Best movies like The Pirates of Penzance

A live 1980 performance in Central Park before the production moved to Broadway.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Pirates of Penzance Starring Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith, Patricia Routledge, and more. If you liked The Pirates of Penzance then you may also like: Victor/Victoria, Naked Boys Singing!, Night and Day, Jamboree!, Blue Skies and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

This Pirates of Penzance is primarily a historical document, part of the Broadway Theater Archive television series. It presents, with some inevitable, tiny technical shortcomings, a live 1980 performance in Central Park, not the 1983 movie of the same name that also starred Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline. Those who remember that film, which had the benefit of retakes and editing, a lavish production budget, and the spaciousness of a Hollywood studio, may find this video less polished. On its own terms, it is nonetheless thoroughly enjoyable.

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Victor/Victoria

Out-of-work singer Victoria Grant meets a just-fired, flamboyant gay man in a club in 1920s Paris. He convinces her to pretend to be a man who is a female impersonator in order to get a job. The act is a hit in a local nightclub, but things get complicated when a gangster and nightclub owner from Chicago, King Marchan, falls in love with "him." Filmed live on Broadway, 1995.

Naked Boys Singing!

This whimsical Off-Broadway hit musical is aptly reworked and transferred to the screen. The self-descriptively titled Naked Boys Singing is a musical revue of songs that poke fun at gay life, body image, love, loss and yearning.

Night and Day

Swellegant and elegant. Delux and delovely. Cole Porter was the most sophisticated name in 20th-century songwriting. And to play him on screen, Hollywood chose debonair icon Cary Grant. Grant stars for the first time in color in this fanciful biopic. Alexis Smith plays Linda, whose serendipitous meetings with Porter lead to a meeting at the alter. More than 20 of his songs grace this tail of triumph and tragedy, with Grant lending is amiable voice to "You're the Top", "Night and Day" and more. Monty Woolley, a Yale contemporary of Porter, portrays himself. And Jane Wyman, Mary Martin, Eve Arden and others provide vocals and verve. Lights down. Curtain up. Showtune standards embraced by generations are yours to enjoy in "Night and Day."

Jamboree!

Jamboree adheres to the usual formula of late-1950s rock&roll films: A plethora of musical numbers linked together by the wispiest of plotlines. Kay Medford heads the cast as manipulative showbiz agent Grace Shaw. Hoping to land pop singer Pete Porter (Paul Carr), Grace connives to break up Pete's romance with female vocalist Honey Wynn (Freda Holloway). But who cares? The audience came to see such musical faves as Fats Domino, Count Basie, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jodie Sands, Ron Coby, Slim Whitman, Carl Perkins, Frankie Avalon, Charlie Gracie and the Four Coins. As a promotional tie-in, Jamboree also features appearances by 21 of North America's top rock-and-roll deejays.

Blue Skies

Jed Potter looks back on a love triangle conducted over the course of years and between musical numbers. Dancer Jed loves showgirl Mary, who loves compulsive nightclub-opener Johnny, who can't stay committed to anything in life for very long.

Bye Bye Birdie

In 1995, ABC presented a telemovie version of the Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie produced by RHI Entertainment. It starred Seinfeld's Jason Alexander and Vanessa Williams of Desperate Housewives. While this version remained mostly faithful to the original musical (Michael Stewart remains the only credited author of this version), several songs were added and re-arranged, and dialogue was slightly rewritten to smoothly facilitate the musical changes. The musical revolves around an Elvis Presley-type rocker who's about to join the Army. To mark the occasion, his manager's secretary arranges for him to kiss a random fan goodbye on The Ed Sullivan Show. Bye Bye Birdie earned four Tony awards in 1961, including Best Musical and Best Actor in a Musical for its original star, Dick Van Dyke. In addition to Alexander and Williams, ABC's production starred Tyne Daly, George Wendt, Chynna Phillips and Mark Kudisch.

Camelot

The plot of his illegitimate son Mordred to gain the throne, and Guinevere's growing attachment to Sir Lancelot, threatens to topple King Arthur and destroy his "round table" of knights.

The Cat Concerto

Tom enters from stage left in white tie and tails, sits at the piano, gets his focus as the orchestra in the pit beneath him warms up, and begins to play Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody". Unbeknownst to Tom and the audience, Jerry is asleep across several of the high-note keys inside the instrument, so Tom's playing eventually wakes him. Jerry is pummeled by hammers, bounced by wires, and squeezed by Tom as the cat tries to play the concerto while dispensing with Jerry. Jerry's defensive antics add to the brio of the program and answer Tom with Jerry's own skillful musical attack. By the concerto's end, the duet leaves only one animal standing for the audience's applause.

