25 Best Musical Performances in Non-musical Films: 5-1

I’ve been counting down my top 25 most iconic musical performances in a non musical film.  Once again, these are musical performances, lip synched or otherwise that stood out in the landscape of pop culture.  These are not from movies that have a real musical story element.  These are from films where someone, for whatever reason, breaks out into song and dance.

Now, I’ve visited the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s for selections 25-6.   I’ve done mostly comedies, and at least one thriller.   While a majority of the top five includes comedy, one of them is black and there is one war film in there.  For the top five, I’m going to give a little exposition on each one.  Sort of why I picked it and why it left an impression on me.

So, let’s not waste anymore time.  OK?

The typical childhood pop culture diet usually contains equal parts annoying kiddie show music, repetitive imagery and music from cartoons, and Disney.  Well, my kid doesn’t get that.  She’s more on the ball with my childhood’s pop culture landscape than I was when I was her age.

In my childhood, my father warped my mind with viewings of Monty Python and other British late night comedies.   Couple that with stealing HBO as a kid and I saw more movies that led to my corruption.    Chief among them  were the films of Mel Brooks.   History of the World Part I, To Be or Not To Be, and Blazing Saddles were some of my favorites.  But one stood out among the rest.  It was a black and white monster film.  OK, it was really a comedy, but still, it had a mad scientist, an ominous monster, and a hilarious musical performance that has become a quintessential joke whenever someone imitates Frankenstein’s monster.  “Puuhtin ahn tha Riiiitz!”

5. Young Frankenstein "Puttin on the Ritz"



Another film I had only seen once I was into my early teens because it was pretty risqué for its time.  Anytime you look at the TV Guide and you see the abbreviations “N” and “SC” in the synopsis for a movie, you knew you weren’t getting to see it with parents around.  Once again, HBO stepped in and I happened to catch this one when I was home alone.  Oh my!

In typical 80s fashion an outlandish scheme is hatched to cover up an even more outlandish lie which results in everything being positively resolved by the end of the film.  If only life could work like that.

Anyway, all this 80s style mayhem and one superstar’s career started simply with a pair of sunglasses, tighty whities, and Bob Seger.

4. Risky Business "Old Time Rock and Roll"




War movies are usually not known for being upbeat or sing-songy… unless that movie is South Pacific.   They’re mostly dour and somber with explosions and grief.   However, one must keep up the British end, even when a POW.  When faced with impossible odds, keep a stiff upper lip, stick out your chest and whistle a tune which serves as a placeholder for lyrics that speak of Hitler only having one ball.

Most kids don’t relish watching a two and a half hour war film, especially one that does not involve Stallone or Schwarzenegger blowing up bad guys with their one liners.   For me, though, this next film was a classic already and I loved it.  It was more cerebral than its muscle headed 80s counterparts.    But, mainly, I loved it because it had Obi-Wan Kenobi as sort of a bastard.  Seeing Alec Guiness play against type of the stoic, Zen like Jedi Master in Star Wars was really a treat.  I’d love to see his George Smiley from the BBC’s 1979 version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

But for now, I’ll just have to remember to put my lips together and blow.

3. Bridge on the River Kwai "Colonel Bogey March"


Also, I have to include as a footnote that the Colonel Bogey March appears again in another memorable 80s classic.  Same idea, POWs trying to make the best of a bad situation; Saturday detention.

Breakfast Club "Colonel Bogey March"



Stanley Kubrick was a sick f*ck.  Bloody brilliant director though.  I saw the Shining at a young age and that damn scene with the bear suit still freaks me out. And I saw 2001 and that damn star child still freaks me out. But, it wasn't until college that I actually saw this film. And yet, to this day, no matter how much I love his work, Malcolm McDowell still freaks me out.

2.Clockwork Orange "Singin' in the Rain"



Here it is, number one.   I hemmed and hawed of what I considered to be the most iconic musical performance in a non musical film.  It had to be something that sort of reached across some boundaries for people.   Being in my late 30s I thought back to first movie I ever rented on VHS.  We had just got a decent VCR for Christmas that year and my brother and I went down to the Valley Dairy to rent a video.  I had never seen this movie which had came out in theaters the previous summer.   It was a big hit in the theaters and had led to a recharting of an old tune from the 60s.  The scene featured two songs, lip synched by the lead character who pretty much just wanted to have a good day off from class. 

