THEATRE GOSSIP #336 - Musicals We're Still Hoping They Film Now That They'er Making Them Again, But Don't Screw Up

Yes, it "They're" - damn no editing.

SHE LOVES ME starring Zachary Levi. He has Shazam coming out next year and it has potential to make some $$$

You tried, OP and we thank you.

And Joanna Gleason is Monty Hall's daughter. And Ilene Graff is Randy Graff's cousin. Bet you didn't know that, Rose.

FOLLIES!

That will bring the all-important demo of 18-34 year old heterosexual men back into the theatres! Just when we feared we lost them to video games and superhero movies.

Well, Lenny did have DL fave Shelley Winters as his Mom in "Next Stop, Greenwich Village", so she's an honorary DL care.

Jessica Chastain is COCO!

Follies, if well done, has more possibilities of selling some tickets than "Nine", and while it was terrible, at least somehow got made. Think of all the actors who can sing, think they can sing, and know they can't sing but still would want to be in "Follies".

I really do believe that if any musical ever cried out for a film adaptation, it would be Follies. They could actually go in and fix a few little bugs here and there and look into the characters a bit much. Sally and Ben always felt a little underdeveloped to me. I feel like the writers enjoyed writing for Phyllis and Buddy much more, so they seem a bit more interesting.

Then again, it could wind up as awful as Nine and just be a mindless costume parade of big name stars coming in, singing their songs, and leaving. I still feel like there's so much potential. Just keep Rob Marshall away from it.

Paula Abdul in "Redhead"; at least she could (maybe still) dance it.

I've said it a zillion times before but I'll say it again:

What made the original FOLLIES best and why it can never be replicated now, is it was cast with names who lived it: Alexis Smith, Yvonne de Carlo, Gene Nelson, Dorothy Collins, Fifi D'Orsay, Ethel Shutta. They brought not only an authenticity but an eeriness to the show that is irreplaceable.

Hear me out....

It's FOLLIES, but all of the principals are 25-29 years old, reliving their glory days as singing/dancing teens on a forgotten GLEE-style TV show. Their careers have come to nothing.

It's sad, but relatable and hip. It has Ryan Murphy written all over it. Can we make either Phyllis or Sally trans? That's like a prerequisite now.

And change everyone's freaking name, while we're at it. It sounds like last call at a rest home.

Well? Get on it, already! Did I stutter?

Well, how about "The WIll Rogers Follies"? It has a fine score, and could be sold as a country musical. for that demographic. Country boy hits on Broadway with lots of showgirls.

Note to self:

"PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY OVERTURES." Anything there?

"Promises, Promises" was announced years ago in "Variety" to star Neil Diamond. Wasn't Streisand considered too back then? Any musical probably she was top first consideration. The show holds up, though the show's "Turkey Lurkey Time" choreography will be hard to top or even equal. Still, a film of P,P. would be cool.

"find" - damn keyboard and fingers

LIJNK TO PREVIOUS THREAD:

The Titanic Musical needs to be made into a movie more than Follies.

But make a film of the original cast of Wicked in Follies would be pretty fun.

Norbert is a perfect Buddy. Taye Diggs as Ben. (He was a replacement Fiyero)

Let Stephanie J Block play Phyllis and rewrite 'I'm Still Here' for Menzel as Carlotta. (For the off chance at having a hit single.) JLT as Sally when Chenoweth bails.

speaking of spelling errors...

[italic]Why[/italic] are we denied a musical version of the Goop shitfest VIEW FROM THE TOP ... which she eventually became disenchanted with and started calling VIEW FROM MY ASS?

(Could be done with a male cast, in revival)

Honestly, I don't understand why everyone loves FOLLIES so much.

It's slow. And you don't really care much about anyone in it.

Shut UP!

If they are remaking "West Side Story", why not re-do "On the Town" and use all of the Bernstein/Comden & Green score? They only used like 2 of their songs in the original. "Man of La Mancha" was screwed up -- had hey cast Gina Lollobrigida instead of Sophia Loren, they could have had someone who could have actually sung the score well.

There are many musicals I'd like to see filmed, but I don't want them made into films. I want them filmed in performance in a real theatre, a la, PBS's productions of South Pacific, Light in the Piazza and the National's Follies. I want them to be theatre pieces first. (Then if someone else wants they can open them up and make movies of them.)

Lincoln Center library does that for many plays in NY at least.

I'm happy that musicals are again being filmed, but like to see well-made ones of fine-crafted works that have true rhymes and good melodies.

Charlie Williams is the hottest chorus boy in that hot harem of Cher Show

He's been around for years. He's now almost a daddy to the rest of the boy chorines.

[quote]Maeby Funke, VP, Paragon Studios

Marry me.

Charlie Williams is hot. He also seems, based on interviews of him I've seen, to be a nice guy.

"but like to see well-made ones of fine-crafted works that have true rhymes and good melodies."

In other words, nothing since 1979.

I'd actually be into a Glee-inspired Follies in 15/20 years. That'd be crazy. Jane Lynch can come out and do Broadway Baby. The only think that'd scare me would be the idea of Lea Michele as Sally or Phyllis. Yikes!

Truthfully, Follies has Ryan Murphy written all over it. With his name attached, I bet he could have his pick of literally anyone in Hollywood to play these roles.

Well, "La Cage aux Folles" had mostly good songs, and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" as well. "Hairspray" has already been done and that also qualified as having a good score. But yeah, lots of crappy shows occupying Broadway since then, with a few exceptions. Some of them very over-awarded. Kind of like Meyerbeer operas back in the day.

OK people two different things (back on previous thread) ... non-traditional casting that is "color-blind" meaning that we're supposed to pretend to erase race (this seems to have been the issue with All My Sons) ... and non-traditional casting that is explicitly using it to shed new light on the text (e.g., the Stratford Music Man, the Arena Stage Oklahoma)

They should revive TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. The one that the Public did in the Park recently was excellent. They should get those same stars.

How would someone cast Follies the movie ?

Oh, PLEASE no . . .

Follies.....,and all the queens here would cream their pants,

[quote]SHE LOVES ME starring Zachary Levi. He has Shazam coming out next year and it has potential to make some $$$

They filmed his stage version and showed it on PBS.

[quote]And Ilene Graff is Randy Graff's cousin. Bet you didn't know that, Rose.

And Todd Graff's sister.

I’m going to London this winter and I’m skipping both Follies and Company.

I’m an eldergay but I’ve had enough. I want to see new shows.

Thank you for your support. Happy holidays!

Promises, Promises will never see another Broadway revival.

Is Follies considered a fluffy musical?

No one but broadway queens would go to see a film of Follies or even She Loves Me

It's more......plume-y, r42.

Follies is brittle.

It's plumittle!

I think City of Angels would make a really great movie musical. They would probably have to autotune out the wazoo because it has very tight jazz harmonies, but if they got a really strong designer to give the movie a good look, it would be successful.

She Loves Me has already been filmed 3 times as The Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Summertime and You've Got Mail. And every time it's been a huge critical and financial hit.

So, what did happen to Aurora Spiderwoman? Anyone know?

"They would probably have to autotune out the wazoo because it has very tight jazz harmonies"

Is there no one in Hollywood who can hold their parts?

Shazam has flop written all over it R2. The trailers are terrible and it will be DOA.

R50, he gota few copyright strikes in the span of about a month. He took down all of his videos to protect his channel from being deleted, but he'll be back.

I’m ready for my close-up Baron Lloyd-Webber

Mary Poppins Cums Back Down Your Gutters or whatever it’s xalled proves Rob Marshall has the heaviest clumsiest touch. Nothing is free and light. What a slog. His best work was Chicago. He can’t have FUN. And still cuts his own choreo too much for it to land as anything entertaining. It’s all just work.

It all feels digitally processed even the supposed fun.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Shit, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this DEAR RYAN HANSEN thing. WTF do I know?

I'll call my dad. He's crazy about musicals.

....

unfortunately, charlie goes through other chorus boys like hot buttered biscuits. where hasn't that dick been.

So, R32, should we just ask for them to list in Playbill "notice" or "don't notice" so we can tell which is which?

Lady Gaga would be an incredible EVITA. Given the gigantic success of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR LIVE!, I'm sure ALW is champing at the bit to do it as a live musical... she could even do it in the original keys and bring some actual balls and gravitas to it (unlike some people...).

Bonus: Madonna would literally explode with anger/jealousy/outrage.

[italic]Moo moo moo moo- -

[quote]Moo moo moo moo

How very Killing of Sister George of you, r63.

[quote]unfortunately, charlie goes through other chorus boys like hot buttered biscuits

I have been taught by masters.

Why unfortunately, r60? What a weird sexphobic way to frame it

Can one of you bitches start the Broadway sex thread again for Christmas??!

