Forgotten Movie Songs #17: "My Name is Tallulah" from BUGSY MALONE

Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone is one of the few films from my childhood that I still look at with the same adoration I first felt for it. Its melding of the adult and juvenile worlds seems now seamless. It stands as perfection, in its own odd way. When, as children, we all play at the grown-up games of rampant violence--whether it be cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, superheroes and

Forgotten Movie Songs #15: "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?" from FAME

It's a tiny little scene in a sort of great big movie. It stars only one character--not the scads of kids we remember pouring out of the front of New York's High School for the Performing Arts during the performance of its #1 Oscar-winning title song. And, yet, Paul McCrane's single solo musical performance seen in 1980's Fame remains a fan favorite in a picture filled with great music. The

SIDE ORDERS #9

For my first entry into this month's quickly-written SIDE ORDERS, we have the opening scene of Morton DaCosta's 1962 musical masterpiece The Music Man. If one were listing great opening scenes of any movie or stage production, one would have to include "Rock Island," the incredible white-rap penned by Meredith Wilson. The amazing thing about this scene is that only two of the characters on this