OKLAHOMA! Director: FRED ZINNEMANN U.S.A. 1955 COLOUR DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO ANAMORPHIC 145 MIN Book cinema tickets FRESH FROM OSCAR TRIUMPH WITH FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953), FRED ZINNEMANN MUST HAVE SEEMED AN ODD CHOICE TO DIRECT A RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN MUSICAL. SO IT PROVED. Yet for Zinnemann, the novelty was part of the appeal: his first musical, his first film in colour, and an exuberant all-American fantasy from this Viennese-born director with a penchant for quietly downbeat drama. The result, if not the most idiomatic of film musicals, is one of the most unusual. The story could not be simpler: will a cowboy take a farm-girl to a country dance? In a role for which Paul Newman and James Dean were in contention, Gordon MacRae (who could sing) plays the cowboy; a newcomer, Shirley Jones makes a lovely debut as the farm-girl Laurey. The real powerhouse performance, however, comes from Rod Steiger as the lewd, loathed and lonely Jud, a typical Zinnemann outsider who is infatuated with Laurey. The psychological complexity of the performance unbalances the film whilst making it a much more interesting one, just as the filming of the numbers makes up in intelligence what it might lack in exhilaration. Neil Sinyard. Director: FRED ZINNEMANN U.S.A. 1955 COLOUR DOLBY DIGITAL STEREO ANAMORPHIC 145 MIN