Random Notes on This and That: 10/11/04
Not a huge Lloyd Webber fan, Brantley filed a negative assessment of The Woman in White. One wonders if the review might keep the show from coming to Broadway its producers have stated that it will come, just as one doubts that Brantley would have gone to London to file an opening-night review of the musical had the Hare play not also been happening.
True, a negative Brantley review of The Woman in White sometime later would also have been unhelpful. But then it would likely have been part of a London round-up, and therefore less exposed. That was the case with Brantley's negative reviews of the two previous Lloyd Webber musicals, Whistle Down the Wind and The Beautiful Game, neither of which came to Broadway. Instead, the Woman in White notice became a distinct first-night review, not unlike those accorded Broadway productions. I can't recall The New York Times running a separate review of a London musical opening since Frank Rich filed a similarly negative verdict on the West End opening night of another Lloyd Webber show, Sunset Boulevard.
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The West Coast reviews for the tryout of the forthcoming Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels were divided, ranging from near-rave to near-pan. Happily, those involved have given themselves the luxury of time, with the Old Globe version winding up its run at the beginning of November and the Broadway incarnation not having its official premiere until March 3. In the old days, that would have been almost enough time to write a whole new show.
In terms of its development between now and its Broadway opening, Scoundrels may present director Jack O'Brien with more of a problem than did his two most recent musicals, The Full Monty and Hairspray. Those shows seem to have worked perfectly from the moment they hit their respective stages, at the Old Globe and in Seattle, and neither show underwent serious alteration for Broadway. Given the reviews, Scoundrels could be in for a somewhat greater amount of revision.
Speaking of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, while the 1988 film on which the musical is based, also entitled Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, is readily available on DVD, another related film, Bedtime Story, is not. Because it also doesn't seem to turn up on television, I recently borrowed a friend's European/PAL system Bedtime Story DVD in order to view it.
I was interested in seeing it because the Scoundrels film was a remake of Bedtime Story 1964, and I had been led to believe that the second version, directed by Frank Oz, was a huge improvement over the first picture, directed by Ralph Levy.
With two of the Bedtime screenplay writers repeating their chores on Scoundrels, the two films are quite a bit alike. In fact, for much of the time, they're about equal in quality, up until the end, that is, when the remake beats the original by adding major twists to the plot. Otherwise, David Niven is about as right for the mature conman as is Michael Caine in the remake. While the casting of Steve Martin in the Scoundrels movie makes the role of Freddy more broadly comic as it apparently is in Norbert Leo Butz's interpretation in the musical, the unusual casting of Marlon Brando as Freddy in Bedtime Story pays off, with the star delivering a slyly amusing portrayal.
For those who have not seen either film, I would recommend avoiding both prior to attending the musical. The stage version apparently sticks closely to the plotting of the films, so those unfamiliar with the twists and turns of the narrative are likely to have a better time at the show.
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Who should star in Encores' season opener A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? How about Brian d'Arcy James for Johnny and Faith Prince for Shirley Booth's role of Cissy?
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Thomas S. Hischak's recently published book Through the Screen Door Scarecrow Press, paperback, no photos examines what happened to 200 stage musicals when they went to Hollywood. The book's chief success is its organization; Hischak finds neat ways of grouping the films into eleven thematic chapters. With particular reference to the musicals of Rodgers and Hart, the first chapter illustrates how stage scores were hacked up and otherwise altered on screen. Hischak notes, "With few exceptions, the studio never came up with new songs in filming Broadway shows that matched the quality of those eliminated."
The second chapter examines how stage libretti were rethought in cinematic terms, with Cabaret a notable example. The third section focuses on films that not only retained the stage songs and book but also directors, choreographers, or stars, including titles like Li'l Abner, How to Succeed..., and Bells Are Ringing. Hischak is surprisingly negative to 1776.
How great stage stars Merman, Martin, Verdon, Channing fared on screen is the subject of the next chapter. Hischak writes, "Not casting Merman in the film of Gypsy is considered the greatest faux pas in the history of movie musicals." Film versions of operettas including Kismet, Song of Norway, and, debatably, Porgy and Bess and A Little Night Music are considered next. Chapter Six deals with revues The Band Wagon, This Is the Army, and how plot lines were usually added for the screen versions. Curiously, there's no mention of the New Faces film. Films like Pal Joey and Finian's Rainbow come up in the next chapter, which examines how Hollywood dealt with difficult material like race relations and political satire.
Then it's on to British musicals on screen, from Bitter Sweet to The Boy Friend "a unique, if baffling, film experience", Oliver!, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Show, and Evita. The author includes the video films of Cats and Joseph...
Chapter Nine, entitled "What Were They Thinking?," deals with good shows that were turned into film duds. Few would argue with Hischak's placement of The Fantasticks, Mame, A Chorus Line, The Wiz, and Annie in this category.
The longest chapter of the book examines the relative merits of mostly successful film versions of hit shows, including five Rodgers and Hammerstein titles, Kiss Me, Kate, My Fair Lady, Grease, and Bye Bye Birdie. Here, Hischak is partial to The King and I, The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, Funny Girl, and Chicago.
In the final chapter, called "Reverse Order," Hischak looks at movie musicals that were transferred to the stage, from Gigi and 42nd Street to Thoroughly Modern Millie and Never Gonna Dance.
If all of this sounds gripping, that's because this is a great subject for a book. But it needs a far more in-depth study than it gets in this workmanlike, once-over-lightly under 200 pages treatment. The opinions are mostly unsurprising, and the analysis remains on the surface. Much of the pertinent detail is left to several appendices, which prove to be less useful than they should be; particularly odd is the listing of some, but not all, of the songs heard in each version.
There are also a number of errors. In writing about the film of On the Town, Hischak refers to "{Jerome} Robbins's choreography," which was replaced in the film by the choreography of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. When the Broadway musical Something for the Boys went to the movies, Hischak writes that the character of Blossom Hart was renamed Chiquita for actress Carmen Miranda. But the stage version had both a Blossom and a Chiquita.
Hischak says that the British musical Salad Days played Broadway it played off-Broadway, calls a Brigadoon song "Almost Like Falling in Love," and says that no one's singing was dubbed in the film of Man of La Mancha. Peter O'Toole was at least partly dubbed. He calls On a Clear Day...'s Yves Montand a non-singer Montand performed celebrated solo stage shows consisting of nothing but singing and dancing, and says that Top Banana was filmed at the Winter Garden, when it was actually shot in Los Angeles, at the end of the national tour.