Why don't you stop whining and do it yourself, r67? Anybody can start a thread, you don't need to be a paying member. Just go to the main page and click on "new thread" at the bottom left and go for it.

In that Bonnie Franklin song, how did they get the rights to mimic all those other musicals? Or is the music changed enough to avoid copyright laws?

Here you go R67 - Merry Holidays.

I think if you change enough of the lyrics, it counts as parody.

r57 I never miss a Fred Gwynne musical.

R72 He was also in "Irma La Douce".

As was Elliott Gould.

Patti Lu is hosting Nathan Lane for XMAS in London. Could u imagine that gossip fest?

Scenes from "Gypsy" with great possibilities that I wished were musicalized:

Rose taking Baby June (with Baby Louise tagging along) shopping for a feathered hat

Tessie Tura confronting her usual costume designer when she calls up for using fishhooks for her stitching instead of those ladylike stitches Louise makes

Rose in her room feeling sexy, practicing a strip, more elaborate than the few moves she may do in "Rose's Turn"

If only Laurents, Sondheim and Styne really knew what they were doing when they were writing "Gypsy," R76, they might have come up with those scene ideas themselves.

OT. Some songs from Betty’s Carnagie concert from 1996. This is one of the few not from musicals, but I love it. Sorry about bringing it here.

Betty on the road

[quote]r77 If only Laurents, Sondheim and Styne really knew what they were doing when they were writing "Gypsy," [R76], they might have come up with those scene ideas themselves.

A number with Louise getting her first period in the back of the cow costume could have been dramatic - - -

.... and if it were cut in previews, it could have fit into "Carrie: The Musical" to be sung in the showers.

Carrie: The Musical was dubbed The Black and White Menstrual Show by show biz folk in the UK. It was a reference to a horribly racist TV show over there in the 1970s called The Black and White Minstrel Show. And it was also a reference to the godawful black and white color scheme of the sets.

Somehow that dress seems to do Betty no favors, or vice versa.

In my mind, I always imagined a Let Me Entertain You montage in a film versions of Gypsy with Louise rising to fame all over the country and Rose seething in the wings.

Will Cynthia Erivo plop herself into the NYTimes debate about Alice Walker's anti-Semitism? Will someone ask her on twitter her opinion and will she answer? In case you hadn't heard, the Times is being called out for not having an interviewer ask more questions of Walker when she said among the books she keeps on her nightstand are an infamously anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying book. Maybe Erivo keeps her mouth shut when it's the show she's been involved with has a discriminatory aspect to it unlike the case with "The Great Comet" which she helped get closed.

Here's the article on Walker.

Betty can be quite stunning but I’m surprised for a Carnegie Hall concert she chose such a shitty dress and dreadful hairstyle that is awful even by 1998 standards

When you dream of the perfect power top in bed, calves aren't the first thing you think of, at least I didn't. Until I met MikeR, Christmas Day, backstage at a perfectly pleasant production of Forever Plaid he was performing in a regional theatre in Northern California. He told me, as he pulled the skin tight plaid trousers down his thick, muscular legs, that that's where all the power truly came from. Who knows if that's all true, but I'll tell ya, I could barely sit after intermission, so I pretended to be feeling ill and asked my grandmother if she'd be okay getting a ride home with my aunt instead. I'll never know how Forever Plaid ends, but... I don't care.

Who cares about his calves, he’s a loser poster on Talkin’ Broadway fer crhissakes.

Charlie Williams is smoking hot -- hotter and more muscular than ever in THE CHER SHOW -- and an incredibly sweet guy. I'm sorry he was so closely entwined with Rob Ashford for so long but maybe that's over? I hope so.

Lada Gaga as Evita in a live TV version of the musical is a truly brilliant idea, the only slight problem being (seriously) that they'll have to cover up that ridiculous trumpet tattoo on her arm when she does the famous arms-up post in "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina."

[quote]Promises, Promises will never see another Broadway revival.

I've always thought it's a weird script (also THE APARTMENT) because, on the one hand, Sheldrake's mistreatment of Fran is treated very seriously, so that's not a problem in the metoo era, but on the other hand, all those executives having tons of illicit extra-marital sex, sometimes with women who work for them, is treated for supposed hilarity.

[quote]Who cares about his calves, he’s a loser poster on Talkin’ Broadway fer crhissakes.

Does he still post on Talkin' Broadway under a different handle? Because I don't think I've seen a MikeR post there in a long time, I was hoping because he was hounded off the site for being such a nasty prick.

"all those executives having tons of illicit extra-marital sex, sometimes with women who work for them, is treated for supposed hilarity:

Yes, it's called satire: the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly"

...or is satire another lost literary art in today's illiterate world?

I don't think MikeR still posts on Talkin' Broadway, since he became a semi-star of the San Francisco theater scene.

R88, why did you visit him at intermission? Did you know him? And he fucked you silly in just ten minutes? AND he had a private dressing room at some little theater in SF?

If MikeR were on Broadway, would he be a member of the BBDC?

[quote]"all those executives having tons of illicit extra-marital sex, sometimes with women who work for them, is treated for supposed hilarity." Yes, it's called satire: the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly" ...or is satire another lost literary art in today's illiterate world?

Umm, I understand that. But I think it's odd to treat the Sheldrake-Fran situation very seriously, on the one hand, and on the other hand treat the "horny married executives fucking lots of young women, including some who work for them" for hilarious satire IN THE SAME SHOW (or movie). Don't you find that unusual?

It's only a month away, people.

[quote]why did you visit him at intermission? Did you know him? And he fucked you silly in just ten minutes? AND he had a private dressing room at some little theater in SF?

He'd been a teacher at my summer drama camp a couple of years prior, so, yeah, I kinda knew him. Intermission was 20 minutes; gotta give the blue hairs time to unwrap their candies. It wasn't a private dressing room.

So MikeR was your hot older man, r96? And he fucked you in front of others?

"Don't you find that unusual?"

Not in the least, especially since the C. C. Baxter character negotiates both worlds and is alternately a comic schnook and a potentially tragic moral failure...until his redemption. In short, it's serious comedy.

David Petro, chased from NYC to Chicago is at it again caught stealing $$$$$.

R95 Why also make Mark and Maureen POC? RENT was already diversified (Mimi, Collins, Joanne, Angel, Benny).

R22 the thing that really bothered me about the MAN OF THE MANCHA movie was their mispronunciation of Miguel. They kept saying 'Mee-GWELL.' Ugh.

R62 the SJWs would insist that Eva be played by a swarthy Latina even though the woman herself was of Basque descent and as white as can be (her skin was described as alabaster). She was no mestizo.

Steel Pier. Great score, bad book. A movie adaption can fix the storyline, which was confusing and flat.

Am I alone in hating movie musicals? They so rarely work without the proscenium and the willing suspension of disbelief that happens in the theatre.

That RENT trailer is hysterical. It looks like it’s being done on Nickelodeon.

Is Benanti out all week? I bought Grandma tickets for Christmas and she’s very pissed

Bananti is out all week because she's pissed at your grandmother?!? Wow!

In all fairness, a lot of people hate r106's grandmother.

A "She Loves Me" tv movie was made in the 70s for the BBC. Not very colorful and they all have British accent but it exists, and it's on YouTube. Would love for a Hollywood film to be made, but frankly I can't think of anyone who could sing Amalia and do it justice, but could also carry the film. Anna Kendrick and Hugh Jackman don't need to be in every movie musical.

STEEL PIER has a great score? What word would you use for MY FAIR LADY? SOUTH PACIFIC? SWEENEY TODD?

It's a very good and enjoyable score actually. I wouldn't jump on the poster for alerting others to listen to it. I think lots of folks would like listening to the OCR.

I'm with R110. STEEL PIER has a okay score, but it's hardly one of the greats.

Keep your calves together, r103.

Marathon dancing is so dated.

R115 Love Bonnie, she should act more, great presence

Steel Pier needed to be more....this.

R117, it was originally. I read a very early script. I would love to know what happened with it. I suspect attorneys got involved. I wonder if it is one of those shows like Thoroughly Modern Millie (film) or Anyone Can Whistle where the source material that the creative team wanted wasn't available; so, they wrote something similar.

Well played, R113.

What was Anyone Can Whistle supposed to be?

It is time for the world to have a film production of Al Carmines' PROMENADE. The cinematic possibilities in the script and score are endless.

Encores is doing it this summer....

That clip from They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is still absolutely riveting. Who would want to see that musicalized? Softening the edges would do it no favors.

The beguiling Miss Alice Playten....

I saw They Shoot Horses and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter when they came out, r123. I was 11 years old.

Would ALW do SUNSET BLVD as a live musical? I can't imagine a big screen version starring G would ever get the traction/casting needed at this point... Meryl or Barbra, yes. I think the only option if G were to do it would be on TV. Ryan Murphy has been in discussions to direct, so perhaps as a Netflix film is the most likely option given his 5-year deal to develop content. I think it would work. Although, the prospect of Meryl or Babs doing it big with Chris Pine or Hugh Jackman as Joe and a major director (Scorsese? Tom Hooper?) looms large.

