Wonderful Design: Glamour in the Hollywood Musical by Lloyd Whitesell (review)

With such a vague and, it turns out, inaccurate title and subtitle, it takes the reader some time to realise just what Lloyd Whitesell’s book is really about. It is not about design in movie musicals. Scenery, costumes, make up, lighting, and other visuals are part of the discussion but not the focus of the book. As for glamour, all of the visual and subliminal aspects of that elusive word are also considered. But what Whitesell is really writing about is the music in the movie musicals, with examples from the earliest talkies to the rock-pop films of recent years. By music, he includes the singers, the song, and dance sequences, the musical composition, and the musical arrangement and orchestrations. It is this kind of glamour that forms the basis of the book. The words music and glamour are not often linked in discussing films or almost anything else but Whitesell has built an entire thesis on music glamour and has carefully defined terms, created categories, sketched out parameters, and then provided dozens of examples from the movies. He has also supplied many quotations from scholars in diverse fields of expertise to support his theory. It is a thick, thorough, even to say dense book which tends to be on the dry side but often sparks one’s interest and introduces some stimulating ideas.

Defining what is meant by glamour in general is one of Whitesell’s many tasks. Quotations from various dictionaries are interesting but not conclusive. The whole concept of glamour seems to defy a simple or straightforward definition. Glamour can refer to a look, a style, a mystique, a sexual energy, an undeniable allure, a sense of restraint, an implied sophistication, and even an elevation of someone or something to a level beyond reality. It is not difficult to find examples of each of these values in movie stars, scenes from musicals and nonmusicals, cinematography, costumes, set decor and (Whitesell insists) music. Both background music and musical numbers in film musicals also contain these different aspects of glamour. It may not be the first word that comes to most minds. We describe music as romantic, haunting, dramatic, silly, catchy, and a dozen other terms that the ordinary person might use. Musicologists could use more specific terms from the science of music theory. Yet I doubt if the word glamour shows up in the music appreciation textbooks. So Whitesell is charting new territory when he methodically describes and illustrates glamour music in his book.

Looking at all the kinds of music found in movie musicals, the author divides them into what he calls style modes. Neither genres nor song types, style modes are a more accurate way of classifying music as he encounters it in the movies. Five modes are described, the last one being the focus of the book: the glamour mode. The first of the five modes is the ordinary mode, referring to uncomplicated, unpretentious music in everyday language and hummable tunes. As his first two examples, Whitesell uses Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘The Surrey with the Fringe on Top’ from Oklahoma! (1955) and Bernstein and Sondheim’s ‘I Feel Pretty’ from West Side Story (1961). I believe them to be poor choices and not what he defines as ordinary. The Oklahoma! number is one of the team’s most complex songs musically, starting as a cowpoke ballad, then turning into a full-throttle love song, then ending up as a lullaby. The lyric fits the ordinary description but the music certainly does not. On the other hand, the music in ‘I Feel Pretty’ is indeed simple and easy to grasp but the lyric, with its intricate interior rhymes, is not at all ordinary. Even Sondheim has faulted his own lyric saying it is too sophisticated and clever for a newly arrived Puerto Rican immigrant uneasy with English. There are other times in the book when the author’s examples are questionable. I take issue with these...