1962 Motion Picture

Rodgers & HammersteinState Fair

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1962 Motion Picture

Screenplay by Richard Breen | Music by Richard Rodgers | Lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II | Adaptation by Sonya Levien and Paul Green, based on the novel by Philip Strong | Music by Richard Rodgers

Seventeen years after Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1945 movie musical (which had been adapted from the 1933 non-musical film State Fair), a new film version of State Fair was created using most of the pair’s original music. With its setting moved to Texas, the 1962 film starred Ann-Margaret, Pat Boone, Bobby Darin and Pamela Tiffin. Since Oscar Hammerstein had passed away in 1960, Richard Rodgers wrote both music and lyrics for additional songs used in this version, including “More Than Just a Friend,” “Willing and Eager” and “It’s the Little Things in Texas.”

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This recording of the 1962 remake of State Fair, starring Ann-Margret, Bobby Darin, Alice Faye and Pat Boone, includes new songs written by Richard Rodgers, as Hammerstein had died in 1960. In 2016, Stage Door Records re-released the soundtrack recording with 15 bonus tracks, including instrumental recordings and pop versions of the songs sung by the film’s stars.