Best Music Movies of 1956

Childhood friends Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven got married and quickly divorced. Now Tracy is about to marry again, this time to a shrewd social-climbing businessman. C.K. still loves her. Spy magazine blackmails Tracy's family by threatening to reveal her playboy father's exploits if not allowed to cover the wedding. A remake of the 1940 rom com The Philadelphia Story.

The life story of the famous pianist and band-leader of the 1930s and 1940s.

A down-and-out gangster hires an alcoholic press agent to make his blonde bombshell girlfriend a recording star in 6 weeks. But what is he going to do when he finds out that she has no talent? And what is going to happen when the two fall in love?

At the end of the Civil War, a Confederate team is ordered to rob a Union payroll train but the war ends leaving these men with their Union loot, until the Feds come looking for it.

Young Benny Goodman is taught clarinet by a music professor. He is advised to play whichever kind of music he likes best, but to make a living, Benny begins by joining the Ben Pollack traveling band.

Kitschy musical remake of "Bachelor Mother". Debbie Reynolds plays an over-eager clerk in a large department store and Eddie Fisher plays the boss' son. After getting fired from her job, she finds an adorable baby on the steps of the foundling home and the folks inside mistake her for the mother. Fisher, well-meaning, but obtuse, tries to help her out with the baby, and the buds of romance begin to appear. Meanwhile old Merlin, the owner of the store, thinks he just might be a grandfather...

A frustrated big-band promoter runs in to rock-and-rollers Bill Haley and the Comets at a small-town dance. He quickly becomes their manager and, with the help of Alan Freed, hopes to bring the new sound to the entire country. But will a conniving booking agent, with a personal ax to grind with the manager, conspire to keep the band from making the big time?

Billy Bigelow has been dead for 15 years. Now outside the pearly gates, he long ago waived his right to go back to Earth for a day. He has heard that there is a problem with his family: namely with his wife Julie Bigelow, née Jordan, and his child he hasn't met. He would now like to head back to Earth to assist in rectifying the problem; but before he may go, he has to get permission from the gatekeeper by telling him his story. Adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein hit Broadway musical.

Former radio singer Kay learns from her gossipy friends that her husband, Steve, has had an affair with chorus girl Crystal. Devastated, Kay tries to ignore the information, but when Crystal performs one of her musical numbers at a charity benefit, she breaks down and goes to Reno to file for divorce. However, when she hears that gold-digging Crystal is making Steve unhappy, Kay resolves to get her husband back. The Opposite Sex is a remake of the 1939 comedy The Women.

High Tor is a 1936 play by Maxwell Anderson. Twenty years after the original production, Anderson adapted it into a television musical with Arthur Schwartz. Anderson first considered a musical adaptation of High Tor for television in 1949. He and John Monks Jr. adapted the play as a made-for-television musical fantasy in 1955, with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Anderson. High Tor was filmed in November 1955 by Desilu Productions at the RKO-Pathé Studio and broadcast March 10, 1956 on the CBS television network, as a 90-minute episode of the series Ford Star Jubilee. Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews, Nancy Olson, Hans Conreid, and Keenan Wynn starred in the film, produced by Arthur Schwartz, and directed by James Neilson.

A night at the Wood Green Jazz Club - an example of 'Free Cinema'.

Three completely different stories are told through dance.

Two aspiring songwriters finally manage to sell a tune by claiming that it was composed by a reclusive musical genius. When the tune hits the top of the charts, they find themselves having to produce the "real" composer.

A new career opens for Charley Moon when, during his army service, he is detailed to appear in a unit concert. In doing so, he becomes friendly with Harold Armytage, a peacetime actor of the old school. Hearing that Charley has no job to go to when demobilized, Armytage suggests they team up as stage comics. Things are not easy; jobs are few and far between, and when they can be found they are in the tattiest of theatres, but Charley gains the experience he needs. They then decide to try their luck in London.

A bear, a rabbit and a fox decide to form a band and play for the animals of the forest.

Bill Benson and Ted Adams are to appear in a Broadway show together and, while in Paris, each 'discovers' the perfect leading lady for the plum female role. Each promises the prize role to the girl they selected without informing the other until they head back across the Atlantic by liner - with each man having brought his choice along! It becomes a stormy crossing as each man has to tell his 'find' that she might not get the role after all.

IT’S GREAT TO A YOUNG stars John Mills as Dingle an easygoing high school teacher. When autocratic new headmaster Frome (Cecil Parker) begins imposing all sorts of repressive rules, Dingle does his best to stand up for his students, only to be dismissed for his troubles. The kids conspire to not only reinstate their favourite teacher, but to circumvent Frome's refusal to purchase new instruments for an upcoming music festival.

Rock-and-roller Arnie Haynes returns to his hometown as a hero to the teenagers. However, the mayor and other concerned adults have banned him from performing in his hometown because they consider him and his music a negative influence on the youth. But with the help of disc jockey/publicist Alan Freed and fellow artists (including Bill Haley and the Comets and Little Richard), they hope to convince everyone that rock and roll is not as dangerous as the adults think.

A wealthy woman discovers a vineyard worker with a beautiful operatic singing voice. She helps make him a star but then breaks his heart. He flees in misery to Mexico where he meets a sweet farm girl.

A reporter stumbles on a runaway heiress whose story could salvage his career.

Louis XI of France drafts Paris's popular "king" of criminals as Provost Marshal in his fight against usurper Charles of Burgundy and the traitorous nobles who rally around him.

Chuck Rodwell is a gambling cowboy who discovers that he's lucky at the roulette wheel if he holds hands with dancer Marie. However, Marie doesn't like to hold hands with him, at least not in the beginning...

