I haven't seen a musical yet. I expect this to be horrible, but you never know...

That takes care of that film.

This film is really two parts - the film itself and the singing / dancing. The plot of this film is most excellent which surprised me. The singing and dancing; however, was awful. It's not so much that the singing and dancing wasn't any good - it was - but rather it seemed largely unnecessary. Quite often the actors broke into song and dance. This does not happen in real life - even if you tried to do it how would the people know the dance routine or song?

Luckily, there was quite a lot of non-singing and dancing and this was all very well-done. The film discusses the transition from silent film to "talkies" and the difficulty actors had making the transition. This is in fact based on what really happened. There were plenty of big-name silent stars that couldn't make a transition to talking.

The American Film Institute has this as the 5th greatest film of all-time, but that seems awful high to me. I suppose if I enjoyed the musical aspect that could make some sense, but I just don't see it. The plot, while good, doesn't really address any real issues. Sure, the difficulty in making the transition from silent to talking actually occurred, but it's hardly relevant today - it wasn't even relevant at the time the film was made. Most historically great films address issues that remain relevant whereas this one did not.

In short, the acting was good and the plot, while not really addressing any major issues, was most excellent. The singing and dancing, while good, was distracting and the film's final score shall be penalized severely as a result. I realize this is a classic, but that's never stopped me before in assigning mediocre grades and it won't stop me here, either.

72.5
C-

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