Singing and Dancing Extravaganzas Fill Month-Long 'Musicals: See It Big!' Series

It’s time to dance in the aisles! The Museum of the Moving Image is ready to screen 14 classical movies that are known for their singing and dancing extravaganzas. From January 24th to February 28th, the Musicals: See It Big! series will jump from spectacle to spectacle as well as Austria to Harlem to Paris and Liza Minnelli to Michael Jackson to Gene Kelly. Here is the schedule:

• January 24th, All That Jazz, 7 pm. Bob Fosse’s partly autobiographical, partly fantastical musical depicts a boozy, pill-addled choreographer negotiating a love life and a career.
• January 25th, The Sound of Music, 2 pm. Julie Andrews (above) is a novice nun whose life changes when she starts caring for the bratty children of a military captain on the heels of World War II.
• January 26th, Love Me Tonight, 3:30 pm. Maurice Chevalier is a jovial tailor who tries to collect on a bill from a count, but falls in love with a princess.
• January 26th, Gigi, 6 pm. A young girl comes of age in wealthy turn-of-the-century Paris. This movie won nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Costume Design, Song and Score.
• January 31st, A Star Is Born, 7 pm. Judy Garland is a movie star on the rise while her husband is an alcoholic actor on his way down the ladder of success.
• February 2nd, Meet Me in St. Louis, 2 pm. In this bittersweet turn-of-the-century musical, a family contends with life, love and an impending move from St. Louis to New York City.
• February 2nd, Gold Diggers of 1933, 4:30 pm. With eye-popping choreography, this film tells the story of four aspiring actresses trying to make it during the Great Depression.
• February 2nd, Pennies from Heaven, 7 pm. Steve Martin is a sheet-music salesman during the Great Depression. For him and the schoolteacher he loves (Bernadette Peters), music is an escape from reality.
• February 7th, The Wiz (above), 7 pm. A Harlem school teacher is transported to the Land of Oz. A Motown co-production, this musical features songs by Luther Vandross and Ashford & Simpson, and a cast headed by Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.
• February 21st, Cabaret, 7 pm. A vivacious but damaged American singer sells her soul in a seedy nightclub, while a devilish emcee observes in this shattering musical set in Berlin on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power.
• February 22nd, An American in Paris, 4 pm. Gene Kelly is a painter struggling to make ends meet in the City of Light.
• February 22nd, The Pajama Game, 7 pm. Can management (John Raitt) and labor (Doris Day) co-exist at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa? This musical about unionization attempts to answer this question with choreography by a young Bob Fosse.
• February 23rd, Show Boat, 6 pm. This saga follows the lives of the performers and workers on The Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River showboat, over 40 years. Paul Robeson’s “Ol’ Man River” is the most famous of this film’s many musical numbers.
• February 28th, New York, New York, 7 pm. Martin Scorsese directs — and Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli star — in this ode to classic MGM musicals and 1940s jazz.

Details: Musicals: See It Big!, Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Avenue, Astoria, January 24 to February 28th, times vary, free with admission ($12 for adults/$9 for those over 65 and students with ID/$6 for children ages 3-12/Free for children under 3 and members).

Photos: MMI