Broadway noir: Film noir and musical comedy in City of Angels (1989)
type: CreativeWork
description: City of Angels (1989) uniquely transforms the structural, thematic, and visual elements of film noir through the conventions of musical comedy and thereby subjects both genres to affectionate satire. This essay explores the connections between these idiosyncratic forms of entertainment, particularly in the ways that noir devices and tropes emerge from songs penned by Cy Coleman and David Zippel, to reach a greater understanding of the ways in which City of Angels depicts and comments on the cultural history of film noir. My methodology looks to literary criticism and philosophy written on both film noir and hardboiled fiction for theorization on the core elements of those genres. Those traits are measured against City of Angels as a work, primarily musically but also in its lyrics and dialogue, using frameworks presented within the work of Raymond Knapp, Stacy Wolf, Scott McMillin, and other scholars of musical theatre. Where relevant, I engage with histories, music theory, and non-scholarly publications for social context and reception. The essay is organized along archetypal lines, namely the private investigator and femme fatale, to show how those models inform the show’s gendered characterization. It exposits indices for the 1940s and the classic Hollywood era, all pointing toward a framework where the musical comedy can function as a cultural history.
abstract: City of Angels (1989) uniquely transforms the structural, thematic, and visual elements of film noir through the conventions of musical comedy and thereby subjects both genres to affectionate satire. This essay explores the connections between these idiosyncratic forms of entertainment, particularly in the ways that noir devices and tropes emerge from songs penned by Cy Coleman and David Zippel, to reach a greater understanding of the ways in which City of Angels depicts and comments on the cultural history of film noir. My methodology looks to literary criticism and philosophy written on both film noir and hardboiled fiction for theorization on the core elements of those genres. Those traits are measured against City of Angels as a work, primarily musically but also in its lyrics and dialogue, using frameworks presented within the work of Raymond Knapp, Stacy Wolf, Scott McMillin, and other scholars of musical theatre. Where relevant, I engage with histories, music theory, and non-scholarly publications for social context and reception. The essay is organized along archetypal lines, namely the private investigator and femme fatale, to show how those models inform the show’s gendered characterization. It exposits indices for the 1940s and the classic Hollywood era, all pointing toward a framework where the musical comedy can function as a cultural history.
author: Witt, Jason Charles
language: en
keywords: Cy Coleman, Film Noir, David Zippel, Larry Gelbart, Music, Musical Theatre, Musical Comedy
date published: 2019-08-23T20:02:10Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:42Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/104933