re: Dreamgirls: Differences between Movie and Musical? Jun 8
2013, 03:36:26 AM
My comment re late 70s instrumentation similar to Salsoul was based on observations made by someone on musicals.net and imdb. Steppin' onstage apparently sounded a bit like it came from the MFSB stable and as it occurs in about 1963, the scoring is 10 years too late.
Hence the film took the song toward gospel inflections rather than disco.
Also, One Night Only is better placed in about 1974/1975 as it more closely matches when disco grooves came in (cf The Joy of Disco, BBC).
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re: Dreamgirls: Differences between Movie and Musical? Jun 8
2013, 03:08:33 AM
According to the wiki page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamgirls_(film)
the film tightens the two periods to
1962-1966 finishing when "Cindy Birdsong" replaces "Florence Ballard" (Effie)
and
1973-1975 starting when Deena is watching back the biog that drops the bombshell about the "Cleopatra" film project etc.
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re: Dreamgirls: Differences between Movie and Musical? Jun 7
2013, 11:48:49 PM
From memory, the timeline in the stage and film is as follows...
act 1 - 1961 to 1969/1970
act 2 - 1973 to 1978
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re: Dreamgirls: Differences between Movie and Musical? Jun 7
2013, 10:22:36 PM
Geffen suggested that they move the events *closer to* the historical period in Detroit...
Re anachronisms, I was referring to the book being set in 1963 to 1969 for act = but stage music being more apt for circa 1977.
Or to my ear, anyway.
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re: Dreamgirls: Differences between Movie and Musical? Jun 7
2013, 10:49:36 AM
Out of interest, was Heavy a performance in the stage production, as opposed to the characters being in a recording session?
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re: Dreamgirls: Differences between Movie and Musical? Jun 6
2013, 02:07:35 AM
Musically, there are a lot of changes as well. According to the Wiki articles (and my own ears- I've been doing A-B comparisons between the two albums via my We7 subscription), a deliberate decision was made for the stage score to avoid obvious Motown references for fear of Berry Gordy's and Diana Ross's lawyers.
On the back of a suggestion made by David Geffen, they did almost an alternate-universe change for the film - moving the action back to Detroit and setting the music back to i
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