Thank you for mentioning me next to Scorsese.

Barbra hasn't played a character different from herself since............I don't know. It has been a very long time since she actually acted.

Anyone Can Whistle, r120, was one of many works written in the 1960s that were a rebellion against the conformity of the 1950s. Shows/movies like Whistle, Marat/Sade, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Man of La Mancha, Hair, Celebration, King of Hearts, etc. challenged the status quo and the establishment of the period, with the trope of "the lunatics are running the asylum" getting a lot of play. Unfortunately, despite many brilliant moments in its score, ACW just didn't/doesn't work, falling apart long before its final curtain.

There’d be little acting involved here.

Actually I think Meryl and Glenn are better singers than Streisand nowadays. Barbra is really weak vocally unless she is singing to eight backing tracks like on her recent albums.

THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? is absolutely one of my favorite films. Everything about it-- screenplay, direction, acting, design, costuming, music--is superb in every way. It's one of Pollack's and Fonda's greatest achievements.

[quote]Chris Pine or Hugh Jackman as Joe

Jackman is 50! Nothing wrong with that... unless you're acting 30, which is what Joe is supposed to be. He should be considerably younger than Norma and not much older than Betty but at the age where he has just become disillusioned with Hollywood. So someone pushing 30 or early 30s -- or at least someone who looks it.

Glenn and Meryl are not singers. They can hold a tune - well Meryl can. Poor Glenn.

G, M and Babs are all 70 or thereabouts and if they play Norma they have to look at least 2018 55-60ish... of course, in 1950 50 looked 2018 70, so it works that way. Jackman probably is too old, especially since the weird new face he has now post-cancer... Chris Pine is definitely the best choice, although Bradley Cooper would work. Obviously, there are dozens of other options, but they don't have the marquee names... I suspect they would cast a 30ish Betty, as well, since 2018 35 is 1950 22.

If I hadn't just turned 33, I'd be willing to be aged up a lot to do it, but it would be unrealistic even with extensive CGI.

Barbra is thereabout 76.

Pine is a "good old college try" actor at best. Jake Gyllenhaal night be interesting. He often looks like he's going through it.

R138 through what?

Billy Magnusson as Joe! The perfect 1950s boy toy.

Frankie Grande IS Joe Gillis!

Joe would be an interesting role for Billy. I know he can sing and he's cute with a great body. He's been very funny in comedic roles, but I wonder if he could pull off Joe. Chris Pine seems like another logical choice, but he's looking 50-ish these days.

Babs would never do it, because she turned down a previous attempt at a film version because Norma was too unlikable in that screenplay. An actress playing Norma can't be worried about appearing likable or else you're in trouble. Then again, to be fair, maybe the version she read has Norma fist fucking Joe in her bondage room or using his severed head to go down on her. I don't know.

Glenn keeps talking about it like she's still attached, so I assume it's happening with her and maybe Ryan Murphy, which would be a pretty good choice for a director or producer. Maybe it's in his Netflix deal. Maybe he can green light Babs' Gypsy while he's at it.

Grosses for The Prom have started to dip...in December. It will be closing so soon.

No. The Prom will limp to the Tonys though I'm not sure it'll be worth it.

R139 Trauma.

Magnusson is the male equivalent of a big tittied starlet.

Is Luke Evans still getting movie leads?

R143 If you carefully read the analysis, The Prom has a rising average ticket price. I know your shadenfraude aches for release, but hold on.

Just saw Kristin Chenoweth on Kennedy Center Honors singing "Doin' What Comes Naturally" looking like a skeletal mini-Carol Channing, wiggling her hips inappropriately, in a bizarre outfit, singing in a too low for her key until hitting a good high note at the end. She really gave off a weird vibe though, performing like she's still in her 20s and coming off like an inappropriately dressed Tessie Tura.

That Betty Buckley number at R78 is a total miss for me. The Mary Chapin Carpenter original is so good. Why do we need Betty fucking Buckley to underplay it...to do it super slow and soft? The song has the potential to really build and go somewhere. She could have actually belted the shit out of that final chorus. But, no...instead we get some Dave Koz smooth jazz bullshit.

It's about time, "La Cage Aux Folles" was made into a movie musical. Either Hugh Jackman or Patrick Wilson would make great Zazas.

Shocked to find that The Cher Show isn't performing for Cher at the Kennedy Honors!

The show could really use that jolt. It's all so solemn and dignified.

So Chenoweth has lost her charm? Too old to be that thin and leathery?

Patrick Wilson in La Cage? No. Horrible idea.

Patrick Wilson is a better idea for Joe Gillis. Remember, he’s not a ‘boy toy,’ he’s a cynical writer who becomes an unlikely gigolo. Holden was 32, WIlson is 39, which in today’s math seems about right. He’s hot but not a boy toy.

And that’s why not Magnusson

John Krazinski IS La Cage

I turned down Sunset the first time. Why would I do it now? (I turned down all three of G's Tony winning roles BTW)

R154 Holden may have been only 32 but he looked way older than his years. He was a drinker and he aged a lot post-WWII. Three years after SUNSET, he did a movie with Ginger Rogers called FOREVER FEMALE in which he once again played the boytoy of a much older woman (Ginger who was 7 years older and looked younger). He was 35/36 by then but looked well into his forties and yet he was supposed to be playing a young aspiring playwright in his twenties. Everyone, including Ginger, kept calling him "the kid" and he acted all "aw shucks!" but it came off creepy coming from a middle-aged looking guy. What's more, Pat Crawley, who was 19 when it was filmed and 20 when it was released, was supposed to be his true love interest and his contemporary and looked very girlish next to him, more like his daughter or niece.

Holden & Rogers in FOREVER FEMALE. She's supposed to be the cougar to his boytoy.

For the MAME fans (of which I'm not particularly one) this may be of interest.

It's an interview with Rosalind Russell after having played in the original AUNTIE MAME straight play for a year.

Sounds like Benanti will be out of MFL all of this week. She's even (GASP) taking a break from social media!!!!!!

Holden was only 32 at the time of Sunset Boulevard? Jesus! He looks like a modern 52. Sexy, sure, but mature and a little weathered. If they're going that route for the movie musical, Chris Pine would fit that criteria.

I HATE when Betty Buckley does that jazz bullshit. Her jazzy Sondheim stuff kills me. No wonder she said Sondheim wasn't a fan of it.

I have this issue when performers don't understand what their strengths are. Betty, no one's coming to hear you whisper sing some folk songs and change all the notes on Sondheim ditties. We're here to hear you belt the fuck out of some showtunes (as originally written). We also don't want to see you trying to be funny, because you're not and that's not an issue, but that also means you shouldn't be playing Dolly or Mama Rose. Stick to cold, prickly roles.

Where’s the gossip?

Beautifully stated, R163. Few people could sing as thrillingly as Betty Buckley yet she often sings like she's at death's door in an oxygen tent.

[quote]Stick to cold, prickly roles.

For the life of me, I don't know why she turned down Olaf.

That Roz Russell interview is an amazing--and amazingly moving---document. The maturity, the sophistication, the elan, the HONESTY….I can't imagine any actor today rising to the occasion in such a manner.

[quote]r116 Love Bonnie Bedelia, she should act more, great presence

She had an interesting role in PRESUMED INNOCENT (1990), if you haven't seen it.

Somehow, I've never seen many of her films. I keep meaning to watch HEART LIKE A WHEEL, but the world of race cars just doesn't interest me that much.

TRIVIA: she is Macaulay Culkin's aunt.

[quote]Sounds like Benanti will be out of MFL all of this week. She's even (GASP) taking a break from social media!!!!!!

She is her own worst enemy.

What the fuck is she supposed to do? People get sick. It's probably not wise to be singing The Rain In Spain and I Could Have Danced All Night with the flu.

I have bought tickets to seven shows starring or featuring Laura Benanti. She was only in twice!! Every other time was an understudy. (I saw her in Gypsy and My Fair Lady)

William Holden did always look old. I think he is 56 in Network and the character is talking about death and he looks like it. I mean Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks and people like that are 56 nowadays and don't look that old. (Peter Finch looked much older than he was too.......and look how that turned out.)

Holden was 58 in Network, but yeah, he looked older because of all the boozing. He died at 63 after taking a drunken fall, hitting his head on a table, and bleeding out. Billy Wilder said it was a lousy fade out for such a good man.

Although he was craggy and a "little weathered" for Sunset Blvd, he was a pretty boy in his youth which embarrassed him.

It's perfect that Benanti and Amy Schumer post 'Meteor' have become such close friends- they both treat every illness like the end of the world...

