Call Me Madam (1953), The Gay Divorcee (1934), The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), Gypsy (1962), Hello, Dolly! (1969), Oklahoma! (1955) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Broadway Adaptation movies.
Storyline: A Washington hostess (Ethel Merman) falls for a foreign minister (George Sanders) after being named ambassador to a grand duchy.
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, romance, political satire, diplomacy, high society, 1950s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Mimi Glossop wants a divorce so her Aunt Hortense hires a professional to play the correspondent in apparent infidelity. American dancer Guy Holden meets Mimi while visiting Brightbourne (Brighton) and she thinks he is the correspondent. The plot is really an excuse for song and dance. The movie won three Academy nominations and the first Oscar for Best Song: "The Continental", a twenty-two minute production number.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, romance, dance, fred astaire, 1930s, classic hollywood ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Laura Partridge is a very enthusiastic small stockholder of ten shares in International Projects, a large corporation based in New York City. She attends her first stockholders meeting ready to question the board of directors from their salaries to their operations. These are not the questions which the board expected to be asked of them, especially since they are all crooked, except for Edward McKeever, the current CEO who has resigned in order to take an advisory position at the Pentagon. Following the meeting, he bumps into Laura and offers to drive her home. On the way there, Laura displays her enthusiasm for being a stockholder, as a result, Edward takes a liking to her. With Edward in Washington, D.C., John Blessington and Clifford Snell establish their hold on International Projects. They see greater riches now that Edward has influence with the U.S. Senate, especially with the awarding of federal contracts, unfortunately for them, he is honest, and won't do their bidding. In the meantime, Laura continues to be a nusance to the board. Blessington believes the only way to silence her, is to give her a high paying position with the company. The idea is for her to do absolutely nothing, but Laura has other plans. She begins to correspond with other small stockholders in the company, a problem for the board. They decide to use her influence on Edward and send her to Washington, D.C. to get contracts. Laura, now knowing their true intentions for her, has her own agenda, that is, get Edward back in charge of the company.—Kelly
Plot Keywords: comedy, satire, business, corporate corruption, 1950s, romance, office politics ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: New York working girl Susan Applegate is desperate to go home to Iowa but does not have the railway fare so she disguises herself as a child to ride half fare. Enroute she meets Philip Kirby, an Army major teaching at a military school.—Jack McKillop <jem3@donuts0.bellcore.com>
Plot Keywords: comedy, satire, classic, 1940s, black and white, intellectual, celebrity culture ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Twenty-seven year old New York window washer, J. Pierrepont Finch, believes he can be a success in the corporate world after he impulsively picks up the book "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". The book promises its reader that he can climb the corporate ladder simply and quickly. The Worldwide Wicket Corporation, the business in the office building whose windows he washes is, according to the book, the perfect type of business. There he meets secretary Rosemary Pilkington, who sees in Ponty (as she calls him) an unassuming man who she believes the corporate world will eat alive. But Ponty, memorizing what the book tells him, does quickly climb the corporate ladder but not by doing any real work. Ponty has a few obstacles along the way such as: Bud Frump who sees Ponty as a rival and is the nephew by marriage of the company president J.B. Biggley; Hedy La Rue, a curvaceous but simple woman who has a secret or not-so-secret tie to someone important in the company; Mr. Ovington, an executive who Ponty can't figure out; and Ponty possibly making a fatal error by not reading far enough ahead in the book. Ponty ultimately has to decide if climbing to the top of the ladder is worth stepping on all those along the way and risk losing the love of Rosemary. In the end telling the truth may set him free.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, workplace, satire, 1960s, ambition, office politics ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Mama Rose lives to see her daughter June succeed on Broadway by way of vaudeville. When June marries and leaves, Rose turns her hope and attention to her elder, less obviously talented, daughter Louise. However, having her headlining as a stripper at Minsky's Burlesque is not what she initially has in mind.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: musical, drama, romance, female protagonist, show business, mother-daughter relationship, ambition ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A matchmaker named Dolly Levi takes a trip to Yonkers, New York to see the "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire," Horace Vandergelder. While there, she convinces him, his two stock clerks and his niece and her beau to go to New York City. In New York, she fixes Vandergelder's clerks up with the woman Vandergelder had been courting, and her shop assistant (Dolly has designs of her own on Mr. Vandergelder, you see).
Plot Keywords: musical, romance, comedy, period piece, dance, love story, new york ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In the Oklahoma territory at the turn of the twentieth century, two young cowboys vie with a violent ranch hand and a traveling peddler for the hearts of the women they love.
