DVDs: Knight of the Woeful Countenance
American actress Jill Paice who played Sophie in the original Las Vegas company of Mamma Mia! will have a leading role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White in the West End.
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MAN OF LA MANCHA MGM
As the only film version of one of Broadway's most successful and beloved musicals, it may seem surprising that Man of La Mancha has taken so long to make it to DVD. But then the 1972 film of the 1965 show has never been high on lists of movies desired on DVD. And one has only to see United Artists' Man of La Mancha to understand why.
Produced and directed by Arthur Hiller Love Story, The Americanization of Emily, Man of La Mancha's screenplay was by Dale Wasserman, who had introduced the material in his 1959 television play I, Don Quixote and had gone on to write the book for the stage La Mancha. There are some new notions in the film, such as the opening sequence, in which Cervantes leads a troupe of masked actors in a play mocking the Inquistion, leading to Cervantes' imprisonment. And the stage version's sequence with the Moors has been dropped. But in general, the screenplay follows the stage script closely.
Most of the stage score was likewise retained, with only "What Does He Want of Me?" and "To Each His Dulcinea" completely eliminated. Yet it's the very fidelity of the film to the stage script that is its undoing. Wasserman's teleplay and musical were not straightforward adaptations of Cervantes' Don Quixote but rather plays-within-plays in which Cervantes' fellow prisoners subject him to a mock trial, during which he enlists the inmates to help him enact the tale of Don Quixote.
A great deal of the success of the stage version derived from its theatricality, its playing with stage artifice. The acting out of the Quixote tale relied almost entirely on the audience's imagination. On screen, everything is spelled out. Real settings and open-air scenes replace the stage version's imaginary transformations, and what magic there was in the theatre is lost. Even daylight itself seems to work against the material; La Mancha was conceived to be performed in stark, dingy surroundings.
In his recent book, The Impossible Musical, Wasserman states that he had predicted the film's failure to its makers by telling them, "Man of La Mancha is so inherently conceived for the stage that it is doubtful that it can become a successful movie." And he was right: It's a property that probably defies film adaptation. Then too, the somewhat lofty, overblown nature of some of Wasserman's speeches make them better suited to the stage.
But as one of the biggest hits of its era, it was inevitable that La Mancha would be purchased for the screen. Wasserman reports that the show's composer, Mitch Leigh, and stage director, Albert Marre, were at first hired as producer and director of the film, but were both dismissed. Variously mentioned for the leading roles were Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Rex Harrison, Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, and Anne Bancroft. Instead, the star parts went to other film names, Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren, with James Coco the genial Sancho. Loren did her own singing, but O'Toole's vocals were dubbed by Simon Gilbert.
The cast was completed with a number of distinguished English actors, including Harry Andrews, John Castle, Ian Richardson, and Brian Blessed. Curiously, the only actor who got to repeat his Broadway role was Gino Conforti as the barber, a role that Coco had, at one point, played in the Broadway La Mancha.
At a cost of $11 million, the production was shot in Rome and the Italian countryside. The choreography was by Gillian Lynne, who is currently represented on Broadway by The Phantom of the Opera and will be back at the end of this season with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
The film's saving grace is O'Toole, who is quite excellent, even if the performance is marred by the fact that the star is clearly not doing his own singing. In order not to seem ludicrous, the dubbed vocals for O'Toole aren't spectacular. And Loren's singing is even worse. So the operatic nature of the Leigh-Joe Darion score is slighted. As for Loren, she was perhaps too big a star for Aldonza. We never quite believe her here; it's hard to forget that she's the spectacular Sophia rather than a miserable kitchen slut. While Loren seemed a plausible choice for the role, it somehow fails to pay off.
The newly released DVD offers a handsome widescreen transfer, fine sound, and, as a bonus, the overture from the reserved-seat engagements, accompanied by stills from the film. The La Mancha film is sometimes ranked with the worst film versions of stage musicals. Yet one doubts that a wonderful picture could have been made from the show. And, aside from two German television tapings, the La Mancha movie is the only video version of one of Broadway's biggest hits. So this DVD release was bound to happen.
The last two Broadway revivals of La Mancha the third and fourth, in 1992 and 2002 failed, indicating that, even on stage, La Mancha isn't a sure thing. Still, it's a piece that was meant for the theatre. On screen, La Mancha comes across as sluggish, ponderous, and without much life.
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