Oklahoma! is a 1955 musical film directed by Fred Zinnemann. The film stars Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Oklahoma! was based on the 1943 musical play of the same name by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It is set in the Oklahoma Territory shortly before it became a state in 1907.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Production Company: Magna Theatre Corporation
Distributor: Magna Theatre Corporation (70mm Release Only), RKO Radio Pictures (35mm)
Cast: Gordon MacRae, Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, Shirley Jones, Charlotte Greenwood, Rod Steiger, Eddie Albert
US Box Office: $17,750,000 ($353,900,000 adjusted for inflation)
Film Format: Technicolor (shot in the Todd-AO and CinemaScope formats)
Genre: Musical
Release Date: October 11, 1955 (premiere)
Plot Summary: In the Oklahoma territory, cowboy Curly McLain (Gordon MacRae) courts beautiful farm girl Laurey Williams (Shirley Jones). Curly has to deal with Jud Fry (Rod Steiger), a sinister farmhand who also wants Laurey. At the same time Laurey’s best friend Ado Annie Carnes (Gloria Grahame) is also courted by her old boyfriend, cowboy Will Parker (Gene Nelson).
Production: The original Oklahoma! Broadway musical premiered in 1943 and was the first collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The play was highly successful on Broadway, where it played for five years and then went on a roadshow release across the country, where it played for about ten years. Since the mid-1940s, several film studios had been interested in making a film version of Oklahoma! United Artists, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and MGM all attempted to buy the rights in the 1940s but were turned down by Rodgers and Hammerstein. In 1953, the two agreed to sell the rights to Magna Theatre Corporation for $1,000,000 because they wanted the Oklahoma! adaptation to be something special and were intrigued by the company’s new Todd-AO 70mm film format which would be used for the first time on Oklahoma! Magna had specifically been founded to develop the Todd-AO format. Originally 20th Century Fox was to co-produce, co-fund, and distribute the film, but due to a disagreement, Magna became the sole producer.
Fred Zinnemann was hired to be the director of Oklahoma! This was his first and only musical film. Zinnemann chose to shoot Oklahoma! simultaneously in both the Todd-AO format (70mm-30fps) and the more conventional CinemaScope format (35mm-24fps). This served two purposes, it allowed Oklahoma! to be shown in theaters that lacked 70mm equipment, and it could serve as a backup incase if anything went wrong with the still experimental Todd-AO film. Actor and singer Gordon MacRae was cast as Curly. Shirley Jones was cast as Laurey in her first ever film role. Jones was chosen because she had previously played the part in several roadshow stage performances of Oklahoma! Gloria Grahame was cast as Ado Annie. She was difficult to work with on the film, frequently showing up late on set, arguing with the cast and crew, and refusing to shoot certain scenes. Actress Betty Hutton was considered for the role of Ado Annie, which would have revived her struggling film career, but she turned it down in favor of the TV special Satins and Spurs (1954).
Oklahoma! was originally intended to be shot on location in the title state, but Zinnemann and the producers chose to shoot elsewhere, because they thought that the oil wells on the Oklahoma prairies would be too distracting in long shots. Location shooting in the film was instead done primarily in Nogales, Arizona. Nogales was chosen due to its resemblance to to rural Oklahoma. The corn field and the “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” scene were shot at the Canoa Ranch in Green Valley, Arizona., and the Train Station scene was shot at Elgin, Arizona. The film also featured additional shooting at MGM Studios back in California. The total cost of the film production was $6.8 million, very expensive at the time, due to the extensive location shooting and because of the cost of shooting the film in two formats.
Fun Facts and Trivia: Despite being tone deaf, Gloria Grahame sang her own songs. However, her songs needed to be edited together from several different recordings of her singing. Despite playing a character named “Curly”, Gordon MacRae’s hair was mostly straight. The producers requested that MacRae get a perm for the role, but he refused and instead agreed to allow his wife Sheila to finger-curl his hair each morning so his character’s name was believable. James Whitmore (Andrew Carnes) played the father of Gloria Grahame’s character despite only being two years older than her.
Finding “corn as high as an elephant’s eye” was a challenge for the film’s crew. As Oklahoma! was filmed out of season, the crew couldn’t find any tall cornfields. The producers hired the University of Arizona’s Agricultural Department to remedy the situation. They planted each corn stalk in individual containers and with a lot of rain and luck, the corn grew to be 16 feet tall. Oscar Hammerstein humorously stated: “The corn is now as high as the eye of an elephant on top of another elephant.” While preparing for the film’s shooting a year in advance, art director Joseph Wright realized that Nogales, AZ was frequently subject to Spring floods. He insisted that the production spend $15,000 to construct a dam. The producers were reluctant but agreed, and Wright’s prediction came true the following year when the floods came and his dam saved $250,000 worth of sets.
Reception: Oklahoma! premiered at New York’s Rivoli Theater on October 11, 1955. Then Oklahoma governor Raymond D. Gary attended the premiere. The film’s initial 70mm limited release was distributed by Magna, and its 1956 35mm wide release was initially distributed by RKO. Later in 1956, when RKO was experiencing serious difficulties, Fox took over the film’s distribution. Oklahoma! was very popular with audiences, due to its memorable songs and escapist values and was one of the highest grossing films of 1955. However, the film’s high production costs limited its profitability.
Oklahoma! received generally positive reviews from critics at the time. The film critics at TIME and Variety gave Oklahoma! positive reviews. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave Oklahoma! a strongly positive review, and he thought that it was one of the best musical films he’d ever seen. The New York Times also voted it to be one of their “New York Times Critics Pick” choices for the best films of 1955. Conversely, Clyde Gilmour of Maclean’s magazine gave the film a negative review.
Oklahoma! has received similar reviews in retrospect: Matt Brunson of Film Frenzy praised the music and Gloria Grahame’s performance. Patrick Peterson of Empire magazine described it as a “brilliant musical.” Steven D. Greydanus of Decent Films noted that Oklahoma was one “deservedly” one of the most popular Rodgers and Hammerstein films alongside The Sound of Music (1965). In 1998, Oklahoma! was one of the 400 movies nominated for the American Film Institute’s List of the top 100 best American films. In 2002, Oklahoma! was also nominated by AFI for their list of the top 100 most Romantic American films; and in 2006 it was one of the 180 films nominated for AFI’s top 25 Musicals.
Oscars: Oklahoma! was nominated for four Academy Awards in 1956. These included: Best Cinematography-Color (Robert Surtees), Best Editing (Gene Ruggiero and George Boemler), Best Score (Robert Russell Bennett, Jay Blackton and Adolph Deutsch), and Best Sound Recording (Fred Hynes). The film won two Oscars: Best Sound Recording, and Best Score.
Why You Should See It: Oklahoma! is a mostly good musical film. The cinematography and the dance choreography is innovative and impressive. Most of the actors are also quite good in their roles. Shirley Jones is very good in her film debut, and Charlotte Greenwood (Aunt Eller) is quite funny and memorable in a supporting role. The movie also celebrates frontier life in the early 20th century. Parts of Oklahoma! are too goofy for my tastes, but overall its a good film.