The problem I’ve always had with the SUNSET BLVD musical movie is that the original film is so good. The musical doesn’t improve it. The musical really only has two good songs. When Billy Wilder say the ALW show, he said “It's my movie in a permanent long shot.”

That describes all live shows in theaters.

Any other casting suggestions for Zaza in "La Cage Aux Folles"?

Ben Platt would be good if they are going a little younger.

A LITTLE younger? You’re joking, right? Georges and Albin/Zaza should be at least 45. “Song on the Sand” is about love between two slightly older than middle-aged people.

R144, Ashmanskas hasn't called out once and isn't known for that habit. Not sure why you keep bringing it up. There are plenty of other digs you could make about him that are actually true.

I agree THE PROM will hang on until the Tonys. The jury's still out on a lot of their main competition; I'm not sure how kind critics will be to BE MORE CHILL or BEETLEJUICE, etc.

Overall, PROM's marketing has been very amateurish and lackluster but they seem to have made some recent improvements. There's a GMA appearance coming up Jan 4, I believe.

Benanti does seem to be out for a little while; however, I was able to exchange yesterday's tickets for a later date despite her not being an "above-the-title" star. Saw The Prom instead. I personally didn't love it, but I was surrounded by children (age 6-17 or so) who did love it, and I can't help think it's a good thing for them to see a show with a message like this. Kudos to their parents, except to the parent who was on her phone for a good chunk of the first act (why do people do that???).

Interesting that nobody has suggested Ashmanskas for La Cage. Surely better than Ben Platt.

[quote]Stick to cold, prickly roles.

I had the god damned cold, prickly roles.

Don't they need a star for LA CAGE. Brooks is a reliable supporting character, but not a star.

R184, and Ben Platt is?

He'd be great, R182, but I don't know if he'd sell tickets. His performance in PROM surprised me--a lot of depth to it that I wasn't expecting, maybe because he's never really had a major role that's asked that of him before.

Of course Glenn can still do the Sunset Blvd movie. The trick is finding a younger man to play opposite her. I hear John Cullum is available.

They will probably cast a Joe from the music world. In the song "Sunset Boulevard" Joe has to have that last note in place or have someone good "Marni Nixon" it. The song builds and that last note is necessary. They can't "Madonna" it and lower the keys like they did in Evita movie.

James Marsden would make the perfect Zaza. He sand in "Hairspray" and just turned 45.

Has benanti ever done a run without at least one extensive slew of absences, except Gypsy? Major outages during Woods, She Loves Me, now MFL. Medically interesting that only the wrath - I mean work ethic - of Patti somehow kept her healthy.

James Marsden did do a good job singing and dancing in Hairspray.

Marsden would make a dashing Georges, no?

I think Marsden's beauty would be better served in drag as Zaza. Someone more "built" and rugged would be better as Georges.

The Most Anticipated New York Theater of 2019:

R176 I think R175's (and Wilder's) point was that the SUNSET musical didn't change much from the film. It's just the screenplay with songs. It didn't try to be its own thing.

Chrissy Metz IS Betty Schaefer!

Ben Platt would be an excellent Monsieur Dindon.

She was obviously terrified that she would get the flu but in the end took all the wrong precautions to stay healthy. Oh well.

I know that I don't want to watch someone dripping and snorting through a Broadway show even if the definitive production in my head of My Fair Lady does involve Eliza having a head cold because I grew up with the stereo recording cast album.

That OK! was one of the most stupid productions I've ever seen. A group around me burst out laughing during the Dream Ballet. Seriously, you have to see it to believe it.

Mary Martin performed in The Sound of Music with a broken arm.

The CHER show is a joke for one simple reason: Cher has never done anything else but care about her own stardom. She's never been involved in any major political movement, or charity, or put herself out there except to further her own "stardom." If want to see someone who really deserves a Kennedy Center Honor, watch the HBO documentary on Jane Fonda. At least she had periods of her life where she was putting herself out there for a cause. I mean, at the end the day, who the fuck really cares about Cher?

Well, you obviously have not been following Cher on Twitter.

Cher has been huge in the transgender movement.

"Huge" in the transgender movement. What exactly does that mean? Has she ever testified before congress? Given a charity concert? Gone to flyover states and talked anyone who wasn't West Hollywood? Has she ever gone on any national news or entertainment show representing the Transgender movement?

Crickets...

And the beat goes on...

[quote]"Huge" in the transgender movement. What exactly does that mean? Has she ever testified before congress? Given a charity concert? Gone to flyover states and talked anyone who wasn't West Hollywood? Has she ever gone on any national news or entertainment show representing the Transgender movement?

She produced a transgender child. Isn't that enough?

Because of her crazy mother, Cher has always had an irrational sense of her own destiny and prominence in the world. She's a little sad, actually.

R199 to what are you referring?

James Marsden was really impressive in "Hairspray", and I say that as someone who has sung opera. Really good voice. I think he'd probably be better as Georges though, since Zaza is more of a character part dealing with the drag, and haven't seen Marsden doing something quite like that before. But he'd probably sing either of the roles wonderfully if he has kept his voice in shape.

If you wan to go with James Marsden as Zaza, put Jeremy Northam as Georges, who had a truly gorgeous voice playing Ivor Novello in "Gosford Park". You'd have some really beautiful singing, something not possible with over-rated song stylist Hugh Jackman.

Ugh! Jackman's "Bring Him Home" made my ears bleed! I can't believe he got an Oscar nod for that. His voice was horrible and it's a predominantly singing part.

So then you're agreeing with me. Yes, Jackman was fun dancing on stage as Peter Allen, but that voice has a lot of problems when one actually listnes to what he's doing.

listens, ugh,

Jack man as Georges would be terrific. THAT he could do and be charming. Anyone can sing that. Gene Barry anyone?

However. I agree if the part needs real singing. Than Hugh ain’t it

[quote]Mary Martin performed in The Sound of Music with a broken arm.

An injury she suffered when she flew into a wall while rehearsing for the 1960 TV production of "Peter Pan," which she was working on during the day while performing "The Sound of Music" in the evening.

Marsden has to be one of the best movie star singers of the past 30/40 years. He can legit sing and doesn't need dubbing or auto tune to sound good. The problem is that - how many movie musicals to be people make every decade? He's been in two (Hairspray and Enchanted). I do think that, if they ever make a Follies movie in a few years, he'd be a great Ben. It'd be nice if, for once, there was a Ben who was really hot so that we could understand why Sally was so obsessed with him.

How do do you think Marsden would look in drag?

Pretty men in drag are unpredictable. Look at Matt Bomer in that trans movie. He's a stunningly beautiful man, but as a woman (and maybe he just needed more makeup or something) he looked downright spooky.

Probably like Barbara Nichols, r216.....

Maybe Patti Lupone should join My Fair Lady do Benanti will show up

LuPone would probably be more age appropriate for Mrs. Higgins than Rigg or Harris. That'd actually be fun if they added Patti in to keep Laura in the show.

Is Benanti afraid of LuPone or something?

Wouldn't you be afraid of LuPone, too? She's scary. Maybe Patti got on Laura's case during Gypsy about missing shows or rehearsals or something and Laura respected her and wanted to keep herself on track to please her.

Just watched the She Loves Me production from a couple of seasons ago. I feel like I remember everyone on here being lukewarm to it. Admittedly, I'd never seen a production before and didn't know any of the music outside of Vanilla Ice Cream, but I found the whole thing utterly enchanting.

And utterly miscast with three of the four leads. Hint. Zach was great

I guess I'm a pushover, but I liked all of the leads.

r225 #MeToo

Is the British production of the Sound of Music Live worth having on in the background?

Hanoi Jane will receive a Kennedy Center Honor when she apologizes for her treasonous acts during the Vietnam War. But probably not. There literally would be protests and riots in the streets to rival those during the war if she ever was honored with it. Truth.

[quote]That OK! was one of the most stupid productions I've ever seen. A group around me burst out laughing during the Dream Ballet. Seriously, you have to see it to believe it.

The dream ballet is a serious misfire, but besides that it's one of the most exciting musical productions in New York this season.

Perhaps you should stick to "Follies" revivals.

SHE LOVES ME is charming fluff, but even the most beautifully produced revival (as the Roundabout production was) reveals the dated nature of the piece and the bland score. Yes, I know it is beloved, but there are no standout tunes and it all has a sameness about it that renders it inert. To think this same team created FIDDLER, which has at least 5 unforgettable songs and many more effective ones, it seems bizarre. Perhaps Bock & Harnick blew their load with FIDDLER and the breakup was for the best. Either way, SHE LOVES ME is a perfectly enjoyable show, but the score leaves me cold and no amount of star turns will change it. Gavin Creel's role is especially lame, although Krakowski made a silk purse out of a sow's ear in that production and made it seem better than it is. To claim it is anything but a B-level musical is horse pucky.

