e the biographical musicals, often highly fictionalized, about great composers, musicians, singers, pro­viding an opportunity to string together some of their most popular hits. The trans­ferring of musicals intact from the Broad-way stage became almost automatic begin­ning in the 1950s. Gangster films. While the Western deals with a mythical American past and the musical with a fantasy land, the gangster film is closely tied to a real facet of Amer­ican life. In earlier films, the gangster had risen to the top to enjoy wealth, power, beautiful women, expensive homes and large cars, but befor