Best Music Movies of 1952

A fading music hall comedian tries to help a despondent ballet dancer learn to walk and to again feel confident about life.

After he is rejected by the Great Poochini as an opening act, Mysto the Magician gets his revenge by conducting his next operatic performance.

When the nephews come to Donald's house in their Halloween costumes he dumps water on them and laughs at his trick. A witch sees this and decides to help the kids. By magic she gives Donald a bad time and the kids finally get their treats.

Born into aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec moves to Paris to pursue his art as he hangs out at the Moulin Rouge where he feels like he fits in being a misfit among other misfits. Yet, because of the deformity of his legs from an accident, he believes he is never destined to experience the true love of a woman. But that lack of love in his life may change as he meets two women

A small-town shoemaker with a knack for spinning yarns, Hans encounters happiness and heartbreak on his road to becoming a full-fledged writer.

Bill Miller is an unsuccessful Broadway performer until his handlers convince him to enhance his act with a stooge—Ted Rogers, a guy positioned in the audience to be the butt of Bill's jokes. After Ted begins to steal the show, Bill's girlfriend and his pals advise him to make Ted an equal partner.

Jane Froman (Susan Hayward), an aspiring songstress, lands a job in radio with help from pianist Don Ross (David Wayne), whom she later marries. Jane's popularity soars, and she leaves on a European tour... but her plane crashes in Lisbon, and she is partially crippled. Unable to walk without crutches, Jane nevertheless goes on to entertain the Allied troops in World War II.

After overcoming polio, Annette Kellerman achieves fame and creates a scandal when her one-piece bathing suit is considered indecent.

In squeaky-clean New York at the turn of the century, playboy Charlie Hill falls so much in love that he can walk on air. The object of his affections is beautiful Angela Bonfils, a mission house worker in the Bowery. He promises to reform his dissolute life, even trying to do an honest day's work.

Backstage musical biography of nightclub star Blossom Seeley that charts her rocky relationship with vaudeville singer Benny Fields.

A series of misunderstandings leads to a chorus girl traveling to Paris to represent the American theater, where she falls in love with a befuddled bureaucrat.

A young boy trades the family cow for magic beans.

Marine bandmaster John Philip Sousa (Clifton Webb) becomes famous for his marches and inspires the sousaphone.

A pioneer of visual music and electronic art, Mary Ellen Bute produced over a dozen short abstract animations between the 1930s and the 1950s. Set to classical music by the likes of Bach, Saint-Saëns, and Shoshtakovich, and replete with rapidly mutating geometries, Bute’s filmmaking is at once formally rigorous and energetically high-spirited, like a marriage of high modernism and Merrie Melodies. In the late 1940s, Lewis Jacobs observed that Bute’s films were “composed upon mathematical formulae depicting in ever-changing lights and shadows, growing lines and forms, deepening colors and tones, the tumbling, racing impressions evoked by the musical accompaniment.” Bute herself wrote that she sought to “bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding along with the thematic development and rhythmic cadences of music.”

A musical comedy based on several Damon Runyon short stories. When a bookie on the run, Robert 'Numbers' Foster, falls for a pretty country songbird, Emily Ann Stackerlee , he'll do anything to help her make it big -- including a stint in jail to pay for his crimes. But will the tough guy's sacrifice of the heart pay off when it comes to his girlfriend's singing career?

A famous opera singer (Mario Lanza) falls for his sergeant's (James Whitmore) sister (Doretta Morrow) at boot camp.

Jordan Blake (a widower) is a successful Broadway Producer who has always been to busy for his children, Barbara and Jerry. Girlfriend, Carolina a musical comedy star, urges Jordan to take his kids on a vacation and get to know them before they are all grown up. Is Jordan already too late?

Three broke Broadway producers are desperately looking for backers for a new show. When they are about to give up, one of them discovers that they are an heir to a Parisian dress salon. Off to Paris they go!