[quote]Hanoi Jane will receive a Kennedy Center Honor when she apologizes for her treasonous acts during the Vietnam War. But probably not. There literally would be protests and riots in the streets to rival those during the war if she ever was honored with it. Truth.

I have a considerably older cousin (more like an uncle) who calls her Hanoi Jane, too. The great irony of course is that he’s a Trump supporter. Evidently, licking Vladimir Putin's ass on national television in Helsinki isn’t quite as bad as having your picture taken with the Viet Cong.

R231 it's not surprising. Republicans have proven themselves to be hypocrites and lacking self-awareness.

SHE LOVES ME is a heartbreaking, delicious charm musical done in by Roundabout's miscast and crass productions.

[quote]Yes, I know it is beloved, but there are no standout tunes

The title tune is one of my all-time favorite Broadway showtunes. I remember liking it back in the '60s when it was recorded or performed by many popular singers of the day.

Glenn has first refusal of any movie version of “Sunset” from her original contract.

Not that I'm a great fan of either Laura Benanti or Kelli O'Hara, but shouldn't the former have been cast as Lili/Kate in Kiss Me Kate and the latter as Amalia in She Loves Me instead of the other way around?

Oh wait! It's The Roundabout. Of course.

If Glenn has first refusal, why were they shopping it to Streisand back in the day? I find it hard to imagine that Glenn would turn down the chance to play the role on film.

The Broadway producers and even ALW would not have had the power to grant any actor first right of refusal in a film they were not going to produce.

[quote]r223 I'd never seen a production before and didn't know any of the music outside of Vanilla Ice Cream, but I found the whole thing utterly enchanting.

You never heard Babs' version of "Will He Like Me"? It's from the same year the show debuted on Broadway. Listening to that old 1964 album was my first exposure to a song from that score.

(And Yes, that show is adorable.)

Laurie Benanti has been in every time I’m scheduled to see her in something. And I saw Gypsy three times.

I thought that Nick Barasch, the very cute red-headed kid, was really good in She Loves Me.

NETWORK will be extending until June 9th, the day of the TONY Awards.

SHE LOVES ME bland? You don't know what you're talking about. There are few scores that are as melodic, inventive and characterful from start to finish.

"That OK! was one of the most stupid productions I've ever seen"

You left out pretentious and absurd. But what Dream Ballet are you talking about? There is no dream ballet in this production, certainly not as conceived or scored.

[quote]Go back to your mug cradling, and quit conflating your “free to be my vag and me” grammar school rules with something that would have merit under evidenciary rules.

A gay lawyer who aggressively hates women. Way to shatter stereotypes, bubbe.

[quote]the definitive productioAndrewn in my head of My Fair Lady does involve Eliza having a head cold because I grew up with the stereo recording cast album.

Yes, Andrews had a severe head cold during the recording of the London My Fair Lady and you can actually hear her sniffle during "Just You Wait." Columbia only made the recording only because the OBCR was in mono and they wanted a stereo recording in their catalog. The OBCR is otherwise in nearly every respect superior to the London recording. And the sound on the OBCR is superb mono, a far better recording overall.

Benanti's cancellations are bad but not worse than six time Tony winner Audra. I've bought tickets to see Audra six times; I've seen her live twice.

^ I meant to add I've always read that Steel Pier started out as an adaptation of They Shoot Horses, Don't They but after a lot of work had been done, the rights couldn't be obtained so a new book was commissioned that wasn't based on TSHDT. I've also read that there were also rights issues with June Hovac (ie, Baby/Dainty June. sister of Gypsy Rose Lee) or her estate. After Hovac wrote Marathon 33, a play about the dance marathons of the 1930s, in which she had been involved, she sued anyone who wrote about the same subject.

Always open to correction.

R246, I'd be curious if you read that anywhere other than my posts on DL. I have posted the June Hovac story a few times here. As it was a one-on-one conversation with her, I would love to know if it has been documented by others.

Her stage name was June HAVOC, dammit!

Her stage name was June HAVOC, dammit!

r244, make that a gay lawyer who aggressively hates women and can't spell "evidentiary."

I agree, R241, that Nicholas Barasch was excellent as Arpad. Unfortunately, the stupid staging of his number, "Try Me," really diminished the effectiveness of his performance.

ALW as the owner of the work would absolutely have the power to grant any actor first right of refusal and to make that a requirement on any producer who wanted to produce a movie of the piece. You don't know what you're talking about.

[quote]If Glenn has first refusal, why were they shopping it to Streisand back in the day?

Because Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber cares nothing for contracts. He breaks them at a whim. He's a truce-breaker. A music thief. A charlatan.

Smile, Baby!

Keep smiling, Baby...er....Dainty....er....

r252: Sure, ALW could withold the film rights to any movie producer based on Glenn's casting but that only shows that Glenn's first right of refusal clause could only go so far. Do you really think ALW would forbid a great film version of Sunset Boulevard if, for example, Steven Spielberg wanted to do it with the actress of his choice?

I'm another one who finds the She Loves Me score bland. It's hard for me to believe it's the same team that did Fiddler.

I assume 60s audiences did as well. I mean with that cast and production it should have been very successful. Do not understand the gay cult status it has. The title song and Ice Cream do nothing for me and that Roundabout production from years ago with Boyd Gaines which people loved I found a bore. I'm not a big Jimmy Stewart or Van Johnson fan but those two films are so much better than that musical.

[quote]I'm another one who finds the She Loves Me score bland. It's hard for me to believe it's the same team that did Fiddler.

Lots of taste-free folks on the DL....

As to the two Roundabout productions of SLM, some friends and I agree they were both JUST good enough for the excellence of the writing to come through. Or, to look at it another way, neither one was bad enough -- despite poor direction and other production flaws -- to severely damage the charm, beauty, and humor of the piece.

The 2011 Roundabout benefit concert was a better presentation of the show than the two Roundabout fully staged productions.

It was flop in '63 when people still prized charm, beauty and humor. Maybe because they instinctively knew it was mediocre warmed over Lubitsch.

nice cast.

That right of refusal contract must be fairly new, because as someone else said, Streisand was definitely offered a film version of Sunset Boulevard awhile back and, ever the idiot, she declined a role that she'd probably knock out of the park. I swear, that woman is infuriating. For someone with so much talent and who thought of herself as an actress first, she sure does have very few great films and roles to show for it. Funny Girl, What's Up Doc, and The Way We Were seem to be her best work and those are 40-50 years old.

Gee, folks are really losing their sense of excellence when something as overpraised as "Hamilton" with its abundance of false rhymes gets a fucking Kennedy Center Honor and something as like "She Loves Me", well-written, perfectly in character (of course Bock and Harnick aren't going to make it sound like "Fiddler"), charming and melodious is going to be torn to pieces here. I'd rather be dancing on New Year's Eve or a wedding to a Vienna Waltz than to "It" Hard Out Here For A Pimp".

I find it hard to believe that the same people who wrote She Loves Me wrote Fiddler. The cheesey, easy sentiment and generic music of Fiddler pale next to she loves me in which each song is so character specific and the sound seems to effortlessly evoke mitteleuropa

Streisand balanced a ego with a great sense of talent against an inner turmoil of a mother who didn't believe in her talent at first and a stepfather who told her she didn't deserve to have ice cream because ugly girls don't deserve ice cream. She's been inwardly fighting that early stuff she heard all her life. It's limited her in her work in that, for the most part, she doesn't want to play anyone who isn't referred to as attractive, sexy or worthy. Even in "Nuts" and the "Owl and the Pussycat" she still played a prostitutes, people who at least paid for her to service them so to Streisand at least they seemed to be attractive to men.

r264 your use of 'mitteleuropa' is a mite twee doncha think

"Fiddler's songs are quite character specific. "Miracle of Miracles" captures Motel's excitement of his betrothal to Tzeitel and references to Biblical figures he probably learned about in Hebrew School. "Sabbath Prayer" is a beautiful slice of life to a weekly ritual still done by observant Jewish women on Friday evenings. "If I Were A Rich Man" is very specific to Tevye's point of view and life in that small town, even wise and ever timely with they lyrics "And it doesn't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong, When you're rich they think you really know!" Gee, I wonder who that applies to? Someone orange with bad hair...

She Loves Me was a flop. It's still a flop. Just because a few theater queens cream over it doesn't make it any good. It's a mediocre score just like The Apple Tree and The Rothschilds(I saw the original lavish production and wanted so much to love it but found it a total snooze.) And except for Encores nobody does Fiorello either. Another mediocre score that nobody but a few people like. But at least that won a Tony but I assume you had to be there. I saw it at NYU many years ago where I used to see excellent musical productions and even that was awful. The 'Little Tin Box' number was the very definition of why people hate musicals. Even Roundabout won't do it.

And having loved Fiddler since I was a child and still loving it I was predisposed to love anything Bock and Harnick did. But to me all their other shows have been major disappointments.

