Musicals on the Silver Screen: A Guide to the Must-See Movie Musicals

Musicals adapted to the big screen—from West Side Story to The Phantom of the Opera—have enjoyed a staggering amount of success since the 1940s, and this guide is especially tailored to library patrons looking for help selecting the right flick to watch. The book is organized by decade, allowing readers to learn about the nuances of each era of musical movie production, and a description is paired with each film along with an explanation of why it is worth viewing. Watching musicals and learning their history by way of libraries and archives where such films are preserved and made available is heavily emphasized.

Leonard Kniffel was editor in chief of American Libraries magazine from 1996 to 2011 and worked as a librarian for 18 years at the Detroit Public Library. He is the author of A Polish Son in the Motherland and the editor of Reading with the Stars. He lives in Chicago.