Event alert: Jeanine Basinger in conversation with Patrick McGilligan on movie musicals, Bruce Cole, David Luhrssen, and Phil Naylor on Milwaukee Rock and Roll history

Just two events this week, but they are great!

Monday, December 16, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Jeanine Basinger, author of The Movie Musical!, in conversation with Patrick McGilligan

Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical - in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed, most gorgeously illustrated book of her long and remarkable career, as she speaks to film biographer Patrick McGilligan. This event is cohosted by Milwaukee Film.

Advance registration has ended for this event, but don't worry, there is plenty of room for walk-ups.

From Jason Heller on the NPR website: “Every page is infused not only with Basinger's knowledge, but her overwhelming adoration for the tuneful, silver-screen tales that changed her own life. The book is a passion project, organically rendered, and shot through with longing for an age where sophistication was as subtle as it was scintillating. The Movie Musical! is more than a love letter to a great American artform; it's a symphony

This is just one paragraph from the jam-packed review of The Movie Musical! from Joseph Epstein in The Wall Street Journal: "After defining the movie musical—a film “built around the idea that songs and dances can be used to tell a story, or to tell part of a story,” and in which actions are conveyed through musical performance -Ms. Basinger distinguishes movie musicals made from adaptations of stage musicals and operettas, and from biopics and original ice-skating and swimming-pool stories. She provides mini-biographies of the important figures, of directors, choreographers, above all of the performers, in the history of the movie musical. Crucial among directors and choreographers to the formation of the movie musical were the innovators Ernst Lubitsch, Busby Berkeley, Rouben Mamoulian and Fred Astaire. She also devotes several pages to what was known at MGM as 'The Freed Unit,' the movie musicals made under the guiding hand of the producer Arthur Freed, among them Meet Me in St. Louis, On the Town, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain, Gigi and more. Freed was also the man who brilliantly cast The Wizard of Oz. MGM and Twentieth Century Fox (called by Alice Faye, upon leaving the studio, Penitentiary Fox) were the two top studios for making movie musicals, though RKO made most of the Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies."

Thursday, December 19, 8 pm, at Boswell: David Luhrssen, Bruce Cole, and Phillip Naylor, editors of Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000: A Reflective History, with a special performance by Lil Rev and Friends

Editors Luhrssen, Managing Editor of the Shepherd Express, Cole, musician and curator of Jean Cujé Milwaukee Music Collection, and Naylor, Marquette University Professor of History, appear at Boswell to present their brand new book on fifty years of Milwaukee rock. The evening will feature a musical introduction by Milwaukee musician Lil Rev and friends.

Spanning the beginning of Milwaukee’s rock and roll scene in the 1950s to the turn of the century, this fascinating anthology of written, vocal, and visual reflections evokes memories for those who experienced the music and the era as well as introducing area musicians to a new generation. The editors present this enthralling, generously illustrated, multifaceted cultural history of Milwaukee and rock music, highlighted by a multiplicity of voices - musicians, promoters, DJs, photographers, artists, and audience members - collectively committed to the sounds of a great city.

From Jim Higgins at the Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Rock and Roll 1950-2000: A Reflective History takes a mosaic approach to chronicling several generations of the music scene here. Fortunately for readers, the three editors of this new anthology about local music know a lot about how the pieces fit together." Read more here.

We're starting late on this event so that shoppers have an extra hour to browse the store before we set up for our authors. Because of the 8 pm start time, Boswell will also be open until 10 pm on December 19.

Photo credits
Jeanine Basinger by Jay Fishback