The Pirates of Penzance

In spite of being apprenticed to a Pirate King as a child, Frederic has led a very sheltered life. So when he arrives in Cornwall with his boisterous shipmates, there are a few surprises in store for him!

De-Lovely

From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the lives of Cole Porter and his wife, Linda Lee Thomas were never less than glamorous and wildly unconventional. And though Cole's thirst for life strained their marriage, Linda never stopped being his muse, inspiring some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.

Billy Rose's Jumbo

The daughter of a circus owner fights to save her father from a takeover spearheaded by the man she loves.

Stepping Out

Mavis (Liza Minnelli) was a chorus line dancer on Broadway. Just as she was on the verge of getting more prominent roles, she fell in love. Her full-of-himself boyfriend moved them to Buffalo, far from the theater scene. As a musician, he plays with a band in the local clubs, often with the very talented Mavis singing at his elbow. But, they are just two bit players, mostly because of his total lack of ambition. On the side, Mavis runs a dance studio for ordinary folks. In her classes, among others, are a lovely nurse, a librarian, a lady with an overbearing husband, a lady with an unemployed son, a bossy middle aged housewife (Julie Walters) and a lone, divorced, very shy male. The studio pianist is a strong-willed senior (Shelley Winters). One day, a woman who operates a more prominent dance school in Buffalo invites Mavis and her class to perform a number in a charity dance recital.

For Me and My Gal

Two vaudeville performers fall in love, but find their relationship tested by the arrival of WWI.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an “internationally ignored” but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a “beautiful gender of one.”

Elvis: That's the Way It Is

On July 31, 1970, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Elvis Presley staged a triumphant return to the concert stage from which he had been absent for almost a decade. His series of concerts broke all box office records and completely reenergized the career of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Footlight Parade

A fledgling producer finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences.

Passing Strange

A young black artist leaves his Los Angeles digs and travels to Europe to find himself. A theatrical stage production of the original Broadway musical.

The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall

A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorises the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. The 25th anniversary of the first public performance of Phantom of the Opera was celebrated with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Down on Us

The story of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin, and how their message for their generation made them targets of a US government plot.

Shock Treatment

Janet and Brad Majors, unhappily married, are separated after appearing on a game show. Janet becomes a superstar while Brad is thrown into a mental hospital. But what does fast food magnate Farley Flavors have up his sleeve?

Star!

Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.

Stop Making Sense

A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.

Summer Stock

To Jane Falbury's New England farm comes a troup of actors to put up a show, invited by Jane's sister. At first reluctant she has them do farm chores in exchange for food. Her reluctance becomes attraction when she falls in love with the director, Joe, who happens to be her sister's fiance.

That's Entertainment! III

Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

Topsy-Turvy

After their production "Princess Ida" meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get the two to work together again, which opens the way to "The Mikado," one of the duo's greatest successes.

Chasing Rainbows

The road-show troupe of a top Broadway show go cross-country while taking the audience along on the on-stage scenes as well as what happens and is happening back stage of the production. The spectacular dancing ensembles and colorful costumes and pulchritude on-stage offers a contrasting background to the drabness of the backstage, where joy, sorrow, tragedies, deception, and romance are intertwined.

Ding Dong Williams

Ding Dong Williams, a clarinet player who can neither read nor write music is employed at a motion picture studio. The studio plans to use him and his six-piece band but his musical deficiencies are discovered and the plan scrapped. But the secretary of the head of the music department intercedes on his behalf and he is given a chance in the film.

The Matinee Idol

The famous matinee idol and blackface comedian, Don Wilson, heads out of town to escape adulation. There, calling himself Harry Mann, he accidentally joins a traveling acting troupe, and falls in love with Ginger Bolivar, who runs the troupe and stars in their Civil War melodrama. Don's producer sees the play, and thinks it's a comic masterpiece, and just what Don's Broadway show needs. But when Ginger finds out she's been played for a fool, will she forgive Don?

Elvis on Tour

This documentary captures Elvis Presley on his 1972 American tour and includes rehearsals, interviews, archival television appearances and backstage moments. With Elvis at his most flamboyant, the film features well-known hits and cover songs showcasing his country, gospel and rhythm-and-blues influences.

