Best Music Movies of 1963

Disney musical about Mother Carey, a Bostonian widow and her three children who move to Maine. Postmaster Osh Popham helps them move into a run-down old house and fixes it up for them. It's not entirely uninhabited, though; the owner, a Mr. Hamilton, is a mysterious character away in Europe, but Osh assures them he won't mind their living there, since he won't be coming home for a long time yet. The children and a cousin who comes to live with them have various adventures before an unexpected visitor shows up

Jenny Bowman is a successful singer who, while on an engagement at the London Palladium, visits David Donne to see her son Matt again, spending a few glorious days with him while his father is away in Rome in an attempt to attain the family that she never had. When David returns, Matt is torn between his loyalty to his father and his affection for Jenny.

This very special television event that aired February 1963 helped launch the famed Judy Garland Show which captivated TV audiences throughout 1963 and 1964. Along with co-stars Robert Goulet (who was at the time reeling from the Broadway success of Camelot) and Phil Silvers (enjoying similar success due to popular performances in TV's Sgt. Bilko) join Judy at her entertaining best for song dance and brilliant comedy.

A singer goes to a small town for a performance before he is drafted.

Anthropology Professor Robert Orwell Sutwell and his secretary Marianne are studying the sex habits of teenagers. The surfing teens led by Frankie and Dee Dee don't have much sex but they sing, battle the motorcycle rats and mice led by Eric Von Zipper and dance to Dick Dale and the Del Tones.

1960s musical showcasing Cliff Richard. Four bus mechanics working for London Transport strike up a deal with the company: they do up a one of the company's legendary red double decker buses and take it to southern Europe as a mobile hotel. If it succeeds, they will be put in charge of a whole fleet. While on the road in France they pick up three young British ladies whose car breaks down and offer to take them to their next singing job in Athens. They also pick up a stowaway, who hides the fact that she's a famous American pop star on the run, chased by the media and her parents.

Mike works on a boat in Acapulco. When the bratty daughter of the boat owner gets him fired, Mike must find new work. Little boy Rauol helps him get a job as a lifeguard and singer at a local hotel. Clashes abound when Mike runs into the rival lifeguard, who is the champion diver of Mexico.

Mike and Danny fly a cropduster, but because of Danny's gambling debts, a local sheriff takes custody of it. Trying to earn money, they hitch-hike to the World's Fair in Seattle and, while Danny tries to earn money playing poker, Mike takes care of a small girl whose father has disappeared. Being a ladies' man, he also finds the time to court a young nurse.

Unemployed East End lad Alf Hitchens has an on-off relationship with his girlfriend Marilyn and a dream of hitting the big time in the music business. Cheerful pop musical with a working-class background which uses a number of genuine London locations.

A young postman, who fronts a pop group, dreams of being bigger than The Beatles. They record a demo tape, but things seem to be going pear shaped when he loses the tape. There is also his father to contend with who thinks he's wasting his time with all that pop music nonsense.

Tommy Steele stars as a talent-spotter at a recording company who determines to organize a concert featuring all the most up-to-date singers and bands, in order that the orphanage where he was brought up be saved from closing.

Four women create mayhem as they follow their Navy partners around the Riviera.

Broadcast on the BBC in 1961, this performance by legendary vocalist Nat King Cole features many of his greatest hits, including "It's Only a Paper Moon," "Unforgettable," "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer," "Mona Lisa" and "Sweet Lorraine." Missing for more than three decades, this incredibly rare concert program presents 14 classic songs and is one of the few Cole performances filmed in color.

A Wild West cow town is starving for entertainment and it falls upon Calamity Jane, a rowdy, gun-toting tomboy, to go to Chicago to bring back a famed stage actress. She brings instead the star's maid, who settles in the town, but Jane's "Secret Love" falls for her. This television special was based on a stage adaptation of the film that was playing regional circuits at the time it aired.

The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the eighth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest and took place in London, United Kingdom. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who agreed to stage the event after France, who had won the 1962 edition, declined to host it due to financial shortcomings, also having hosted the competition in 1959 and 1961. The contest was held at the BBC Television Centre on Saturday 23 March 1963 and was hosted by Katie Boyle for a second time.

Intrepid reporter Daniel Farson makes the journey from London to Liverpool to discover why this “hard-drinking, hard-fighting” northern enclave has become the epicentre of the 1960s music scene. His whistle-stop tour takes in all the Merseybeat landmarks, most notably the celebrated Cavern club where youngsters twist and swoon to the likes of Gerry and the Pacemakers and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Close-up shots of the musicians and revellers together with evocative street scenes, courtesy of cameramen Ron Osborn and Peter Povey, capture the vitality of this defining moment in Liverpool’s cultural history.

An automobile tribute

When the government cuts the quota of musical programs permitted on television, teenagers Mark and Cherry lead others youngsters in forming their own political party.

Nightclub singer Eddie and comedian Tommy, working in a roaring twenties style club, meet and being dating publicist Allison and photographer Cynthia, respectively. They soon discover that the women spend weekends at a nudist club which the guys disapprove.

The marriage of television director Ted Glover and television producer A.G. Bannister has gone on the rocks because she has permitted her career to take precedence over romance.

Singing teenagers rally to keep open their local nightclub.

In this musical, the Gilbert and Sullivan classic is updated and set in post-war Japan. This time, the trouble begins when a soldier, the son of a Yankee judge, falls in love with a Japanese girl. This enrages her Yakuza fiancé who kidnaps him.

A dance performance salute to choreographer-dancer Lester Horton with Alvin Ailey, Carmen de Lavallade and James Truitte, all former members of his company. They perform various works by Horton.

1963 Christmas show of the short-lived The Judy Garland Show

A huge success at its first performance in 1728 John Gay's The Beggar's Opera satirized the conventions of Italian opera, using popular tunes to tell the story of rogues and criminals. With his distinctive musical arrangements at its heart, Britten's 1948 adaptation was a significant revision, amounting to a new twentieth-century opera. The BBC film, originally broadcast in 1963, feature a superb cast of English singers..