Five Musicals to Watch After Joker: Folie À Deux
Making a sequel to a gritty crime movie that grosses over a billion dollars worldwide, especially one based off one of the most famous comic book characters ever invented, makes sense on paper. But to take that dark milieu and turn it into a surreal musical utilizing tunes from the Great American Songbook era is a gamble few modern studios have taken this century. That’s what makes Todd Phillips’ oddball new film Joker: Folie À Deux such a singular megabudget blockbuster.
But while the film might feel unique in today’s moment, Phillips’s film utilizes a number of callbacks and references to the rich tradition of movie musicals - in the form of both songs that had originally been written for Classical Hollywood stars as well as revisionist musicals from the 80s that informed the style of the film. If you found out humming some of the tunes as you left the theater for Joker, or if you loved it and wanted to see some more films like it, read below for some classic musical recommendations:
Shall We Dance? (1937)
(Click the photo below for a video from the film)
This 1937 romantic comedy from the immortal team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had their biggest budget to date (almost $1 million!), and enlisted the songwriting talents of George and Ira Gershwin in their first musical film together. While “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off” (“you say tomato/I say to-mah-to”) is probably the most well-known to this date, the Joker soundtrack includes an early number from this film: “Slap That Bass,” performed by Fred Astaire in an art-deco vision of a ship’s engine room. Astaire’s dancing is as fluid and joyful as ever, but one of the most interesting aspects is that the number showed Fred Astaire dancing with a number of talented African-American dancers and musicians - a rarity for the era.
Summer Stock (1950)
(Click the photo below for a video from the film)
“Get Happy” wasn’t originally written for the 1950 film Summer Stock, and in fact, the number barely made it into the film at all, only shot several months after the rest of the film was finished when Judy Garland decided that the film needed a show-stopper of a finale. Her routine, performed in a black tuxedo, fedora, and black nylons, became one of the most iconic moments of her career and turned the song into a popular standard for years to come. The lyrics (“Forget your troubles, come on, get happy / Get ready for the judgment day”) have a gospel music flair with a hint of darkness about them that makes it a perfect addition to the Joker soundtrack.
The Band Wagon (1953)
(Click the photo below for a video from the film)
“That’s Entertainment,” a song about how there is no difference between the performers of high art and the lowbrow song-and-dance men, ended up becoming something of a theme song for the MGM musicals thanks to the wildly successful series of films by the same. But when songwriters Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz were originally tasked to come up with a song similar to Irving Berlin’s “No Business Like Show Business,” they ended up writing this song in about 45 minutes. Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga perform the song together in Joker, but the original was mostly performed by Jack Buchanan with assistance from Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray, and Oscar Levant.
Pennies from Heaven (1981)
(Click the photo below for a video from the film)
Herbert Ross’s 1981 film Pennies from Heaven might not share any songs with Joker: Folie À Deux, but the films both utilize classic songs in similar ways. Much like how Arthur Fleck retreats into flights of musical fantasy, Pennies from Heaven follows Arthur Parker (Steve Martin), a sheet-music salesman suffering at the height of the Great Depression, and how he escapes his reality by imagining his world as an Old Hollywood-style musical, lipsyncing to a plethora of old 1930s standards. Similar to Joker, it’s a bleak film but one that shows the endless potential of the musical genre.
One from the Heart (1982)
(Click the photo below for a video from the film)
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 musical One from the Heart was a critical and commercial failure upon its initial release, but, like much of his filmography, has found an ardent group of supporters over the years who appreciate the film’s consciously artificial style and jazzy soundtrack from Tom Waits. Among these supporters is Joker cinematographer Lawrence Sher, who said that the film “became a conversation starter for me and Mark Friedberg the production designer and Todd [Phillips] as we scouted in those early days” before they shot Joker: Folie À Deux.