Plot Keywords: musical, romance, western, classic, rural life, american culture, musical theater ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Pseudolus (Zero Mostel) is the laziest slave in Rome, and has one wish, to purchase his freedom. When his master and mistress leave for the day, he finds out that the young master has fallen in love with a virgin in the house of Marcus Lycus (Phil Silvers), a slave dealer specializing in beautiful women. Pseudolus concocts a deal in which he will be freed if he can procure the girl for young Hero (Michael Crawford). Of course, it can't be that simple as everything begins to go wrong.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Keywords: comedy, musical, ancient rome, farce, broadway, song and dance, slapstick ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A musical remake of Ninotchka: After three bumbling Soviet agents fail in their mission to retrieve a straying Soviet composer from Paris, the beautiful, ultra-serious Ninotchka is sent to complete their mission and to retrieve them. She starts out condemning the decadent West, but gradually falls under its spell with the help of Steve Canfield, an American movie producer.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: musical, romance, comedy, dance, cold war, hollywood, remake ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Spring inspires lessons in love and life for a French family in 1920s Ottawa, especially for teenage Robert, who's blind to the attentions of an American neighbor girl, because he's infatuated with the beautiful new maid, fleeing life as a magician's assistant. Robert's mother bemoans some of the Bonnard family male role models available to Robert: his party animal grandfather, roguish traveling salesman uncle Desmond, and an uncle who carries a water cooler filled with wine everywhere while his wife does all the work. As Desmond's temporarily off the road, he also targets the maid.—David Stevens
Plot Keywords: comedy, family, musical, romance, coming of age, humorous, nostalgic ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In 1922 New York City, Millie Dillmount (Dame Julie Andrews) and Miss Dorothy Brown (Mary Tyler Moore) are just two of the girls living at the Priscilla Hotel for Single Young Ladies run by Mrs. Meers (Beatrice Lillie). Orphaned, Miss Dorothy, just recently arrived, is a naive, old-fashioned girl from a seemingly privileged background who has aspirations to be a stage actress. From more modest means, Millie, in New York City for three months, used to be old-fashioned, but now has a new modern sensibility and look to match, complete with bobbed hair and dresses with hemlines above the knee. Included in this new modern sensibility is Millie's goal of getting a job as a stenographer, with a quick promotion to being her wealthy boss' "Mrs." Love is not to factor into the equation. She believes she's found the right employer in the form of chisel-jawed Trevor Graydon (John Gavin) of the Sincere Trust Insurance Company. Millie's pursuit of Mr. Graydon is despite the fact that Mr. Graydon sees her as one of the boys, he has old-fashioned sensibilities, and Millie has a mutual attraction to another boy named Jimmy Smith (James Fox). Although she likes Jimmy, Millie feels that Jimmy, as a paper clip salesman with an overwhelming happy-go-lucky attitude, is not driven enough to be husband material. That doesn't stop Jimmy's pursuit of Millie. In her association with Jimmy, Millie meets flamboyant wealthy Renaissance woman Muzzy Van Hossmere (Carol Channing). Jimmy's father once worked as Muzzy's gardener. Originally from humble means much like Millie, Muzzy tries to convince Millie that true love will lead to happiness, as that is what happened when she met the now deceased Mr. Van Hossmere, who she had no idea was rich. In other goings-on amongst this new circle of friends, Miss Dorothy leaves New York City without a word to anyone except Mrs. Meers. Thinking this situation rather odd, Millie connects Miss Dorothy's leaving with that of other girls previously living at the Priscilla Hotel. With Mr. Graydon's help, Jimmy and Millie try to find out what happened to Miss Dorothy.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, romance, 1920s, dance, lighthearted, vintage ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: On a trip to France, millionaire Jervis Pendleton sees an 18 year old girl in an orphanage. Enchanted with her, but mindful of the difference in their ages, he sponsors her to college in New England. She writes him letters, which he doesn't read. After 3 years, he goes to visit her at a dance, not telling her that he is her benefactor. They fall in love, but the usual movie-type difficulties get in the way before they can get together at the end.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: musical, romance, comedy, drama, fred astaire, classic hollywood, dance film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Three separate stories concerning relationship issues are presented, each largely taking place in suite 719 of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. In story one, suburban New Yorkers Sam and Karen Nash are spending the night in the hotel as their house is being painted, but more importantly for Karen because it is their twenty-"something" wedding anniversary, the hotel where they spent their honeymoon. While Karen wants to recreate the romance that she remembers of their wedding night, Sam is preoccupied with business matters. But it is other issues that highlight their fundamental differences that may demonstrate if they will make it to twenty-something plus one. In story two, womanizing Hollywood movie producer Jesse Kiplinger has exactly two hours free during his whirlwind stay in New York, which he wants to fill with a quickie. Of the many women he calls, the first to agree to meet at his suite is his old hometown flame, married Muriel Tate. Muriel, who knows what Jesse wants, he who she has not seen in fifteen years, is a bundle of nerves as she continuously second guesses herself in whether she should have come. And in story number three, there are a roomful of people in the Baroque Room of the hotel for the wedding and following reception of Borden Eisler and Mimsey Hubley, the event which is being paid for by Mimsey's penny-pinching father, Roy Hubley. What the people in the Baroque Room are unaware of is that Mimsey has locked herself in the bathroom of the hotel suite, but not saying a word to either her father or mother, Norma Hubley, as to the reason for her cold feet. As Roy and Norma try whatever they can to get Mimsey out of the bathroom while stalling the Eislers in the Baroque Room, Roy and Norma also focus on issues in their own relationship and how they raised Mimsey, which may be appropriate if they learn the reason for Mimsey's cold feet.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, marriage, new york, hotel, anthology, humor ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Innocent rodeo cowboy Bo falls in love with cafe singer Cherie in Phoenix. She tries to run away to Los Angeles but he finds her and forces her to board the bus to his home in Montana. When the bus stops at Grace's Diner the passengers learn that the road ahead is blocked. By now everyone knows of the kidnapping, but Bo is determined to have Cherie.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: romance, drama, comedy, musical, american film, black and white film, 1950s ...
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