Reclining on her chaise lounge in a see-through robe, Lili St. Cyr decides she needs a wash. In a gilded tub fit for Marie Antoinette, she bares all that the law will allow. Then she squeezes into an evening gown and mink coat to paint the town red.

A New Orleans boxer backs out of a bout and leaves his girlfriend for Korea.

Charles Starrett returns as the Durango Kid in Columbia's Rough, Tough, West. For most of the film, however, Starrett is known as "Steve Holden," a former Texas Ranger who comes to a wide-open mining town to visit an old friend (Jack -- later Jock -- Mahoney). Alas, said friend has turned bad, and is busy arranging a major land grab when Steve arrives on the scene. With deep regret, our hero dons his Durango disguise to thwart his ex-friend's criminal activities.

Shapely burlesque dancer Hot Garters Gertie aka Angela Gardner meets her future drama professor. Her new landlady proves to be the professor's wife. Angela helps breath life into the annual school stage show...but someone has discovered her secret past.

Marshovia, a small European kingdom, is on the brink of bankruptcy but the country may be saved if the wealthy American Crystal Radek, widow of a Marshovian, can be convinced to part with her money and marry the king's nephew count Danilo. Arriving to Marshovia on a visit, Crystal Radek change places with her secretary Kitty. Following them to Paris, Danilo has a hard time wooing the widow after meeting an attractive young woman at a nightclub, the same Crystal Radek who presents herself as Fifi the chorus girl. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.

Italian singer Mario Vanni visits the Royal Opera in Stockholm and fall in love with ballet dancer Linda Corina.

Shy farmboy loves his next-door neighbor, but she dreams of going to the big city. Then she gets mixed up with big-city gangsters.

The life and career of famed American composer Stephen Foster.

Story of staid college professor gathering data for a thesis in criminal psychology who becomes the object of a night-club singers affections.

Musical version of the comedy by Brandon Thomas. As part of a simple enough ruse, a Cambridge student poses as his aunt but his scheme goes wrong, first when someone falls for the aunt, and then when the real aunt turns up.

A lounge singer sees his career skyrocket after he signs a contract for a mobster nightclub owner.

A cattle buyer (Gene Autry), a federal agent (Pat Buttram) and a newswoman (Anne James) snip a railroad plot.

Two singers step in to help an aspiring actress whose grandmother opposes her bid to launch a show-business career

Hank Williams made two appearances on the Kate Smith TV Show in 1952, on 03/26/1952 and on 04/23/1952. The recordings from these two episodes provide us with with the only known available video of the legendary Hank Williams performing. Other guests on the show include Roy Acuff, June Carter and Anita Carter. Performances include Hey, Good Lookin', Cold Cold Heart, I Saw the Light, I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You) and Glory Bound Train.

A short animation based on the Edward Lear poem

fantasy tale about a young Zulu who leaves his village to go to the city, falls in love with the new music he hears there, and returns home to form a Zulu jazz band. The South African production and distribution company African Films followed up the success of Zonk! with Song of Africa. This is a fantasy tale about a young Zulu who leaves his village to go to the city, falls in love with the new music he hears there, and returns home to form a Zulu jazz band – which then goes to the city to compete with other bands, and comes out on top. As in the earlier films, the impact of American jazz and popular music is enormous. Like African Jim and Zonk!, Song of Africa draws on the best talent from the townships. Director Emil Nofal and director of photography Dave Millin ensure high production values, making it an above-average B-movie.

The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Broadcast #8 was of a concert on March 15, 1952, at Carnegie Hall, featuring Sibelius's En Saga, two of Debussy's Nocturnes, and Franck's Redemption. (Concerts #8 and #9 were released on "Vol. 5" in the DVD series.)

Romance, music, and 1952 Oldsmobiles.

The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Broadcast #9 was of a concert on March 22, 1952, at Carnegie Hall, featuring Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Respighi's Pines of Rome. (Concerts #8 and #9 were released on "Vol. 5" in the DVD series.)