The Climax

Dr. Hohner, theatre physician at the Vienna Royal Theatre, murders his mistress, the star soprano when his jealousy drives him to the point of mad obsession. Ten years later, another young singer reminds Hohner of the late diva and his old mania kicks in. Hohner wants to prevent her from singing for anyone but him, even if it means silencing her forever.

Led Zeppelin: Celebration Day

On 10th December 2007, Led Zeppelin took the stage at London's O2 Arena to headline a tribute concert for dear friend and Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. Founding members John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were joined by Jason Bonham, the son of their late drummer John Bonham, to perform 16 songs from their celebrated catalog.

Company

In a series of vignettes, New York bachelor Bobby learns about the perils and pleasures of love, marriage, dating and divorce from his married friends.

Stop the World: I Want to Get Off

The Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse London and Broadway musical hit Stop the World, I Want to Get Off is given literal treatment in this filmization. Newley stars as Littlechap, whose allegorical rise to success is countered by the instability of his private life. Like the play, the film is staged impressionistically, with Newley decked out in mime makeup and periodically stopping the action to address the audience, and with all the women in his life -- German, American and "Typically English" -- played by a single actress (Millicent Martin, taking over from the stage version's Anna Quayle). In Wizard of Oz fashion, the play itself is lensed in color, while the brief prologue, showing the actors preparing for their performance, is in black-and-white. The production includes such standards (and perennial audition pieces) as What Kind of Fool Am I? and Gonna Build a Mountain.

The Pirates of Penzance

Brent Carver stars as the swashbuckling Pirate King in the famous Stratford Festival's rollicking production of the Gilbert & Sullivan classic that pits British bobbles against unlikely pirates on the Cornish coast. Sullivan regarded this operetta - a hit ever since its first production in New York in 1879 - as the best comedy he composed. He even said of his collaborator, "The libretto is ingenious, clever, wonderfully fun in parts and sometimes brilliant in dialogue - beautifully written for music, as is all Gilbert does." Indeed, audiences will find the music every bit a match for the lyrics, with the genius of the score lying in its parody of grand opera. Filmed in 1985 at the world-famous Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario.

Girl on the Spot

Eleven Gilbert & Sullivan numbers are melded within the murder-mystery plot of "Girl on the Spot", with a result that either G&S and/or the plot are always seemingly on stage-wait or in the wings awaiting a cue. Lois Collier is the girl-on-the-spot of the title because she was on the scene of a murder. The police conclude she didn't do it and they use her to set a trap for the real killer, a G&S addict, by financing a Broadway production starring Collier.

Peter Pan Live!

Following in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful The Sound of Music LIVE! - which drew over 18 million viewers - comes this musical masterpiece that tells the beloved story of Peter Pan, the mischievous little boy who ran away to Neverland. Get ready for show-stopping stars, stunning costumes, extravagant sets and delightful music that will have everyone in your home singing along. From Executive Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron comes a soaring holiday event guaranteed to take viewers on a magical and musical journey to the second star to the right.

King of Jazz

Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers—all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson.

Diana

A definitive portrait of Princess Diana, marking what would have been her 60th birthday, piecing together her incredible journey from being a teenage Pimlico nursery assistant to finding her voice as the Princess of Wales.

Hairspray Live!

A teenage girl living in Baltimore in the early 1960s dreams of appearing on a popular TV dance show.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong

The Olivier Award-winning Mischief Theatre brings Peter Pan Goes Wrong to BBC One. As part of its commitment to community theatre, the BBC has commissioned The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, an amateur dramatics group, to recreate the JM Barrie classic as part of their festive programming. But can they pull it off? Narrated by David Suchet and filmed in front of a live audience, watch as Peter Pan flies through the air, Captain Hook and his pirates set adrift in the lagoon, and Tinkerbell is due to light up the stage in a stunning electrical costume... what can possibly go wrong?! With their trademark comic mayhem, expect hilarious stunts, chaos, technical hitches, flying mishaps and cast disputes on the way to Neverland with hilarious and disastrous results.

