years, and especially in this text, it has shown itself to be eternal.