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The origin of the musical romance harkens back to the dawn of the musical itself; what other factor but romance causes people to lose any sense of decorum and suddenly burst into song? The coming of sound in the late 1920's brought on a slew of musicals from studios such as Warner Brothers and RKO, with stars like Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers teaming up to play star-crossed lovers gazing into each other's eyes and dreamily expressing their love through song. As the decades passed, each generation had its musical romances: the '40s brought out On The Town and State Fair; the '50s gave us Gigi, South Pacific, and Guys And Dolls; and the '60s produced film adaptations of West Side Story and My Fair Lady. As the '70s cemented the era of "personal" filmmaking in Hollywood, the musical fell to the wayside, with not even the later success of Grease washing the taste of the earlier flop At Long Last Love out of the studio executives' mouths. In the '80s, the era of the hit soundtrack had replaced the age of the showtune. Yet for a while, the musical romance was a premiere route of Hollywood escapism, where a world-weary audience could walk into a world of glamour, passion, and seemingly impromptu choreography to be transported away.