Love Bock and Harnick musicals -- they didn't do many musicals, but what they did were very well-crafted and enjoyable. "She Loves Me now done all the time, and "Fiddler" has always been done all over the world. The others have lots of enjoyable things in them that will charm anyone willing to see or listen to them. All the above musicals have been revived in NY at some point, and even "Tenderloin", which has a great score and a problematic book, was done by Encores. To each his own...

I'm puttin' on......he Mitz!

^ the

The London cast....

I recently watched The Shop Around the Corner on TCM, and gorgeous and heart-breaking as it is, I missed the Bock/Harnick songs.

Fiorello didn't just win the Tony, but it also won the Pulitzer. Granted, awards don't necessarily equate with excellence--it might have been a slim year for shows (and they hadn't really started skipping years much at that point) and it may have been nostalgia for a beloved political figure, but Fiorello has its charms. The only time I've seen it staged was a Catholic boys high school in a Chicago suburb in the 70s (when I was a teenager myself and a friend's brother was in it)--I found it charming and the music very memorable. I doubt it would go over as well today--especially as La Guardia was a Republican (granted, in an era, when that meant something very different).

I think She Loves Me is a wonderful show, funny and touching. I saw both the Broadway revivals, first with Boyd Gaines (who was excellent as Georg) and Diane Fratatoni (who was okay, but not as memorable as I suspect Kuhn might have been), McGillin and Sally Mayes. The more recent one was also well-done, I thought, and I really saw a vulnerable side to Krakowski, who made Ilona not just a sluttty shopgirl, but a lovely friend. I tend to like Benanti, but found her vibrato too shrill (and I imprinted on the Barbara Cook OBC). I agree that Gavin Creel was not ideally cast, but I thought he was perfectly fine--just better in other roles.

Neither Tenderloin nor The Rothschilds does much for me (but each has some good songs), but I like The Apple Tree--and my only experience with it was seeing a community theatre production and then discovering the OBC.

Nothing mediocre about Bock and Harnick as far as I'm concerned. Fiddler is a masterpiece, She Loves Me a more minor jewel, and the others, even if flawed, are respectable. And better than anything new I've seen in recent years (have not seen Hamilton or The Band's Visit or Dear Evan Hansen--the last of which I have grown weary already, thanks to Sirius' incessant playing of it on their Broadway channel).

Put me down as a fan of She Loves Me, too. I watched the recent Roundabout revival on Christmas Eve (because SLM ends on Christmas Eve). It's not my favorite production of the show. The direction is too sitcommy and misses much of the mitteleuropa (yeah, I used it, too) melancholy that's in the score/script. Agreed with R276 about Benanti and Creel, both of whom I've liked more in other things; they were either misdirected (her) or miscast (him). The best performance may be Tom McGowan's Cipos, with Krakowski a close second (I don't know why Arpad was directed to act like a spastic robot). The Oregon Shakespeare Festival did an excellent jewel-box production of SLM a few seasons ago, but the Roundabout's is the one on my DVR, and I'll never delete it. (Sometimes I'll watch just the Cafe Imperial scene, which is its own little one-act play, even though they cut Tango Tragique.)

There's no way film rights could be guaranteed in a Broadway contract, no matter what idiot is writing that here. It only happens if the star is also one of the show's producers, and they have the automatic right to make the film themselves (as producers, not actors.). Honey, if Ethel Merman and Mary Martin couldn't get that deal, there's no way Glenn could.

I could have.

[quote]I recently watched The Shop Around the Corner on TCM, and gorgeous and heart-breaking as it is, I missed the Bock/Harnick songs.

You could have watched "In the Good Old Summertime." Same story, WITH songs, and both Judy AND Liza, in her film debut!

r254 Is she wearing a FEATHERED HAT?

I have long wondered why the first musical version of "The Shop Around the Corner" is called "In the Good Old Summertime" when most of the story takes place at Christmas.

Only two contract guarantees I know of.

Hepburn in Philadelphia Story and Beaton for My Fair Lady.

Any others?

[quote]She Loves Me was a flop. It's still a flop. Just because a few theater queens cream over it doesn't make it any good. It's a mediocre score just like The Apple Tree and The Rothschilds

R268 doesn't just have lousy taste and is an asshole, he's a liar, too. A lot more than "a few theater queens" love "She Loves Me" and hold it up as an example of one of the best musicals ever. You won't find any musical theatre histories that don't identify it as such.

[quote]It was flop in '63 when people still prized charm, beauty and humor.

Um, yeah, right. 1963. The holdover musical hits were A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and How to Succeed. "Carnival," which closed Jan 5, '63, got almost universal rave reviews but was only able to run for just over a year and a half, and that was a musical with "charm, beauty, and humor." Likewise, Tovarich, another musical with charm and humor, only ran as long as Vivien Leigh's mental health stayed in check (around six months). 110 in the Shade, which certainly had charm and humor and a beauty of a performance by Inga Swenson, didn't quite eke out a year's run. The big hits from early '64 were boisterous shows like "Hello Dolly," "Funny Girl" and "Fade Out Fade In." "High Spirits," which had humor, charm, and Bea Lillie and Tammy Grimes, got raves and ran for just under a year.

So it was not a time when a show like "She Loves Me" was going to be able to run a long time. The nine months and 301 performances it did play were doing okay.

[quote]Hepburn in Philadelphia Story and Beaton for My Fair Lady.

Judy Holliday for Bells are Ringing. Not that there was much risk in giving a guarantee to her. She was a recent Oscar-winning star and critics' darling. It wouldn't have made sense to let anyone else do the movie of her big Broadway hit.

[quote] It wouldn't have made sense to let anyone else do the movie of her big Broadway hit.

A big Broadway hit that was written specifically for her and tailored to her talents.

Exactly. That's why it was a no-brainer to give her a contract guarantee for the film.

Hepburn owned all the rights to The Philadelphia Story so she could sell those riughts to MGM with the proviso that she star and have approval of gher costars and director. Which she did.

Cecil Beaton had no such clause in his Broadway contract because when he signed his contract, the Broadway producers would have had no interest in such a clause possibly harming the film sales. Of course, his costume designs were considered iconic and Beaton had worked in Hollywood so obviously, hiring him was the way to go.

The same was true for Irene Sharaff who had no such contractual clause but who repeated her costume duties on the films of The King and I, West Side Story and Funny Girl after designing the Broadway shows. And Deborah Kerr, Yul Bryner, Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno and Barbara Streisand all proudly wore the same designs seen on Broadway and loved it. Those costumes were famous.

[quote]And Deborah Kerr, Yul Bryner, Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno and Barbara Streisand all proudly wore the same designs seen on Broadway

Which is why I never understood why she was nominated, much less won, the Oscars for THE KING AND I and WEST SIDE STORY.

r292, do you think Yul Brynner and Barbra Streisand (and Joel Grey, Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, etc.) shouldn't have won Oscars for roles they created on Broadway?

R293 it's different. Acting on screen is different from acting on stage. Those actors had to modify their performances for the camera, so they were doing something new.

However, simply rehashing your Broadway designs for the film versions is lazy. At least Cecil Beaton created new looks for the MY FAIR LADY film and deserved his Oscar.

R293 Patty Duke was never nominated for a Tony.

You don't understand because you don't understand, r292.

It was in the contract when Paley sold the film rights to MFL that Beaton was part of the deal. Which Cukor resented big time.

And it's you who is the asshole if you think 9 months in '63 was OK. Maybe in '33! And who writes the history of Broadway? Theater queens who cream over mediocre musicals like She loves Me!

I’m a fan of She Loves Me and liked the Roundabout revival BUT I don’t get the love for the guy that played Arpad. He gave one of those broad, untethered grating performances that makes people hate musical theater.

So much anger on this thread.

FUCK YOU, R300!!!!!!!

Numb3rs just ended. Matthew Morrison played a rapist cop.

Who played the poor guy Matthew forced to fuck him?

Joyce Bulifant, Rose.

Someone gave me a $350 gift certificate for Broadway shows for Christmas. Any recommendations? (I've already seen The Band's Visit, Torch Song, and Choir Boy by the way.)

How much nudity is there in "Choir Boy"?

R305 what a generous gift! You must have some wonderful friends.

R294, it's different. Designing costumes for the screen is different from designing for the stage. Those designers had to modify their designs for the camera, so they were doing something new.

Beaton's costumes for the Fair Lady film are ridiculous, at least his Liza designs. They reek of mid-1960s. The stage designs were much better.

R305, see THE FERRYMAN.

Mrs. Patrick Campbell as cover girl......

And for the record, THE ROTHSCHILDS contains some of the best work B&H ever did. There are few set-pieces as glorious as SONS, sharing pride of place with Herman's THE TEA PARTY and Kern/Hammerstein's SOME GIRL IS ON YOUR MIND for contrapuntal brilliance, let alone the rest of its varied, period/place appropriate score (as always with this team): ONE ROOM, ROTHSCHILD AND SONS, the entire opening sequence of Act Two, IN MY OWN LIFETIME...I'll stop, the excellent work speaks for itself.

