A Musicals Question!

Hi everybody!
When I think of THE WIZARD OF OZ, I think about the characters and the story, then I remember the music, but I don't immediately think of it as a musical: I think of it as a great movie with great music.
Film critic Robert Osborne argued that Judy Garland was the most talented performer in the history of movies; that she could dance like a dervish, sing like an angel and act with audacity - that Garland had no discernable weaknesses. Even though I believe that Katherine Hepburn had the greatest range of any actor in the movies; having made great romantic comedies (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY), great screwball comedies (BRINGING UP BABY), great melodrama (ALICE ADAMS), and great historical drama (THE LION IN WINTER), let's face it: Hepburn could not sing well or dance much. So I concede that point to Osborne!
Like everything else in the movies, musicals are an elusive prey. After the massive success of THE SOUND OF MUSIC in 1965, the advent of Rock and Roll made it harder to build a story entirely around the music. Rock and Roll is about acting out, not about introspection. In THE WIZARD OF OZ in 1939, the music is used as a coping device to take in all of the fantastical events happening to a simple girl from Kansas. Compare that to, say, TOMMY in 1975, which is basically one long acid trip about a deaf, dumb and blind kid. Even using the impressive Beatles catalogue in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE in 2007 found the story helplessly trapped in the 1960s with once-vital social issues having long since been resolved.
When I think about FLASHDANCE in 1983, I think about the dancing first and the music second. I remember the ridiculous premise: steelworker by day, exotic dancer by night with dreams of becoming a ballerina. Compare that to the equally ridiculous premise of SAVE THE LAST DANCE in 2006, but there is not one memorable song from that movie. FLASHDANCE made the careers of director Adrian Lyne (9 1/2 WEEKS), screenwriter Joe Esterhaus (BASIC INSTINCT), producer/studio executive Sherry Lansing (FATAL ATTRACTION) and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (THE ROCK). A whole movie making machine of guilty pleasures came out of FLASHDANCE! Even the marketing of the movie was questionable: at the dawn of MTV, they would run music videos from FLASHDANCE with images of leotards and leg warmers instead of lipsynching lotharios; these were basically trailers for the movie, and it worked wonders.
A musical cue can make a movie: the whistling from THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY and even from THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, the piano playing from THE STING, the love theme from THE GODFATHER (leave the gun, take the cannoli!), the marching band horns from ROCKY (his entire life was a million to one shot!) even the assaultive strings from the shower scene in PSYCHO (Mother! What have you done?).
However, music isn't everything. Frank Sinatra's best movie by far was THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, which didn't have great music. One of the best musical performers of all time is Dick Van Dyke, whose career on his own show and on DIAGNOSIS: MURDER was not driven by music. Top musical performers like Ben Vereen and Gregory Hines never broke into the mainstream. As for women, after Barbra Streisand, what other musical performere has made it big on the big screen? Madonna? Beyonce? Jennifer Hudson?
John Travolta had a cluster of musical movies (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, URBAN COWBOY and GREASE) but, other than the HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL kids, and, maybe, Mike Myers in the AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY movies, there are no go-to musical performers out there, right now. Maybe Miley Cyrus will succeed where so many others have failed, but even the Disney machine has had a difficult time creating a multi-platform superstar over the last 20 years.
So when I include music in the WONDER WOMAN project it is with the knowledge that it is to enhance the experience, not to be the entire experience. However, to ignore the music would be ridiculous. If ever there was a character who came to us from somewhere over the rainbow, it is WONDER WOMAN!
Talk to you, soon! Be good!
Brad