Oklahoma!

Oklahoma! (1955) is the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage classic brought to the screen by director Fred Zinnemann — watch online on iFILM. Shot in the then-new Todd-AO widescreen format, the film gave the 1943 Broadway sensation room to breathe as open landscape.

The story is set in Oklahoma Territory at the turn of the twentieth century. Cowboy Curly McLain (Gordon MacRae) wants to take farmer's daughter Laurie Williams (Shirley Jones) to the dance. Between them stands farmhand Jud Fry — and Rod Steiger plays him with a slow, menacing seriousness that belongs in a different kind of film entirely. It makes the stakes real. Gloria Grahame and Eddie Albert handle the comic register with ease.

The film picked up two Academy Awards, for Best Sound and Best Scoring of a Musical. The songs — "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'," "People Will Say We're in Love," "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" — hit differently at this scale. Stream Oklahoma! (1955) on iFILM.