Dangerous Rhythm

Insightful, exuberant, and witty, Dangerous Rhythm offers a fresh, sometimes revolutionary take on a uniquely American institution: the movie musical. Combining chronicle with critique and analysis, award-winning historian Richard Barrios lays out the whole of the musical's glorious and rocky existence, from Al Jolson to Les Miserables.

Richard Barrios worked in the music and film industries before turning to film history with the award-winning A Song in the Dark and Screened Out. He lectures extensively and appears frequently on television and in film and DVD documentaries. Born in the swamps of south Louisiana and a longtime resident of New York City, he now lives in bucolic suburban Philadelphia.

A Note of Explanation
Introduction ALL THAT JAZZ
Chapter One EVERYTHING'S BEEN DONE BEFORE
Chapter Two WHERE DO THEY COME FROM (AND WHERE DO THEY GO?)
Chapter Three SEEING'S BELIEVING
Chapter Four PEOPLE From Jolson to Justin in 85 Years
Chapter Five THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE
Chapter Six MUSIC MAKES ME
Chapter Seven WITH PLENTY OF MONEY
Chapter Eight I GET THE NECK OF THE CHICKEN
Chapter Nine TURN ON THE HEAT
Chapter Ten PAINTING THE CLOUDS Snow White, South Park, and Other Ways to Animate a Musical
Chapter Eleven UNDER MY SKIN Musicals and Race, Musicals and Sexuality
Chapter Twelve PUT 'EM IN A BOX
Epilogue DREAM DANCING