Oklahoma!/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Broken Base: The movie adaptation has one version filmed in 70mm TODD-AO, and one in 35mm CinemaScope. Practically each scene required twice as many takes as that of a normal movie (the cast would act out a scene a few times in front of TODD-AO cameras, then a few more times in front of CinemaScope cameras), which resulted in the versions boasting different line deliveries and compositions. Viewers seem torn over which version provides superior performances.
  • Designated Hero: The hero tries to drive a lonely, unstable young man to suicide over a girl? That's pretty messed up.
  • Designated Villain: Jud is a big scary looking drunk, but the worst thing he ever did to deserve the scorn from Laurey was... ask her out on a lovely night out on the town? I'd be right pissed at Curly too for trying to get me to kill myself over a picnic basket and showing me up and stealing my date right in front of the whole town, while they root for him. Eventually it all drives him over the edge into a drunken violent attack.
    • Several productions subvert this by implying that Jud has every intention of raping Laurey as soon as they're alone. For those that don't though, it all comes off fairly unjust.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Ali Hakim, in a mostly harmless way.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: We now interrupt this storyline to tell you about how great the state of Oklahoma is.
  • Older Than They Think: A lot of the ground-breaking elements featured in this musical were also featured Hammerstein's collaboration with Jerome Kern, Show Boat, almost twenty years earlier. They didn't catch on until this one, though.
  • Seinfeld Is Unfunny: It is really hard to see what the big fuss is about this show unless you know the history of theater.

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