Skip to main content
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!
Home For You Chat My Shows Register/Login Games Grosses

Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation? — Page 2

New Post Search Report Abuse Rules

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.

#26

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/6/05 at 10:45am

Musical :

Funny Girl
My Fair Lady


Play:
Steel Magnolias by far

*performeg- I don't completely love West Side Story the movie either...I think it just loses a lot of its "electricity" for lack of a better word on film.
"But now the air is filled with confusion. We replace care with illusion."
#27

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/6/05 at 11:53am

If you are talking about a true adaptation of a Broadway musical to a film, I don't think that CABARET qualifies. I do believe that it is a very good film on its own, it does not reflect the Broadway show. The characters of Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz are not in the film at all, so you don't have that whole story line, which to me is the heart of the show. They young people are going to survive the Nazis, because they are resilient, and young and full of fight. The older folks, on the other hand, this is not true of. How do they fight the Nazis, while being Jewish? So on the basis of these facts, I do not feel that the film version is a true adaptation of the Broadway show. I think the best examples of true adaptations are:
CHICAGO
WEST SIDE STORY
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
THE KING AND I
CAROUSEL
OKLAHOMA
#28

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/6/05 at 2:02pm

Chicago was great, and Little Shop of Horrors would be another favorite if they hadn't butchered the ending.

Phantom can go both ways. I think the adaptation its self was fantastic, but the casting was mediocre, which makes it not as much fun. I do love how they did the Overture (plus, those chords blasting out of digital quality surround sound gave me goosebumps).
#29

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/6/05 at 2:48pm

Best Musical: Oklahoma
The Sound of Music
Oliver
Cabaret
Chicago

Best Play: Angels in America
Streetcar Named Desire
Psycho Beach Party (I just love it)

Worst Musical: It's hard because I am happy just to have movie musicals, I've heard that Chorus Line is terrible as a film but I haven't watched it yet. The terrible movie musicals i've seen were never stage musicals, i.e. Sextette and Lost Horizon.

I did enjoy MAME even if Lucille Ball couldn't sing very well. We all can have different films we enjoy. I also like Annie but it's very different from the stage show, which was ok.
"Love the Art in Yourself. Not Yourself in the Art." -- Stanislavski
#30

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/6/05 at 10:50pm

I like the movie version of Annie so much better than the staged version.
"It's the little things; the details, that distinguish the Barbra Streisands from the Rosalyn Kinds."~Gilmore Girls~
#31

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/6/05 at 10:59pm

Ew. Please tell me you're talking about the TV movie version of Annie. Because the only that 1980s version had on the stage show was Carol Burnett.

Best Musical:
Oliver!
Sound of Music (no set can do justice to the ACTUAL Alps in the background)

Best Play:
Eh, get back to me, I'm still debating.
Like a firework unexploded
Wanting life but never knowing how
#32

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 12:18am

NOISES OFF was a pretty good adaptation. I love that show, and you cant beat the cast they got for the film.

CHICAGO, LITTLE SHOP, and HEDWIG were all great too.

I was kind of dissappointed with the PHANTOM movie. It wasn't nearly as entrancing as the stage show.
#33

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 1:15am

Musical:
West Side Story
The Sound of Music

Hedwig is great too.

Play:
Not the best, but I do kinda want to mention East Is East. I don't think it was ever on Broadway, but the film version is much more entertaining than the play in my opinion.

O, and Angels in America is wonderful.

~Steven

Updated On: 11/7/05 at 01:15 AM

#34

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 2:19am

"VIRGINIA WOOLF is just under three hours on stage due largely to its two intermissions that add a half an hour to the running time...."

While this was true of the recent revival the original 1962 version lasted over 3 hours plus the two intermissions. Even Columbia's recording takes up 8 LP sides.

"The film runs 2hrs, 10 minutes due to Nichols' brisk pacing and actually very litle of the text was cut."

If you compare the script for the play with the film you will find hundreds of smal cuts of a few lines here and there plus a couple of major cuts including Martha's soliloquy from the top of Act III, and the scene where Martha seduces Nick while George reads a book. Not all of this would have worked in cinematic terms and the pacing of the movie as it stands is excellent.


Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!

I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com

#36

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 11:16am

The films of A CHORUS LINE, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, and GYPSY (Rosalind Russell version) are all the more awful because the stage shows are three of the most compelling Broadway musicals ever made. It's one thing to see a mediocre show badly filmed (i.e., LA MANCHA), but watching such talent squandered and misused is (or should be) criminal.

Probably most of the members of this board are too young to remember, but the stage version of PAL JOEY had a bitter, satiric brilliance that was totally botched in the miscast, softened Frank Sinatra/dubbed Rita Hayworth movie.

I'm also one of the few who wasn't that taken by the movie of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH. I was glad it got made, but for me that show needs the electricity of a live performance. Also, the other characters whom Hedwig also played (hysterically) onstage lost their juice when portrayed by actual actors.
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
#37

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 11:35am

Musical:
The Sound of Music and Oliver (they were both better films than their stage versions, with minor but a few critical changes made)

Cabaret and Chicago (also great adaptations, but with major revamping done to make them work on the screen)

Drama:
Amadeus and Virginia Woolf (different than the stage shows, but equally as good). Also two of my favorite '50s "soapy" movies Picnic and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The recent adaptations of stage dramas have all been lesser works compared to their theatrical counterparts.

Comedy:
This one is tough. Very few filmed comedies I've seen have worked as well as their stage counterparts. It could be the "live on stage" factor, since audience laughter is such an integral part of it. I would have to dig back to classic vehicles like "Born Yesterday," "The Women," and "You Can't Take It With You." Incredible films that I would doubt were ever better on stage.


"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22

Updated On: 11/7/05 at 11:35 AM

#38

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 12:25pm

GoSmileLaughCryClap, I would agree with you about the Sound of Music movie being better than the stage play except they left out two of the musical's best songs, 'How Can Love Survive' and 'No Way to Stop it,' from the movie.

Best:
1776 (even without 'Cool, Cool, Consider Men')
Chicago

Worst:
Mame
A Chorus Line
#39

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 1:43pm

The Roz Russell version of Gypsy IS pretty faithful to the play, except the cutting of Together and some of "You'll Never Get Away from Me". I really like that version, and Bette's version as well. I would have liked to have see Merman do the film version but that will never be.

The film version of Annie is a lot different from the stage show, but i still prefer the 1980's version to the bad 1999 tv version. There were so many things wrong with the logic of it, especially since the play takes place in the 30s.
"Love the Art in Yourself. Not Yourself in the Art." -- Stanislavski
#41

re: Stage to Screen - What has been the best adaptation?

Posted: 11/7/05 at 11:38pm

Rosalind Russell's GYPSY is horrifying (and I say that as one of her fans.) She plays Mama Rose as a completely unsympathetic, screeching harpy. As for the movie itself, no one in it can sing (except Ann Jillian as Baby June), the adaptation is full of clumsy, humorless dialogue (added by hack screenwriter Leonard Spiegelgass) and the studio sets are ugly.

Ditto the overdone stew John Huston made of ANNIE in 1982. I was rooting for Miss Hannigan. The TV version is not perfect, but at least it is highly professional, and was made by Broadway pros who know how to stage and perform musical numbers on film.
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."

← Back to Message Board

BroadwayWorld TV

View all Videos

Ticket Central
Ticket Central
Ticket Central
Hot Show
Tickets From $59
Hot Show
Tickets From $71
Hot Show
Tickets From $71
Hot Show
Tickets From $95
More Hot Shows Discounts
Recommended For You