ade a year after Oklahoma! opened on Broadway, it did for the movie musical what that show did for the stage musical: it let real people burst into song in realistic settings—no backstage romances permitted. It had wonderful songs, a sweetly unneurotic performance by Judy Garland (the nutsiness in the piece was handled by Margaret O'Brien, as a little girl haunted by death). Despite its nostalgic charm, Minnelli infused the piece with a dreamy, occasionally surreal, darkness and it remains, for some of us, the greatest of American movie musicals.—R.S.