Pippin

The musical uses the premise of a mysterious performance troupe, led by a Leading Player, to tell the story of Pippin, a young prince on his search for meaning and significance. In 1981, a stage production of Pippin was videotaped for Canadian television. The stage production was directed by Kathryn Doby, Bob Fosse's dance captain for the original Broadway production, and David Sheehan directed the video adaptation, with Roger O. Hirson in charge of the music. Ben Vereen returned for the role of Leading Player, while William Katt played the role of Pippin. However, this version was a truncated adaptation and several sections of the play were cut. An extended version running 135 minutes is also available.

The Magic Show

The Magic Show is a one-act musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Bob Randall. It starred magician Doug Henning. Produced by Edgar Lansbury, it opened on May 28, 1974 at the Cort Theatre in Manhattan, and ran for 1,920 performances, closing on December 31, 1978. Henning was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and director Grover Dale was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. In 2001, a filmed performance staged especially for the cameras in 1980, directed by Norman Campbell at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto, was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment. This production, originally intended for cinema release, differed notably from the original Broadway production, with several of the most memorable songs, such as "West End Avenue" and "Solid Silver Platform Shoes", removed. Doug Henning reprised his original starring role, while Didi Conn co-starred as Cal.

Great Broadway Musical Moments from the Ed Sullivan Show

Relive the dazzling show stopping songs, dances and production numbers from some of your favorite Broadway musicals. Great Broadway Musical Moments from The Ed Sullivan Show brings you legendary musical entertainment performed by a galaxy of great Broadway stars like Ethel Merman in "Annie Get Your Gun," John Raitt in "Oklahoma!," Julie Andrews in "Camelot," and more! This exciting event includes exclusive interviews with legends Shirley Jones, Joel Grey, and Rex Reed.

Love Never Dies

Set 10 years later, the Phantom has escaped from Paris to New York where he lives amongst the joyrides and freak shows of Coney Island. He has finally found a place for his music to soar, all that is missing is his love Christine Daaé. In a bid to win back her love, the Phantom lures Christine, her husband Raoul, and their young son Gustave from Manhattan, to the glittering and glorious world of Coney Island... they have no idea what lies in store for them... You truly haven’t experienced Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies until you see this spectacular new Australian production, filmed at Melbourne’s iconic Regent Theatre.

Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway

Sex Drugs and Aids... This controversial musical follows the lives of recovering addicts and people dying of aids in 80s new York in-between two Christmases after Collins is Involved in a race attack and left on the street to die he is saved by angel a trans woman and drag queen as their relationship builds the scary reality creeps in. In the lot Mark and Roger struggling artists can't afford to make RENT as relentless landlord and former friend Benny makes life hell for them all the while Marks ex girlfriend Maureen is protesting the eviction of the homeless on that same lot and her new girlfriend Joanne handles the law side of things. Finally Mimi is a 19 year old in love with Roger but she is addicted to cocaine and the former heroine addict wants nothing to do with her after his last girlfriend committed suicide.

The Broadway Hoofer

Broadway dancing star Adele Dorey who, overworked and exhausted, suddenly ups and leaves New York in favor of a country village. But when promoter Bobby Lewis (Egan) of the barnstorming Gay Girlies Burlesque Company arrives in town, he picks an incognito Adele among all the pretty village girls to star in his new show. On a lark, Adele introduces her maid Jane (Louise Fazenda) as her mother and accepts a contract. When Adele's identity is finally revealed, the slumming star apologizes for her deception by offering Bobby a Broadway job.

Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek - Live!

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek Live! is an American concert television special featuring live performances by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga in support of their collaborative studio album, Cheek to Cheek, released in September 2014. It was held at the Rose Theater of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in July following the announcement of the album's release, and was aired on PBS on October 24, 2014, as part of the network's Great Performances series. The concert was watched by an audience consisting of invited guests and students from New York schools. Bennett and Gaga were joined on stage by 39-piece orchestra and jazz musicians associated with both artists.

The Beach Boys: The Lost Concert

Archive performance from 1964, long thought lost to posterity, this concert footage features the California boys in the days that Brian Wilson still appeared on stage with them. Includes the hits 'Little Deuce Coupe', 'Fun, Fun, Fun', 'In My Room' and 'Surfin' USA'.

Two Tickets to Broadway

A young woman (Janet Leigh) leaves her small hometown in Vermont and travels to New York City with hopes of becoming a Broadway star.

Iron Maiden: Flight 666

A chronological account of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden's 2008 world tour through India, Australia, Japan, USA, Canada, Mexico and South America in a jet piloted by the band's front man, Bruce Dickinson. Features interviews with the musicians, their road crew and fans.

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