R306, there a few bathroom/locker room scenes where the guys take off their underwear and show their bare backsides. Nice asses on some of them. That was, in my opinion, the best thing about the entire play, which I found underwhelming for the most part.

That's a great suggestion, R310. Thank you.

the gays loved the guy plating Arpad because they all wanted to fuck him. And I'm sure some of them did.

[quote]I’m a fan of She Loves Me and liked the Roundabout revival BUT I don’t get the love for the guy that played Arpad. He gave one of those broad, untethered grating performances that makes people hate musical theater.

Agreed. I think he thought that show was going to cement him as a young guy who would be constantly working on Broadway, but he isn't that talented, plus his unusual looks make him hard to cast, plus he tends to come across as gay onstage. I think the only major thing he's done since SHE LOVES ME was Huck Finn in the Encores! BIG RIVER, and I'm really not surprised he hasn't done more.

I really liked CHOIR BOY Off-Broadway, and I remember that one of the guys seemed to be hugely well hung (as seen through his underwear), but alas, I'm not sure which guy that was or if he's in the Broadway cast.

R315, I didn't see it Off-Broadway but I can just imagine you're talking about the guy who plays the roommate, who is definitely well-hung and not really able to hide it in that underwear he has on. It's just as nice from the back, too, when the underwear comes off.

The lead actor by the way is fantastic and I hope will be remembered come Tony time.

VPL in flop plays is almost as boring as SHE LOVES ME ephemera... but...

Would Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke have worked in a big screen version of SLM? Why didn't it happen?

What about the proposed PROMISES, PROMISES film from roughly the same era... would Elliott Gould have stolen the role from Jerry Orbach?

Barbra Streisand and Ingmar Bergman went through negotiations for months about THE MERRY WIDOW in 1972. Would Bergman have done a great musical on screen?

R317, Julie Andrews has just flopped in some movie musical (can’t remember if it was Star! or Darling Lili) so MGM got cold feet and canceled She Loves Me. Andrews did release a nice 45 of Dear Friend and He Loves Me.

Thank you, r309. This is first time I've read someone who agrees with me.

Beaton's stage designs for MFL were fantastic; the film's designs were over the top and even silly when you added in the 1960s make up and hair styles. I saw the original stage production in the form of the first national tour and when the film came out i I could not have been more disappointed on so many levels. Moss Hart, brilliant; Cukor -- what happened!?

Benanti still out of MFL- a full week now... must be some 'flu'

The turning point for Nick Barasch (who does have a name) was not being cast as Barnaby ... Rudin must not be into gingers

[quote]Moss Hart, brilliant; Cukor -- what happened!?

Read Beaton's Diaries.

An bout of flu will lay you out for weeks r320 quite apart from likely viral fatigue as you recover. Are you suggesting she’s not I’ll? I don’t know what’s going on other than the woman says she is ill. I’m curious about your sources close to Benanti.

Sorry, damn autocorrect, “ill”

Beaton's diaries are a chore to sit through because he's such a pompous elitist.

Barasch was only 17 when She Loves Me opened and 14 when Drood opened. He’s 20 now. He has kind of dropped off the radar screen. I don’t think he is is in school. He hasn’t done much TV/film, either.

I think he’s charming on stage, and I hope to see him again soon.

Dick Van Dyke was too schticky and sit-commie and American for Mr. Novak in She Love Me.

I would not have wanted to see that performance. I can just imagine him entering the parfumerie and knocking over a display of music boxes as he prat-falled in.

YOU m will never convince me that Jane was good in she loves me

Illona is not a tramp or vamp. She’s a woman who wants love and just doesn’t know how to find it

Jane played her like a whore and it threw off the entire show

Her jump split and performance in here self titled song was absurd

[quote]Her jump split and performance in here self titled song was absurd

How do you mean?

What might have been.....

[quote]Barasch was only 17 when She Loves Me opened and 14 when Drood opened. He’s 20 now. He has kind of dropped off the radar screen. I don’t think he is is in school. He hasn’t done much TV/film, either. I think he’s charming on stage, and I hope to see him again soon.

Barasch is currently appearing in Irish Rep's "A Child's Christmas in Wales," which closes tomorrow.

[quote]I didn't see it Off-Broadway but I can just imagine you're talking about the guy who plays the roommate, who is definitely well-hung and not really able to hide it in that underwear he has on. It's just as nice from the back, too, when the underwear comes off.

Thanks. Again, I'm not sure it's the same actor I saw Off-Broadway. Maybe it is, or maybe they just found another actor who's very well hung :-) A nice bonus for a really good play.

[quote]Barbra Streisand and Ingmar Bergman went through negotiations for months about THE MERRY WIDOW in 1972.

I seem to remember Julie Andrews and Placido Domingo being mentioned for a film of THE MERRY WIDOW at some point. Streisand would have been ALL WRONG for that role in every way, even if it was a modern-day adaptation.

[quote]YOU will never convince me that Jane was good in she loves me. Illona is not a tramp or vamp. She’s a woman who wants love and just doesn’t know how to find it. Jane played her like a whore and it threw off the entire show. Her jump split and performance in here self titled song was absurd

I pretty much agree with you, but I'm sure the untalented director had a lot to do with that misguided performance, as Miss Jane has been wonderful in other shows.

Sweet Charity with Andy Randells and Lens Dunham.

Andy would make a great Charity, but what would you cast Lens as?

Sally Mayes was terrific in Ilona, playing her as the character should be played, in the 90s revival. Jane is very talented, but she was directed to play her as an obvious trollop.

After two big, expensive flops of "Star!" and "Darling Lili", Julie Andrews' "She Loves Me" as well as a big Irving Berlin musical "Say It With Music" were cancelled by the studio. She did a well-produced tv show in the 1970s, which didn't last that long as it was on opposite, ironically, against her friend Carol Burnett's established and very popular show. Julie just did "The Tamarind Seed" and "Little Miss Marker" (something I've never seen) before hitting her stride again with "10", "SOB" and "Victor/Victoria". If only she had come back to Broadway or the West End during that time, she could have done "Lady in the Dark" or "King and I"! But, she still has had quite the great career regardless.

She did some concertizing in the 70s. I saw her at some place called the Westchester Premier Theater. She was in great voice and did as her finale probably one of the best versions I've ever heard of "Being Alive" from "Company".

so how did Scott ellis get the first she loves me right and the 2nd she loves me wrong? benanti and Krakowski both mis-directed when Kuhn/frantantoni and Mayes were spot-on. even fucking mitteleuropa

The second time around, Ellis no longer trusted the material and thought he had to turn it into a sitcom to put asses in seats. He also apparently thought Amalia was too much of a victim and needed to be "empowered," which merely made the character uninteresting and put her at odds with the material.

Just watched the Hal Prince doco where he CLEARLY states tht 'She Loves Me' was a flop at the time.

You can still love the musical but the director considers it a flop, so that point is now moot

r330 Sorry, but what might have been doesn't sound very good to me.

I'm a huge Julie Andrews fan, but for me, no one has ever matched Barbara Cook's rendition of "Dear Friend."

r341 Agreed, though this one comes close. The evenness in tone "So discreetly sympathetic when they see the rose and the book" just feels so right. (Yeah, I know, Julia is helped by the tempo, which is quite faster than Barbara's.)

R338 I hate this new trend of trying to empower female characters from old works. See the new KING KONG musical.

^The evenness in tone in "So discreetly sympathetic..."

Thanks for the McKenzie clip. Her vulnerability and a face that is less than beautiful is part of what makes the performance shine, unlike Benanti, who has fashion-model good looks and would never have had a problem getting a date. Kodaly would have been on that in a second.

Just watched Sheridan Smith in 'Funny Girl'. She looks like a Polish peasant mixed with a potatoe. The orchestrations are wafer thin, the Nick plays it like Lyle Waggoner with a giant stick up his ass. Finished Act 1 and that was enough. What a total pile of shite

Whatever happened to Laura Benanti doing Melania Trump impressions? I thought that part of her career would really take off.

R348, America isn’t fascinated enough with the real Melania. She’s a cypher.

Yeah, how can you make fun of a living parody?

I remember last year someone on YouTube tried to compare Melania to Eva Peron. He thought they would make a musical about Melania because she too was a whore before she became the first lady. I was, like, Evita took an active role in helping Peron win the presidency and then co-ruled the country with him as de facto vice president. But Melania was kept out of sight during the campaign, especially after the Republican convention, and plays no role in government. She's a dud. No comparison.

R338, please don't tell anyone to see King Kong. it's the biggest piece of shit because of the female empowerment angle. What the fuck was the purpose of the last number? Why the hell was this even a musical? The effects were spectacular, but the show then became a video game. Pure shite.

