The Bandwagon

I am going Nov. 11th and have been wondering about the others cast besides Brian Stokes Mitchell too. I love Kathleen Marshall and can't wait to see who gets the Cyd Charisse role. I hope for lots of laughs from the Douglas Carter Beane book. Looking forward to this.


The Bandwagon movie trailer

Updated On: 10/1/14 at 11:41 PM

Can we please get Norbert in this ... Somewhere? Anywhere?

LOOOOOOVE IT!!!

just saw this..honestly not sure if it's good or bad....love the idea but they all seem(irony alert since I'm 55) old!

I just found out about and registered for City Center's P2P program. Have they sent out the code for this show yet?

"I just hope this doesn't turn out to be like Bullets over Broadway."

I don't see much of a chance of that. Bullets was the stage musical adaptation of a cynical, tough, dark screwball comic movie about Broadway. The Bandwagon is the stage musical version of a classic MGM musical about Broadway which although it has screwball and bittersweet elements, is the antithesis of cynical, tough and dark.

Bullets had a compilation score of period songs from different composers. Bandwagon has a classic Schwartz and Dietz score, some of which was written specifically for the story (including the standard "That's Entertainment") and has added some other songs from their canon.

The characters in Bullets are, with minor exceptions, hilariously self-consumed and driven by selfishness. The characters in Bandwagon are lovable show folk who just want to be happy, make others happy and put on a show.

Bullets is Woody Allen at some of his hilarious blistering best. Bandwagon is Comden and Green in their typical collegial witty snappy form.

The romantic relationships in Bullets are grappling and bitter, in Bandwagon they are mostly joyful and heartfelt.

The spirit of one piece is farcically neurotic and jaundiced, the spirit of the other is unabashedly ebullient and joyous.

I was looking forward to Bullets and didn't like it. In retro, the problems in musicalizing the movie now seem obvious. I'm looking forward to Bandwagon. But it's very easy to see how, in contrast to Bullets, the stage version might easily resemble the movie and in doing so work very well.

Updated On: 11/1/14 at 12:02 PM

I love this movie. I just hope that Douglas Carter Beane doesn't F*CK it up. He frequently has dubious taste.

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This will no doubt be a minority opinion, but the movie The Bandwagon was one of two movies I vividly remember loathing as a kid for the way it lampooned serious theater artists. The preposterous scene with the director running all over the stage (was it the tech rehearsal?) shrieking about the smoke effects just reinforced every dreadful cliche Hollywood has of British-accented stage directors and their nance-like affectations. Sure, sure, I know Comden and Green are the greatest lovers of Broadway musical theater the world has ever seen, but frankly those scenes of folks always having to choose between HIGH ART and good plain fun just made me want to scream.

(So what was hated movie #2, you ask? Bye Bye Birdie-- mostly for that sadistic scene whence the orchestra conductor takes the pep pill forcing the "Serious" ballet troupe to double-time their choreography. Spills, falls, crashing in the wings-- hilarity for the audience but not for little pre-pubescent Someone in a Tree.)

Confidential to henrik: where do they keep the "cannon" containing all the Schwartz and Dietz songs? Fort Clinton, maybe? Battery Park?

(I apologize in advance. I'm sure spell check was to blame.)

It's my favorite movie musical, bar none.

And as for British directors who desecrate American musicals, I think "ahead of its time" is more apt than "preposterous."

(Think of the Roundabout Follies...or Trevor Nunn's mangling of Night Music...or...)

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I can't believe you've never seen it! There ae so many fun numbers, but "Dancing in the Dark" is the most beautiful:

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I really can't see Laura Osnes in the Cyd Charisse role: elegant, aloof and an Astaire-caliber dancer. She is so appealing right now that they must figure the audience will buy whatever she does.

Where has Tracey Ullman been for the last fifteen years? I'm one of the few people who enjoyed her on her television show more than enjoyed the Simpsons.

The Band Wagon has always seemed to me like a film musical that just missed greatness (or very-goodness). It starts out (with allowances for my memory) as a "modern" fifties musical with a colorable plot about a middle-aged hoofer (Astaire)with a fading career who is trying to revitalize that career by appearing in a new stage production pairing him with a young, lovely and talented dancer from the classical world. Standard plot complication is that each thinks that the other does not respect the talent of him/her. So the film plugs along for the first two thirds with the songs arising out of the plot developments. "Dancing in the Dark" is a classic clip. "By Myself" and "I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plans" are first-rate songs.

The show, an obvious preposterous flop, is crushed in tryouts and loses its financing. From here the whole story is neatly wrapped up in about fifteen minutes. Dancers reconcile and become a pair. Show is completely re-done in a few hours to be a hit "put on a show" musical that features about five major numbers in the score shown one after the other moving down through the program for the show. These songs include "Louisiana Hayride" and "Triplets" which are pretty good songs but don't belong near the conclusion of this film.

Film ends with a spirited performance of "That's Entertainment."

If they had taken the time or trouble to write a creditable final third instead of resolving all the conflicts and shoehorning in all the songs with little or no effort in minutes, this could have been a musical in the "Singing in the Rain" class.

As it is, there is still a lot to like.

Addendum: I have since learned that the contract of Comden and Green ran out in the middle of the creation of the film, which explains why the book abruptly ends and the remaining songs are tacked on to the end. Why they didn't finish the film after the contract expired I'll just have to wonder about.

Updated On: 11/15/14 at 04:00 PM