The opening film of this year’s Venice Film Festival, Whiplash director Damian Chazelle’s La-La Land, stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a pianist and wannabe actress who fall in love and sing and dance about it. Chazelle described the film as, “very much in the spirit of old MGM musicals - Singin' in the Rain, A Star Is Born... To put it simplistically, Whiplash is about the pain of making music; this is much more about the joy of making music."

The golden age of the MGM musical that he’s referring to lasted less than 20 years. But during that time the studio produced some of the greatest films ever made in any genre: the aforementioned Singin’ In The Rain, Meet Me In St Louis, An American In Paris and The Wizard Of Oz. Other studios had hit musicals, but a combination of savvy musical taste from the team under producer Arthur Freed and an uncanny eye for talent – most notably Judy Garland and Gene Kelly – put MGM ahead of the competition.

Can that feeling be recaptured in modern times? Musicals are still being made – but in smaller numbers, and most often in animation. Live-action musicals are often toned down and the music kept onstage or in rehearsal scenarios, as in Pitch Perfect, Sing Street or Love & Mercy.