Oklahoma! (1955)

Great music, lyrics and dancing - but boy, what a truly sterile delivery. By necessity, staging has to be precise in a theatre; cinema offers little of such spacial restrictions so why is this musical choreographed to within an inch of it's life? There is virtually none of the spontaneity - especially with the rumbustious dances - that the big screen offered and what we are left with, though colourful and cheery, just lacks... something! So frequently it is as if they are still performing to that seat in the centre of the Royal Circle - complete with the casual supporting cast with their delicate short steps and stage whispers in each other's ear. Gordon MacRae looks pristine, way too pristine, and Gloria Grahame a very pale imitation of Doris Day from 2 years earlier in "Calamity Jane". Charlotte Greenwood does a cracking job as the worldly "Aunt Eller" as does Eddie Albert as the improbably named "Ali Hakim"; even Rod Steiger does genuinely carry off the role of the disgruntled "Jud Fry" but I'm afraid the whole just doesn't equal the sum of the parts - and with Rodgers & Hammerstein providing "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning"; "Surrey with a Fringe on Top" "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No" & the eponymous title tune; that's a real shame...