6 - Watson Macedo's Aviso aos navegantes (1950): Reflections on the Musical Numbers of a Brazilian Chanchada

Summary

This chapter will explore the Brazilian musical comedy (or chanchada) Aviso aos navegantes (Calling all Sailors), directed by Watson Macedo in 1950 at the Atlântida studios in Rio de Janeiro. I argue that the film stands as an emblematic production in the heyday of musical comedies and provides a telling example of the intermedial connections that shaped Brazilian cinema between the 1930s and the 1950s. My analysis will stress the need to move away from the usual considerations of the relationship between musical numbers and plot so as to focus on the intermedial features of these numbers in terms of their ties with other cultural traditions, industries and practices, including theatre, carnival, the music industry and radio performances. Many studies of Brazilian cinema of the first half of the twentieth century overstate the cen-trality and specificity of cinema while downplaying the interference of other media. My aim is to demonstrate that we need to relativise the importance of cinema in the media landscape of that time.

As a research method, intermediality will be adopted here to examine the relationship between different media within filmic products. Musical numbers in chanchadas usually interrupt the narrative flow with song-and-dance spectacles that directly reference radio performances and theatrical revues, confirming these films’ status as a complex intermedial mixture. In her book Cinema and Intermediality (2011: 4–6), Ágnes Pethő aligns film intermediality to techniques and devices that break the transparency of the filmic image. In her account, intermediality can be understood as a repetition or reinscription of a medium inside the form of other media, as a result of which the intermedial process becomes noticeable and refers back to itself. In the following sections I will argue that the musical numbers of the chanchadas are privileged moments when, either deliberately or because of production problems, the inscription of strategies from other media are made visible and gain in significance.

Before the advent of radio, teatro de revista (theatrical revue) was the main vehicle for musical releases in Rio de Janeiro, eclectically showcasing musical numbers teeming with double entendres and comic sketches featuring both popular and erudite musicians.