I think you know of which movie I speak.

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off  "Danke Schoen / Twist and Shout"



Hope you enjoyed the list.  I'm going to put up an honorable mention list real soon.

25 Best Musical Performances in Non-musical Films: 15-6

We're still counting down the 25 most iconic musical performances in a non-musical film.

After posting the first part, I was immediately hit with a lot of suggestions and ideas from friends which is awesome!  I guess this was a pretty good topic to choose.  It's almost a great drinking game.

But, I have to clarify a couple of things.  I went with the selections I did because they were something that sort of happened out of the ordinary but left an impression on pop culture.  I shied away from the most obvious choices, like Michael J. Fox singing "Johnny B. Goode" in Back to the Future and Gene Wilder singing that psychedelic boat song from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  It pained me to do it because Marty McFly was in a band.  That was a plot point and Willy Wonka is basically a musical.

So, I apologize for not including a lot of the suggestions I got but I'm sticking with my guns.   I'll still post comments from you all who had your own take or suggestions.

UPDATE Due to my screwed up math, I listed 11 in the first post and have been going back to fix that.  I also omitted one of the best ones, so I had to drop off number 20, renumber the rest, and that caused number 5 to slip into the six spot.  So, I left the commentary I reserved for the top five because it was special... to me, anyway.

15.  Fletch "Moon River" (It's short but who doesn't quote this?)


14.  Planes, Trains, and Automobiles "Three Coins in a Fountain" / "Meet the Flintstones"


13.  Pretty Woman  "Kiss"  (Couldn't find the original but found an outtake)


12.  Ten Things I Hate About You "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You"


11.  Pee Wee's Big Adventure "Tequila"


10.  Three Amigos "My Little Buttercup"


9.  Stripes "Do Wah Diddy Diddy"


8.  Top Gun "You've Lost That Loving Feeling"


7.  Jaws "Show Me the Way To Go Home"

Here's where number five dropped into number six with the commentary.

In 1992, I was a junior in high school.  I had just got my license the year before and I was still not really allowed to drive around with my friends in the car.  Yet, I had friends, who were older, that would drive me around to various places.  It was nothing for us to say, “Hey, let’s go to a Pittsburgh Pirates game or drive to Morgantown, or even up to Seven Springs.”    We’d pop a mix tape in the car stereo and were off on another adventure.  There were some great memories riding in the car with friends, goofing off, and having no cares in the world.

But in February of 92, I was with some older friends and we decided to go take in a movie one night.  I can honestly say, that was one of the most hilarious and funny nights of my life.  I won’t say the film was Oscar worthy, but it was memorable, and for months we drove around with the soundtrack blaring.  For months, I had a stiff neck.  To this day, anytime I hear this song on the radio, I have to reenact this memorable scene.  I have to bang my head.

5. Wayne's World "Bohemian Rhapsody"
With that out of the way, here's the next set.

Iconic

Twenty years ago, this Saturday, an album debuted that, for lack of a better term, turned the music industry on its ear. Nevermind, from Nirvana, was chronologically the second album but it was the first to gain the attention of a mainstream audience.

I was 16 when Nevermind hit the scene and, quite frankly, apart from thinking it was kind of catchy, I didn’t give it much more thought. I was more impressed with Weird Al Yankovic’s parody “Smells Like Nirvana” eight months later.

Two years after Weird Al parodied “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, the sorrowful, but perhaps inevitable happened. In the span of only three studio albums, Nirvana left an indelible mark on the recording industry, kicked off a new style of music and left fans befuddled and bewildered when the lead singer, Kurt Cobain, took a shotgun and ended his life.

