Review by Choice Review
A prolific, knowledgeable, entertaining, and opinionated writer on the Broadway musical theater, Mordden is now tackling the subject decade by decade. Following Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920s (1997) and Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s (1998), the present title presents the 1940s as a turning point for musicals, a decisive change due to "the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution." Mordden employs a basic chronological approach but emphasizes also specific themes: e.g., stars, the dance musical, operetta, fantasy, revues. He describes both the hits (Kiss Me, Kate, etc.) and the misses (e.g., Kurt Weill's The Firebrand of Florence), and he recounts how some musicals of the 1940s fared in later revivals (e.g., On the Town). Because Mordden imparts so much information, much of it in abbreviated form, this account will find its audience among scholars and musical theater buffs. The work cries out for illustrations; Mordden provides none. A discography, bibliography, and more formal documentation would have extended the audience to academic readers. A popular item for public library collections, large academic libraries, and certainly all performing-arts collections. R. D. Johnson; emeritus, SUNY College at Oneonta
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
The 1940s were a time of change in the American musical. Although still sporadically popular, the old-fashioned musical comedy, with its silly plots and dependence on big stars, was being supplanted by such more serious, carefully conceived, and artfully executed shows as Oklahoma! and Carousel. This "Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution" was accompanied by another revolution, in recording technology, which produced the original cast record album, which helped transform hit shows into theatrical classics. Mordden's passionate, literate, painstakingly researched history charts the ups and downs of this crucial decade. As in his Make Believe (1997) and Coming Up Roses (1998), on the 1920s and 1950s musical, respectively, he focuses not only on a decade's big successes--in the '40s, Kiss Me Kate, Brigadoon, and Rodgers and Hammerstein's early work--but also on important shows that didn't become hits--such as, in the '40s, Lady in the Darkand shows that never had a chance. This procedure reveals how the musical form evolved, which innovations were readily accepted, and which were rejected. Essential reading for musical theater fans. --Jack Helbig
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Once again establishing that he is as impressive a nonfiction writer as he is a novelist (How Long Has This Been Going On?; Buddies), Mordden analyzes the many notable hits (and egregious flops) of the 1940s, and describes how they figured intoÄand indeed establishedÄthat period's importance to the Broadway musical theater. It was a decade of many milestones, chief among which was the emergence of Rodgers and Hammerstein with 1943's unlikely groundbreaker, Oklahoma ("all Broadway gaped as these two partnered up"), followed in 1945 by Carousel ("the piece that truly tells us what a Rodgers and Hammerstein show was"). Mordden's references are up-to-the-minute (he cites the late 1990s Encores! series of revivals at New York's City Center) and his research is meticulousÄin his chapter on a particularly significant '40s development, "The Cast Album," he trounces the widely held notion that Oklahoma was the first show to be recorded (it was 1900's Floradora). His gift for the piquant phrase is delightfully evident (Harold Arlen's music for a Bloomer Girl duet is "a slithery wisteria jazz"), as is his fondness for the direct approach (Irving Berlin's Miss Liberty "was a total disaster... a bomb with two wonderful elementsÄthe score and the dancing"). And though he delivers the expected encomiums to such stars of the decade as Agnes de Mille and Ethel Merman, he frequently airs provocative, somewhat unusual opinions, as when he says of the composer of Lady in the Dark and Lost in the Stars, "the Broadway musical would not have been what it was without Kurt Weill." Nor would it be nearly as enjoyable without this perceptive, witty and informative guided tour. (Oct.) FYI: This is Mordden's third "take" on the evolution of musical theater in America, following 1997's Make Believe (the 1920s) and 1998's Coming Up Roses (the '50s). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
For Broadway musicals, the decade of the 1940s opened with Oklahoma! and closed with South Pacific. In Mordden's opinion, Oklahoma! was a breakthrough and defining moment in musical theater due to its introduction of strong characters, atmosphere, and the integration of dance and song into the fabric of the story. Mordden (Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920s and Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s) uses the first third of his book to establish this belief, with explanations of other musicals that had innovative elements from the 1920s and 1930s. He also analyzes other 1940s musicals, such as On the Road, Annie Get Your Gun, Finian's Rainbow, and Brigadoon as well as lesser-known works. Recommended for theater collections.ÄJ. Sara Paulk, Coastal Plain Regional Lib., Tifton, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Mordden continues his decade-by-decade survey of the Broadway musical by moving backwards from the 1950s (Coming Up Roses, 1998) to the '40s. The 1940s was, as the author points out immediately, a unique decade in musical theater history; for the first time, extensive documentation in the form of original cast albums exists for many shows; WWII alters theatergoing habits and casting possibilities; there are certified classics produced that are still performed today more or less intact; and the Rodgers and Hammerstein ``revolution'' shakes the genre to its foundations. Yet, as Mordden notes drily, at the outset of the decade the state of the art was dire, a compendium of bad jokes, stale books, and nice tunes. Then came Pal Joey and several other shows that challenged the status quo and led up to the earthquake of Oklahoma! As always, Mordden is vastly knowledgeable, witty, and incisive in his judgments. His best writing is as sexy and slangy as a Cole Porter lyric. Where Coming Up Roses seemed somehow subdued, backing away from his usual flash-and-filigreed style, the new volume dives in, sometimes over its head. But the book is never less than entertaining and, at its best, offers a dramatically different viewpoint from other, stodgier theater histories. Mordden is to be congratulated for such gems as his rescue of Cabin in the Sky from undeserved oblivion, and his frank and balanced analysis of much-picked-over classics like Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me Kate. That he has something new to add to the mountain of verbiage dedicated to these shows is one indication of how good he really is. Occasionally abrasive, sometimes overwritten but still an essential book on Broadway.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