Director Michael Curtiz' 1956 showbiz musical, about the careers of the early-20th-century songwriting trio DeSylva, Brown and Henderson, stars Dan Dailey, Gordon MacRae, Ernest Borgnine, Sheree North, Tommy Noonan, Larry Keating, Murvyn Vye, Jacques D'Amboise and Phyllis Avery.

Two stylized nursery rhymes are shown. First is "The House That Jack Built" as told with a variety of characters composed of letters that spell out their names (Example: the cow is made up of an intertwined C, O, and W). Next is "Old MacDonald Had a Band" (no, not farm) in which Old MacDonald and his band give way with a hot jazz number (even his animals play instruments). The piece comes to an end when Old MacDonald's wife is tired of doing all the housework and gives him a swift whack on his head with her rolling pin.

Stephen Torino (Wilde), who is tricked by his brother Marco (Adler) into an arranged marriage with tempestuous Annie Caldash (Russell). Annie is willing to give the union a go, but Torino wants none of it.

A high school rock group enters a band contest.

A teenage girl, Dori Graham, can't convince her dad to buy her a strapless gown so she decides to get the money together herself in time for the prom.

Venetian merchant Marco Polo travels to the East and the court of Kublai Khan who makes him an emissary and sends him on diplomatic missions throughout his empire. Over many years, Polo learns new cultures and languages, but he is haunted by the face of a mysterious woman whom he had met before leaving Venice and encounters her face in every woman he sees. Eventually returning to Venice to share his exotic and esoteric knowledge, Marco Polo once again finds the woman of his dreams. The Adventures of Marco Polo was an original, live television musical which was broadcast on NBC on April 14, 1956.

This SECOND live broadcast aired a year after the success of the first. Utilizing much of the same cast, it nevertheless is its own unique performance which charmed millions of households in 1956.

The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 was the inaugural edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Lugano, Switzerland, and was held at the Teatro Kursaal on Thursday 24 May 1956.

Jackie Lane sightsees in Portugal.

In 1956, BLOOMER GIRL was presented in a live television production starring the magnificent Barbara Cook, whose star was then on the rise, with leading roles in CANDIDE and THE MUSIC MAN still in her future. A solid success when it opened on Broadway in 1944, BLOOMER GIRL boasts a glorious score by the legendary team of Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg (THE WIZARD OF OZ). The book by Fred Saidy is set at the brink of the Civil War and addresses issues of women's equality (priorities were the right to vote and to wear bloomers, a liberating alternative to hoop skirts) and racial equality.

An American tourist on a day trip to Sussex from London inadvertently finds himself at Glyndebourne Opera House in Sussex where he learns to appreciate Opera.

Buda is mastered by the Turks. Student Gábor and his companion flee a troop into the castle, just in the garden of Gül Baba. Gábor and Leila, the daughter of Gül Baba fall in love with each other. Ali pasha, who wants to marry the girl, has the two Hungarians caught in order to let them be executed.

Thanks to the collaboration between American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) and Angels from Heaven a song writing working on his latest musical can finally go on his delayed honeymoon. The Angel Chief sends down Wilbur the Angel along with a wireless phone, from the 1950s, to help Jeff's muse , his wife Mary, inspire Jeff to complete the needed song. This while at the same time displaying and utilizing the latest and greatest telephone equipment. This includes color phones to match every decor. Be sure to note the matching wall cords that connect the phone to the wall.

Over-the-top 1950s “Populuxe” advertisement for General Motors. A woman falls asleep and dreams of a glorious future of perfect products, including a variety of shiny futuristic dream cars and Frigidaire’s fully automated “Kitchen of the Future.” The film debuted at the 1956 General Motors "Motorama" event in New York City.

DJ Hal Jackson is the all-rhyming onstage host of this all-black musical.

After six years in jail Steve returns to claim a ranch left him in a will. The town is in the middle of a rough election masterminded by saloon owner Marie. Steve is soon on the side of the opposition candidate and his pretty daughter. The town's tough sheriff is on no-one's side, least of all Steve's

The seventeenth presentation from Screen Directors Playhouse. A teenager with outstanding vocal talent would rather play baseball than develop his singing skills.

A married woman is startled by the return of her former fiancé, whom she thought was killed during the war.

1956 musical comedy Corn's-A-Poppin'. Writtern by Robert Altman, directed by Robert Woodburn and starring Jerry Wallace, Little Cora Rice and Hobie Shepp and The Cowtown Wranglers.

A TV star meets with opposition from adults who object to the opening of a rock 'n' roll palace for teens.

An animated short of Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petroushka

A group of feisty, talented young performers pool their resources and buy a dilapidated theatre to showcase their acts – but unscrupulous property developers also want the theatre and resort to dirty tricks to disrupt the first night's performance!

A bachelor account executive with an advertising agency thinks he has the perfect set-up with three girlfriends. And then there is Marion his devoted secretary who worships him and will do anything for him.

Britain's first musical shot in colour and widescreen (a process called Cosmoscope) is a cabaret-style featurette centred on a group of young people in Chelsea lodgings, watched over by a fatherly caretaker. Eight specially written songs are performed by stage stars of the day – most notably Georgia Brown, who later created the role of Nancy in Oliver!

Sequel to Alla en el Rancho Grande, twenty years later -- sons and daughters of the original characters go through a courtship melodrama of their own.

Several gypsy dances performed by the Hungarian People's State Ensemble.

A made-for-TV musical revue, compiled from soundies and film and TV performances by jazz greats from the 1930s to the 1950s.