Name: 🎶The Ol' Razzle-Dazzle: The Evolution Of The Movie Musical Film Talk Series at The Westdale
Start: 2025-10-29T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-10-29T22:00:00-04:00
Location: 1014 King Street West, Hamilton, ON, Canada, Ontario L8S 1L4

$\ud83c\udfb6The Ol' Razzle-Dazzle: The Evolution Of The Movie Musical Film Talk Series at The Westdale$

Join host Jeffrey Bender as sashays and shimmies through this six-film survey all about musicals, and their widespread impact from the days of pre-code Hollywood to their modern-day revival, and everything in between. See and hear them all as they were meant to be presented - on the big screen with great sound! 🎶
🎬Cabaret – October 29 at 7:00pm
In Berlin in 1931, American cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) meets British academic Brian Roberts (Michael York), who is finishing his university studies. Despite Brian’s confusion over his sexuality, the pair become lovers, but the arrival of the wealthy and decadent playboy Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) complicates matters for them both. This love triangle plays out against the rise of the Nazi party and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
🎬Stormy Weather – November 26 at 7:00pm
Twentieth Century Fox’s Stormy Weather features a dazzling string of Black performances illuminating a (very) loose biopic of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who leads an all-star cast. When news arrives that famed dancer Bill Williamson (Robinson) is being feted with a lifetime achievement award, he pauses an impromptu front-porch dance lesson to recount the story of his career to a group of Black children gathered round. From the Army band, to a Memphis café, to Chicago and then Hollywood, Robinson lightly rides the ups and downs of showbiz and love with his on- and off-stage partner Selina Rogers (Lena Horne). With knockout turns along the way by Robinson, Horne, Cab Calloway, Ada Brown, the Nicholas Brothers, Fats Waller, and Casablanca star Dooley Wilson, the film celebrates a generation of Black musical talent while looking forward to the generations to come.
🎬The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – December 17 at 7:00pm
The angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through lilting songs by the great composer Michel Legrand, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.
🎬Chicago – January 14 at 7:00pm
Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) is a small-time chorus dancer who will K*ll for fame. After doing just that, she lands behind bars alongside vaudeville star Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who, with the help of hotshot lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), has spun her crime into a media frenzy. When Flynn takes Roxie’s case, he makes her the latest tabloid sensation, setting the stage for a singing, dancing showdown between the all-too-willing rivals. Winner of 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Chicago helped to revitalize the moribund musical genre, as it experienced a renaissance in the early 2000s and beyond.
🎬Singin’ in the Rain – February 14 at 7:00pm
One of the most beloved movie musicals of all time is also one of the greatest films about moviemaking ever made. Set during the advent of “talkies,” Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) has risen to stardom during Hollywood’s silent-movie era – paired with the beautiful, jealous and dumb Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen). And when Lockwood becomes attracted to young studio singer Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), Lamont has her fired. But with the introduction of talking pictures, Lockwood finds his career in jeopardy after audiences laugh when they hear Lamont speak in her shrill voice for the first time… until the studio decides to use Selden to dub her voice.
🎟️Tickets are sold separately for each screening!