Sondheim's Lost Film Musical

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/30/23 at 4:36pm

With all the talk about Here We Are, I wonder why there has been zero talk about Singing Out Loud, the movie musical that almost was from Sondheim, William Goldman and Rob Reiner.

At the time it was being written Goldman and Reiner were on a successful streak with Misery and Princess Bride, and Reiner seemed keen on tackling every genre (he had also had a success with When Harry Met Sally.) 

I wrote an article on Singing Out Loud and had access to Goldman's notes about it, along with his early draft, and two of Sondheim's and the final script is pretty great.  There is one important song (a series of three sung monologues) that seems to exist only in Sondheim's three pages of notes, but otherwise it is finished--and Nathan Lane has said that the incredibly complex number "Lunch" was the best thing Sondheim has ever done.

So why has there been no interest in this project?  It seems a natural for HBO or a streaming service ("A new Sondheim musical"!)

Water Under the Bridge (a song that seems to polarize Sondheim fans--Liza sang it at the Carnegie Hall concert and said she hated it, but I think it's one of my favourite Sondheim songs) has been recorded, but without it's screenplay framework where it's the new song hired for the "musical in trouble" by a hot young pop songwriter.

The other two songs we know from it, Dawn and Sand, are so/so Sondheim pastiche numbers, but again in the script are much more ambitious (Sand for example is meant to go back and forth from a Astaire/Rodgers B&W dance number to a Madonna 1990 music video in the desert with "men in g-strings"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmV5Os1yROY

Updated On: 9/30/23 at 04:36 PM

[AnythingYouDo]

Posted: 9/30/23 at 4:58pm

In Look, I Made a Hat, Sondheim includes lyrics for six songs: "Sand," "Lunch," "Dawn," "Looks," "Water Under the Bridge," and "Singing Out Loud." Was one of those the important song you reference as existing only in Sondheim's notes?

I believe of those songs, only "Sand," "Dawn," and "Water Under the Bridge" have been recorded, though if others have, I'd love to hear them. Incidentally, Sondheim reused some music from "Lunch" as "Addison's Trip" in Road Show.

As for the movie itself, I'd say the chances of it ever happening are slim to say the least.

[Elibal]

Posted: 9/30/23 at 5:37pm

On "The almost unknown Stephen Sondheim" there is the sheetmusic for Singing Out Loud, Looks and I can't recall if any other. Also Water Under the Bridge is supposed to have a very prominent counterpoint line that is missing from the recorded versions. A version of the script also floats around. Indeed it seems to me like a natural next film for Lin Manuel to direct as prestige project for some streaming platform.

[Ke3]

Posted: 9/30/23 at 7:49pm

Singing Out Loud is one of my pop culture white whales. I think interest has been lost because at this point, everybody who was invested in making it is dead or has lost most of their ability to get a project started. Sondheim always wanted to return to it, but out of the creative team, Reiner and Streisand are the only ones who really had any power to make it a reality. They both got distracted by other things and then the moment passed.