I was a Freshman in college. I was struggling through my second semester in a new, urban school setting, and I was pissed off at the world. I wasn’t pissed that my favorite singer killed himself. I was pissed that the everyday, casual teenager felt the need to dress like a grunge groupie. For an alternative music genre, distinct in its desire to be different from everybody else, there was a lot of conformity. There were a lot of people wandering around the frozen quads of Pitt wearing flannel shirts tied around their waist. Even at the age of 19, I was developing that “Get off my lawn” mentality because where I was from, born in raised in Fayette Nam, PA, you wore your flannel for warmth and comfort, not for show. So, as everyone reminisces and waxes about the impact of Nevermind, I will remember how stupid people looked, trying to light a cigarette in 20 degree weather, shivering, while trying to look like they were Grunge.

Perhaps it was fate that Cobain killed himself.  Perhaps it was undeniable destiny that, for someone who redefined Generation X from the 80s and "I Want My MTV" eras to the "The world sucks and we're all not going to be your sheep." era, should not live long enough to be played out and bastardized in the pop culture media of the RIAA machine.  Nirvana could not be envisioned as the poster boy for the likes of TRL.  They would not be.  Cobain's resistance to fame was that more indicative of fame's desire to have him.  He was going to be a star in spite of himself and maybe that is what killed him more.  

Denis Leary joked that someone should have walked up to Elvis and shot him in the head at an early age instead of leaving us with the lasting vision of him dead and bloated on a toilet.    The Cobain legacy played out exactly as he would have hated it, in the courts fighting over who gets more ownership of his existence, Nirvana or Courtney Love.   His only way of existing was to cease to exist.  Could you imagine Cobain being relegated to countless greatest hits albums, selling out an image to maintain relevance? 

Spanning the last 50 years, look at those who died before their fame truly became bigger than the artist.  Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and the latest addition Amy Winehouse, though her inclusion is in question because of the freshness of her death.  Time will tell whether she becomes more famous, now.
On a similar yet different note, two months after Nevermind was released, the music industry lost an even more iconic symbol. On November 24, 1991, Freddie Mercury lost his battle with AIDS, dying from pneumonia.  Queen was/is a band who, as my co-worker put it, should be considered one of the greatest rock bands ever, that still perform, but never got their due.

Now, my generation is probably more closely related to Kurt’s impact rather than Freddie’s. However, I am prone to go beyond my generation’s predefined areas of influence and pop culture observance. Granted, I had never heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” until it appeared in Wayne’s World in 1992. And yes, I still bang my head at the appropriate time when it comes on in the car. But, I knew of Queen’s music before. I had seen Flash Gordon and heard some of News of the World and The Game, growing up.

To me, Freddie Mercury’s death was a greater loss to music. This is not to diminish Kurt Cobain in any way. Kurt’s impact was in the writing. Freddie’s was more overall based on his vocals and delivery. Mercury had such a stage presence and musicality. His looks were, in a way, unconventional, much like Cobain’s. And even though, they were vastly different in their styles and contributions, their influential paths were following the same direction.

Possessing over a four-octave vocal range and writing such iconic songs as “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Somebody To Love”, “Killer Queen” and “We are the Champions”, Mercury brought a style of rock that had not been present in the 70s. There was a showmanship to his stage presence, flamboyant costumes, but those chops were unmistakable as Brian May’s Red Special guitar sound. They played operatic tunes, mixed with straight rock. They pulled influences from ragtime and blues. They had some disco and even gospel touches to their songs. Queen became a stadium rock staple culminating in one of the most memorable performances at Wembley Stadium’s Live Aid concert in 1985.

I still listen to Queen in my music shuffling. I assembled my own greatest hits compilation and from time to time, I’ll cue it up. It even includes Flash’s Theme. But I was reminded of how Mercury sounded and how much those vocals sent shivers down my spine when I saw a video of a Canadian Christian Rock singer band covering “Somebody to Love”.

Marc Martel has a bit of a resemblance to Freddie Mercury but his vocals are sometimes so close to Mercury’s that I had to really watch and see if this was lip synching or really his voice.  The main video of him singing, “Somebody to Love” could have been synced.  It could have been faked.  Just looking at t, who knows?  However, digging deeper, I found a live video of him singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” with a church group.  Amazing.