Pre-World War II Hollywood musicals weren't only about Astaire and Rogers, Mickey and Judy, Busby Berkeley, Bing Crosby, or Shirley Temple. The early musical developed through tangents that reflected larger trends in film and American culture at large. Here is a survey of select titles with a variety of influences: outsized songwriter personalities, hubbub over "hillbilly" and cowboy stereotypes, the emergence of swing, and the brief parade of opera stars to celluloid. Featured movies range from the smash hit Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), to obscurities such as Are You There? (1930) and Swing, Sister, Swing (1938), to the high-grossing but now forgotten Mountain Music (1937), and It's Great to Be Alive (1933), a zesty pre-Code musical/science-fiction/comedy mishmash. Also included are some of the not-so-memorable pictures made by some of the decade's greatest musical stars.

The transition from silent to sound films is a fascinating time in the history of mass entertainment. In the audiences' eyes, the halting, stage bound earliest 'talkies' paled in comparison to the fluid, lyrical silents they replaced. Within a few years the technology improved, allowing filmmakers to produce pictures with the added benefits of dialog, song and sound. However, that five-year period was long enough for careers to have ripened or been ruined and for studio fortunes to have been made or lost. This study of early sound shorts begins with an explanation of the development of sound motion pictures in Hollywood by such influential companies as Warner Bros. and Fox, with an emphasis on short subjects, leading up to the first few months when all of the major studios were capable of producing them. The next chapters discuss the impact on other mass entertainments, the development of audible news reels and other non-fiction shorts, as well as the origins of animated sound subjects. A comprehensive list of pre - 1932 American - made shorts completes the volume. These shorts are organized by studio and type, but for readers starting from scratch, there is an extensive index of film titles and people.

The most famous American movie musicals of the 1930s showcased the talents of Fred Astaire, Busby Berkeley, Bing Crosby, and Alice Faye, but here is a much deeper dive into the decade's songfests. Instead of familiar names and titles, this volume covers secondary or forgotten features with short-lived or unlikely stars from major studios and Poverty Row. Through incisive accounts of films such as Lord Byron of Broadway, Shoot the Works, Bottoms Up, Moonlight and Pretzels and The Music Goes 'Round, we meet little-heralded performers: Dorothy Dell, Lee Dixon, Peggy Fears, Lawrence Gray, Joe Morrison and the mother-daughter team of Myrt and Marge. Among the behind-the-scenes figures are infamously profligate producer Lou Brock, whose flops Down to Their Last Yacht and Top of the Town cost him his career. The entries include substantial filmographies and production information, background on key participants and discography material, plus photographs, notes, bibliography and index.

As Hollywood entered the sound era, it was rightly determined that the same public fascinated by the novelty of the talkie would be dazzled by the spectacle of a song and dance film. In 1929 and 1930, film musicals became the industry's most lucrative genre - until the greedy studios almost killed the genre by glutting the market with too many films that looked and sounded like clones of each other. From the classy movies such as Sunnyside Up and Hallelujah! to failures such as The Lottery Bride and Howdy Broadway, this filmography details 171 early Hollywood musicals. Arranged by subgenre (backstagers, operettas, college films, and stage-derived musical comedies), the entries include studio, release date, cast and credits, running time, a complete song list, any recordings spawned by the film, Academy Award nominations and winners, and availability on video or laserdisc. These data are followed by a plot synopsis, including analysis of the film's place in the genre's history. Includes over 90 photographs.