MUSICALS- the film? the stage version? your pick. — Page 2

Chicago the movie is very much designed for an audience raised on MTV, done top-notch, but I have to say I'm not big on these noir musicals. I think it would have been hysterical if Sweeney Todd had looked like Hello Dolly, lol

As for Mamma Mia, I know it's all comfort food and maybe Under Attack messed with the flow of the movie but I think it would've been cool to pop in a little surrealist number- the ballet was the only part of American in Paris I really liked.

I think Funny Girl is better as a film - it took advantage of the film medium and getting the rights to "My Man".
The same with Oliver! and The Sound of Music.

Hair and Cabaret are just two entirely different entities.

Hope it isn't heresy to vote the movie of MY FAIR LADY over the stage show. Sadly I can't compare it to Julie Andrews' original performance in 1956. But who can picture that show onstage without secretly wishing to be surrounded by Gene Allen's lush production design of the film in every scene? And rarely if ever has a stage show transferred to the screen with the entire score so completely intact.

Location, location, location is the main cinematic advantage with both West Side Story and the Sound of Music.

I love seeing the original Robbins choreography on stage in WSS, but it almost feels like the dancers are trapped within the confines of the proscenium (which they are). With all that beautiful movement, it's like watching birds flap around inside a cage.

In the film (particularly in the Prologue), they're able to really run in a straight line, cover great distances, leap, and soar into the air, all on the actual streets of NY. It not only adds a fantastic energy and an element of realism, but also surrealism to the visuals. You can't do that on a stage.

Same thing with The Sound of Music. No matter how good a production you see, you'll still end up with some papier mache Alps being dragged downstage to climb. It just ain't the same and never will be. The thrill of the actual locations in the film are unmatchable.

As far as "Chicago" goes, I think the general concept was improved upon in the film. I don't like the entire story being told as a vaudeville. I always felt detached from it and left tired (or cold). I really like the cross-cutting between reality and fantasy in the film, and I love the fantasy taking place in Roxie's mind. It's a stronger narrative, in the end and far more effective a springboard for the numbers. (My opinion, of course.)

As far as Oliver! goes, there was also some terrific shuffling of songs, ala WSS. Particularly the repositioning of Ooom Pa Pa as a device for Nancy to try to rescue Oliver and turn him over to Brownlow. The best thing Columbia Pictures did was hire Carol Reed to direct it. He was sort of a HitchcoCk himself, and knew very well how to build a suspenseful story. That's the biggest improvement in the movie version of Oliver!---the level of suspense and the sense of real danger for the characters. You only get a fraction of that on stage with limited chase scenes. It's just not as effective. Some of it is the writing, and a lot of it is the direction.

Again, I should add that the stage versions of all of these shows don't "suck" by any means. I have enjoyed them all as live productions. I just think the films are better.

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Updated On: 5/14/11 at 10:09 PM

best12bars, the device of Nancy singing "Oom Pah Pah" to distract Bill so she can rescue Oliver is actually used in David Lean's 1949 film of OLIVER TWIST, although of course she uses a different song. I had always assumed Bart wrote "Oom Pah Pah" for that same purpose, and that the song provided that function in the stage version of OLIVER! Am I wrong? I have never seen it on stage.

In so far as the film version of Grease? While a good film it too has absolutly nothing to do with the ORIGINAL stage version of the show...

Why? Because the producers jettisoned some songs, replaced some with others, moved the locale from the inner city to the California suburbs and sanitized it a bit.

The film version of GREASE has the same basic plot and core songs as it's stage predecessor. It wasn't a re-invention along the lines of CABARET or CHICAGO. Not by a long shot.

"best12bars, the device of Nancy singing "Oom Pah Pah" to distract Bill so she can rescue Oliver is actually used in David Lean's 1949 film of OLIVER TWIST, although of course she uses a different song. I had always assumed Bart wrote "Oom Pah Pah" for that same purpose, and that the song provided that function in the stage version of OLIVER! Am I wrong? I have never seen it on stage."

No, in the stage version "Oom Pah Pah" is a rather non-sequitur Act 2 opener. It could be excised from the show with no effect to the plot.

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Double post

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Updated On: 5/17/11 at 12:34 PM

Couldn't agree more about Besty's take on the CHICAGO film, the whole concept of Roxy's fantasy works so well and it really allows the film to go back and forth between reality and fantasy. I think it's a fantastic movie musical, and I love the way the actors play it, they all have so much chemistry. Catherine Zeta-Jones' Velma is iconic the second she comes out from the trapdoor and subtly moves her head to attract the spotlight. Love it.

I disagree about MY FAIR LADY though, I absolutely cannot stand the movie. Audrey Hepburn is just so hammy and entirely miscast as Eliza, at no point do you doubt that she'll eventually become the beautiful, elegant girl, she's utterly unconvincing in the first part of the movie. Not to mention that she overacts the whole thing. The whole production also feels so stagey in ways that I don't think something like WEST SIDE STORY, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, or THE KING & I do.

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Onna White is very underrated as a choreographer. I've rarely hear mention of her name alongside people like Kidd, Kelly, Bennett, Robbins or Fosse.

She won a much deserved Academy Award for her work in OLIVER! She also did some great work for the film versions of THE MUSIC MAN [1962] and BYE BYE BIRDIE [1963].

The Other One--you prefer everything in the movie of WSS? Even the (OK, minor) censorship of lines and lyrics? I do liek the boys dancing in America (as apparently they originally were going to do before it was decided the boys needed a break from dancing to rest...) and the new lyrics. I'm mixed on the setting. For me, in many ways it's easier to accept the stylized dancing, and, well stylized everything on a stylized set. Throwing it into a real city, while often striking also makes it a bit harder to suspend disbelief.

I admit a huge huge part of my gripe with Chicago the film is I think the Marshall choreography is siomply, decent to good. Both Fosse's original and Reinking's are much much better--and a big draw for the piece for me is the dancing.

i kinda have to agree that Chicago the film is better in some ways but overall i hated it....for reasons like not doing Mary Sunshine in Drag--or making the mistake to cast Miss expressionless-one noted- Queen Latifah as Mama was a a huge mistake. Rene and Catherine were passable in my opinion but I really didn't care for Richard Gere.
Visually stunning-yes. choreography..dynamite.
but i hate that the music sequences were not done in a musical form--but rather a dream---as if to avoid any fact thereof that it was a musical.

and for that reason alone i couldn't take it. It wasn't unapologetically saying 'i'm a musical' the way Hairspray approached it-bursting in song. Or even the way Evita approached it.


Speaking of---i think i enjoy Evita the movie more than the actual show.

It depends---some of these films are REALLY aging better with time.
HAIR is so much fun to watch now---and so is EVITA.


One film that bores me to death now---CABARET.
WHich I loved way back then.

i know.... sacrilege to some.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF...the movie is way better as the cinematography makes it beautiful to look at, and the dream/nighmare sequence is a more cinematic creation...plus LITTLE BIRD, LITTLE CHAVELEH is so moving on the screen the way it is shot...

CHICAGO...and while i have seen and liked both the original production on Broadway, and the revival in touring...i love the movie version much better...the musical numbers become jaw-dropping amazing, and the whole idea of ROXIE seeing these in her mind's-eye is a great way to make the muscial work on film...