Books in Brief: The Hollywood Musical

The Hollywood Musical, by Ethan Mordden (St. Martin’s, 261 pp., $15.95). Ethan Mordden’s new book is an uneven, cheerily nostalgic tribute to a rapidly fading genre: the old-fashioned, big-budget film musical in all its varied guises. The subject is an interesting one and would easily bear the scrutiny of an intelligent critic; Mr. Mordden is more campologist than critic, however, and his approach tends to be on the arch side, full of falsettoish phrases like “‘must viewing for aficionados.” (One particularly revealing remark: “Turn to page 98 for a still of what Moshier captions as the ‘distinctive Faye pose.’ Try striking this pose yourself, if possible in one of [Alice] Faye’s costumes. How do you feel?”) If you can stand the prose and the posturing—which gets pretty thick in an appendix called “The Ethan Mordden Hall of Fame and Disrepute”—you will find that Mr. Mordden has some very sensible things to say from time to time, particularly about Fred Astaire and Cole Porter; Porter’s “horny double meanings,” for instance, are shrewdly and accurately characterized by the author as “sorrowful gay mots masquerading as carefree hedonism.” In addition, both discography and bibliography are helpful and informative. To sum up: periodically sick-making, but not for Alice Faye-mad transvestites only.