Dangerous Rhythm

Insightful, exuberant, and witty, Dangerous Rhythm offers a fresh, sometimes revolutionary take on a uniquely American institution: the movie musical. Combining chronicle with critique and analysis, award-winning historian Richard Barrios lays out the whole of the musical's glorious and rocky existence, from Al Jolson to Les Misérables.

Barrios knows this material inside out, which allows him to step back to make often inspired observations.

[Barrios] writes about his subject authoritatively ...and always directly. He does so with an absence of heavy theorizing and an abundance of strong opinions. Part of what makes Dangerous Rhythm enjoyable to read is its idiomatic prose.

[A] hugely readable, authoritative meditation on the Hollywood musical.

Simultaneously a rigorous dissection of and a valentine to the movie musical." -Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Few people can discuss early-talkie musicals and television's Glee with equal authority. Richard Barrios sees it all as part of a continuum, which is what makes his wide-ranging book so relevant. His sense of humor and lively prose style transform a scholarly treatise into a highly enjoyable reading experience.

Barrios knows his stuff, and musical film aficionados are well advised to get a hold of Dangerous Rhythm. He combines vast knowledge of the subject with tangy writing, resulting in a hard-to-put-down read.

Richard Barrios worked in the music and film industries before turning to film history with the award-winning A Song in the Dark and with Screened Out, which was the basis of a film series by Turner Classic Movies. He lectures extensively and appears frequently on television and in film and DVD documentaries. Born in the swamps of south Louisiana and a longtime resident of New York City, he now lives in western New Jersey, near Philadelphia