UK release date: October 1955
Topped the Chart:
23rd September 1956 (for two weeks)
9th June 1957 (for one week)
Three weeks total
Is there a more energising opening to a show than Oh What A Beautiful Morning? Twinkling out of the overture and slowly building to life like the dawn chorus, its power of positivity immediately sets out Oklahoma’s stall: this is a musical that wants to be embraced by its audience and boy does it work hard for it.
Though it’s hard work from a listening perspective, this is the advantage of having three Rogers & Hammerstein soundtracks in a row—you can really feel the difference in what they wanted to achieve in each successive case. The sour and awkward Carousel is happy to sit with its back to the audience occasionally hissing like a mean-tempered black cat. By comparison, Oklahoma is a big ol’ golden retriever bounding up to each person and expecting to be loved instantly.
Carousel was a single good song with a show attached, while Oklahoma keeps the hits coming, and they are beautifully realised on the soundtrack LP. From the galloping ride of Surrey with the Fringe on the Top to the gender dynamics of All Er Nothin’ and the soaring, earworm of a title track, the easy high quality of the songs means that very little in lost in transfer from film screen to record player. Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones are the leads once again, but they’re on surer ground than with Carousel, their genuine chemistry palpable on the likes of Surrey and People Will Say We’re In Love. Kudos to Gloria Grahame as Ado Annie too—hardly the strongest singer, but pouring out enough dumb charm to steal every line of every song she features in.
It's also worth sticking to the original LP too and avoid the CD reissue, which reinstated the interminable Out of My Dreams ballet which just does not work without the visuals (though it does rob us of a natty honky-tonk-saloon-bar-piano recap of Pore Jud is Daid…it’s just a shame about the other 13 minutes).
The film’s length and staging very much makes it of its time but make no mistake: the songs on the soundtrack are almost as good as musicals get. Oklahoma is indeed OK, as it turns out.
Score: 9/10
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