The Fantasticks and How To Succeed in Business movies

I was wondering what people thought of these two movies. I got them both for Christmas. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the Fantasticks. With Joey McIntyre... ya just never know. In How To Succeed they left out a lot of good songs... come to think of it, they did in the Fantasticks too. What did you guys think?

The Fantsticks movie is anything but fantastick. In fact, although they gave the studio the green light to do what the pleased with it, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt were not proud of the results...

To be perfectly clear, the Fantasticks is one of my favorite shows of all time. The movie butchered it beyond compare, purely and simply. They went more mainstream in an attempt to appeal to more people, thereby taking out much of the magic of it. Also, I thought a few of the parts were horribly miscast, and not to mention the changing of "Rape" to "Abduction," a lame, sad affair.

Much worse than the adaptation of Chorus Line.

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On the DVD they have the rape song how they originally choreographed it... it was kept the same as the stage show. Don't know why they changed it... I really like Jean Louisa Kelly though... she should come back to Broadway. She is extremely talented.

brdwaybaby17, if you like it, that's all that matters. Popular doesn't equal good, it just equals popular. Film, stage, tv, etc., are all personal things. That's what's so wonderful about them. Not a single person on the face of the earth has to like it, except you! I can easily list over a hundred films and shows that I love, that most people I know hate. And, I can list about a thousand that would be the reverse. But, so what? I like what I like and that makes them good to me.

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how to succeed is enjoyable until you've seen it on stage, or read the script. i couldn't believe that they cut happy to keep his dinner warm, coffee break, and love from a heart of gold

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i knew i left a number out..thanks, i never liked that they basically completely eliminated rosemary's solos save the i believe in you reprise (even though it was put before finch's in the film)

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My high school actually did Fantastics last year. I watched the movie w/a friend and liked it a lot. It helped a lot when it came time to do the show

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The Fantasticks killed me... I love the musical, and I was really hoping to see a good movie of it. I thought they completely wrecked Luisa. Maybe it's because I've only ever seen it that way, but I imagine Luisa as being a dramatic and over-the-top teenager, but I thought they gave her too much of the misunderstood heroine character - I hope I'm making sense here. They cut out the whole monologue before 'Much More', which bothered me and made the song a lot flatter. I thought the movie fell far short of the stage production. I guess they were trying to make it accessible to the non-musical obsessed public, but it seems to me that the way to do that is to make it spectacular, not just water it down.
Edit: sorry LaeloftheLakes, I just realized I wrote more-or-less the same thing about the mainstream audience as you did - I guess I should read all the posts before I post...

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Updated On: 1/18/05 at 09:35 PM

The Fantasticks movie is pretty much a disaster.

But How To Succeed, despite its cinematic flatness, is a pretty good record of the show and captures the indisputable charm and star power of Robert Morse, a unique and thoroughly captivating performer.

As much as I admire the singular score, I can't say I missed any of the numbers besides Coffee Break. Perfect, it may not be but the movie communicated the show so much better than the style-free "revisal," so I'll stand by my statement.

I've never seen "the fantasticks" but I've heard the score, so i can't really comment on it.

I'm only familiar with "How to Succeed" because of the movie. I know Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee reprised their original stage roles for the screen, and even though Michele Lee was in the movie she wasn't the original "Rosemary". Bonnie Scott originated the role. I was always under the impression that it was faithful to the original source material.

I'm hoping to get a copy of the original book to see how it was altered. It happens to be one of my favorite movies.