What Don't You Like About The 'A Chorus Line' Movie?

What's wrong with the film? I saw it. The only part I didn't really like was the "I Hope I Get It" sequence. And I didn't like the actress who played Cassie - I think? - she had big puppy dog eyes and sang in "At The Ballet" - the best song in the score, I think.

I know that it's one of the worst stage to screen musicals but I really don't care.

If I had never heard of the musical before, I would have thought it was amazing.

But I agree, I don't like the I Hope I Get It sequence, nor the fact they changed The Music and the Mirror.


RentBoy: Cassie doesn't sing in "At the Ballet". It's either Sheila, Bebe, or Maggie. I think you mean Maggie.

"Forget about it. We did it in the graveyard."

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Yes, but they aren't the main focus of the stage show.

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My mother was so entirely crushed by the movie that she never allowed me to watch it.

I'm almost 26 years old and I've still never seen it. Irrational fears, and all. Though the fact that Cassie apparently sings "What I Did For Love" (IS THAT TRUE?) turns me inside out. That's... not.... right.

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I interviewed Marvin Hamlisch in, oh, around 1980. I asked him about "What I Did for Love" - since I expressed the opinion that it didn't really "fit" in the show. The lead in to the song is incredibly awkward. He agreed, and said he had to fight very hard to keep the song in the show. He told Bennet that he needed a "hit" and felt that was going to be it. He was right about the song being a "hit". I didn't ask him if he knew why Cassie didn't sing it.

No comment.

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Updated On: 7/25/06 at 08:30 AM

I like the song NOTHING, better in the film than in the show. Otherwise, I hate everything about the movie. Even if you never saw the stage show (which I would imagine most people here have not), I still can't imagine liking that film.

They made so many wrong choices in the movie, it's hard to know where to begin!

WRONG LIST:

1. "What I Did For Love" isn't about a woman's love for a man, it's about dancers' love for dance.

2. "Music and the Mirror," a song/dance for Cassie expressing her fundamental need to dance, was replaced by "Let Me Dance For You," which focused more on her past relationship with Zach than it did on dancing, with head-slapping lyrics like, "We made a lot of music dancing, you and I."

3. Cassie was given the star treatment from the beginning with her "late entrance" into the theatre, something Bennett had tried and cut in the workshop. He made it clear that the audience should see Cassie as "just one of the dancers" at first, until they slowly begin to find out that she was a star-dancer and a former love of Zach's. The movie focused on her relationship with Zach from the very beginning, which trivializes the other dancers and their stories and makes them all "secondary plot" points to the love story.

4. They cut away from Mike's "I Can Do That" to show (you guessed it) Cassie, trying to decide if she should confront Zach.

5. They cast some killer dancers in this movie, but only one or two of them could really sing. It made Kristine's song "Sing" (about the fact that she CAN'T) look silly, since MOST of them couldn't. And it was a MOVIE, and they could have dubbed many of them easily.

6. (Probably the worst crime of all) They removed ALL of Bennett's brilliant choreography and staging, and replaced it with Hornaday's "Flash Dance" bumps and grinds.

7. They kept cutting away from the stage, either in unnecessary flashbacks or to other areas of the theatre, to "open" the story up. They removed all the documentary-style immediacy as a result.

8. They updated the orchestrations, hairdos and costumes to make it feel more modern/trendy to "current" movie audiences, and forever locked it in the kitchy '80s, which does't fit the show or the material at all.

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I agree with everything best12 said- but there's an even worse crime than those -- I didn't notice it until someone showed me, but most of the dancing in the film is shot from the waist up! That's ridiculous!

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I think some film treatments of a musical will suffer becuase there is no way to translate energy and intimacy and connection on film. I think this is why ACL and RENT failed. There's no translation for the kinetic energy that is produced in the live theatre. And 'Music and The Mirror" is such a killer number in the show that by losing it, you lose alot. However, the energy of that number live probably wouldnt resonate the same way on film and would feel flat. I am glad the musical is being revived and hope they do not try another film version.

Oh, also another issue the film: one of the Landers sisters was cast. Now that is some serious stunt casting. She was a pin-up girl from Love Boat and Fantasy Island. That is like today casting Cindy Margolis in the revival of ACL.

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Attenborough was the wrong choice to direct a musical as was John Huston doing Annie. Both were out of their element. Both great directors but it takes a special talent to do a musical. Sadly both of the above were lacking

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I simply CAN NOT believe the negativity and snobbery on this board and the need people feel to start threads like this *sigh*

Stone me to death, rip my heart out- whatever... I am sorry I have my opinion... I love the movie as much as I love the stage show.

I have so much I want to say in defense of the movie, but you all won't care. But I will say this: If you would all take a step back from the masterpiece that is the stage show and watch the movie knowing it is a DIFFERENT version of the story, you'd see it in a whole new light.

This thread makes me sad

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