Broadway has turned into a haven fro the PC and SJW crowd. Empower women, be nice to lesbians. Can we just get a chance to get away from all of this lecturing for one evening?

[quote]Can we just get a chance to get away from all of this lecturing for one evening?

I will probably be stoned for saying this, but that's how I felt in the 1980s. The AIDS crisis was huge and sometimes you just wanted to get away and get lost in some pure entertainment and everything had to be turned back to AIDS. Everyone weighing in that Into The Woods was a comment on AIDS was a step too far. Into the 90s, the cast of Rent celebrating that people could live with, not die from, AIDS. It all got wearisome.

Back to musicals we'd like to see filmed: Ok, she's probably too mature now, but when Encores was doing it (and mostly miscasting it), "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" would have been great for Bette Midler in the Shirley Booth part. It's a well-made musical with a plot similar to "Carousel" which is done all the time, but without the wife-hitting. I'd love to see it done. Can Awkwafina sing? That could even make it trendy and green-lit.

"Carnival" has a great score and might make a wonderful screen musical. I saw Anne Hathaway do it, and she was wonderful. The director must have exhausted her to have her sing take after taken to get her performance in "Les Miz" when she probably sounded better early on, but on stage she had a lovely voice. The role has to be done in a way that she comes off as simple not borderline mentally challenged, and the puppeteer, even though he himself is damaged goods, can't be thought of taking advantage of her, until she is emotionally ready to think of him in a really romantic way. But it's such a great score, and in the 2 productions I've seen, still plays like gangbusters.

"Irma La Douce", recently very miscast and misdirected at Encores, needs a terrific triple threat Irma; the existing movie did away with the score, except for the background. I'd love to see it, as well as "Fanny" also with its score relegated to the background, remade as full musicals.

[quote]he looks like a Polish peasant mixed with a potatoe.

Welcome to Datalounge, Mr. Quayle!

In what universe is Cyndi Lauper a box-office draw?

Speaking of 'empowered women,' Eva Peron is another that has been recently directed to be a feminist icon when the real woman was so not. Just because of her work with the poor and in helping women get suffrage, which were all to secure votes, anyway.

But the Perons were narcissists and demagogues who controlled the media, silenced opposition, and imprisoned/tortured dissidents. Peron was a great admirer of Mussolini and likewise established a totalitarian police state.

The text alludes to all of this via the Che character, but almost every high school, community, regional production I've seen lately writes her up as a poor girl who made good and then helped out her fellow countrymen and women. I think because in this day and age the well-to-do are vilified so people want to see them get mocked and knocked down, but the reality is that the Perons weren't any different once in power. Eva didn't change the rules; she just learned how to play the game and used it to her advantage.

R357 That is how it is spelt, in the civilized world

R358 Surround her with some other names as the crazy ladies in "Dear World". She might actually sing that score very well and certainly come as as very eccentric as the character requires.

A potato is a vegetable, r360, spelt is a grain.

And that is not how it is spelled anywhere in the world, apart from Quayle's desk.

R363 Oh honey, google is your friend. That is exactly how it is spelled in the English speaking world

[quote]She looks like a Polish peasant mixed with a potatoe.

I have been re-watching Jonathan Creek on Britbox. Sheridan Smith looks like a pierogi in those. The woman has always had the figure of a Polish peasant.

Someone is badly misinformed. The word is not spelled "potatoe" anywhere in the English speaking world.

I remember when Dan Quayle 'corrected' the schoolboy on his spelling of potato. The kid spelled it correctly and then Quayle took the chalk from him and added an 'E' at the end. This was during the 1992 presidential campaign! I was only 12 then and wasn't following the election, but I recall that clip vividly. It was played everywhere! And everyone was poking fun at him. LOL

I don't see Julie Andrews in She Loves Me! Julie always reminds me of the review Faye Dunaway received for her Blanche in Streetcar, " She doesn't rely on the kindness of strangers, she damn well demands it!" Julie is too much of a steamroller for Amalia.

I watched the Judy Garland A Star Is Born...it was awful.

r366 Hey the New York Times and the Oxford disagree with you

R370 is that rewriting history? I don't ever recall being taught that 'potatoe' was ever a correct spelling. That there reminds me of when Republicans went on Wikipedia and elsewhere in 2011 to change the story of Paul Revere's ride to correspond with Sarah Palin's warped retelling of it during an interview about gun ownership.

R371 No love, this is reality, try living here. And just say, 'Oh fuck, I was wrong'.

I'm surprised Shirley Jones or Jane Powell weren't on the list of soprano ladies for a movie version of "She Loves Me", though Julie was very high in the box office between 1964-67 or 68 before "Star!" was released and bombed at the box office.

Where are you watching the Sheridan Smith Funny Girl? I know it was in theaters, but it never came to my area. Is there a bootleg or file available somewhere?

.....

r374 Found it on 'that' reddit board but was taken down very bloody quickly. Not on torrent or file dl sites yet

Oh you say potato and I say potatoe

I say tomato and you say tomatoe

Let's call the whole thing off!

Good, we're back to musicals and not spelling!

R372 that link that you posted at R370 is retarded. It's trying to make the case for 'potato' being spelled 'potatoe' but the New York Times, Washington Post, and Oregon Live articles it links to as examples actually spell the singular potato as 'potato' and the plural as 'potatoes,' as it should be. One of them actually spells the plural as 'potatos' in one instance, but it's an obvious typo.

I can't believe there are adults wandering around loose who spell "potato" with an "e."

[quote]Please don't tell anyone to see King Kong. it's the biggest piece of shit because of the female empowerment angle.

Well, not ONLY because of that, but yes, that sure has a lot to do with why it's garbage.

[quote]I don't see Julie Andrews in She Loves Me! Julie always reminds me of the review Faye Dunaway received for her Blanche in Streetcar, " She doesn't rely on the kindness of strangers, she damn well demands it!" Julie is too much of a steamroller for Amalia.

On the other hand, one might argue that Julie Andrews' strength, which also stood her in very good stead in THE SOUND OF MUSIC and presumably in the original MY FAIR LADY, is an important quality for Amalia to have.

Julie Andrews was too twee. And her combination of speak/sing and over-ennuciating every other word were annoying.

Jane Powell? Why not Jeanette McDonald?

Patti said in the radio interview with Michael Ball that Evita was largely dismissed in NY by the press because NY is a Jewish town and the Perons were “Nazi sympathizers.” How the fuck did she pull that out of her ass. So fucking not true. It was because it was ALW and Rice and considered to generally be a bad idea for a musical.

Sorry, R381, I should have written " Everything, other than Kong and all of the technical parts, is shit. The female empowerment crap completely destroys any sort of story integrity to the legend of Kong. The heroine deserved to be stomped to death for being a traitorous cunt, who very quickly gets over the death of Kong because it has empowered her to lift herself higher in life. In the end, she has done nothing for herself, but has once again saved by a male, proving that women can't do it on their own."

Why not both, r383?

New York is Hymietown.

[quote]Patti said in the radio interview with Michael Ball that Evita was largely dismissed in NY by the press

Was it largely dismissed in New York? If it was dismissed, I think it was because people realized that it was starting a British wave of sung-through rock musical spectacles which was much different from anything the American Musical Theater canon was used to. But the show had a healthy run, even after Patti left, so audiences responded to it positively.

R384 The Perons did harbor Nazi war criminals like Adolf Eichmann (an organizer of the Holocaust) and Josef Mengele (SS physician infamous for his inhumane medical experimentation on Auschwitz prisoners) and some Jewish people did picket the show because of the Perons' Nazi ties and critics were harsh because they felt the musical glamorized Eva Peron. One critic even pondered: "What's next? HITLER! The Musical?"

Nevertheless, EVITA weathered the storms and became a hit and critic-proof show. It helped a lot that Reagan had begun his presidential campaign by the time EVITA opened in September 1979. Both he and Nancy were former Hollywood actors attempting to win the highest office in the country and the musical's showbiz aspects suddenly became relevant. The show was referenced a lot during the 1980 presidential election. Nancy, in particular, was seen as an Evita clone and the true power behind the man.

Evita is Trump's favorite musical. He’s said so on several occasions. Go back and listen to it with that in mind and our current misery will make depressing sense.

[quote]I watched the Judy Garland A Star Is Born...it was awful.

Get over yourself, Barbra. Your version stank.

What are the chances A STAR IS BORN will be tried as a stage musical in the next few years? Since the Gaga version is such a huge hit, it seems more likely than ever... there have been been readings of a stage adaptation of the Garland film in the past, no?

Here's a Playbill article on a stage adaptation of "A Star Is Born" from almost two years ago.

Thanks, R393! I imagine most audiences would be majorly pissed if they didn't use the Gaga songs in a Broadway musical called A STAR IS BORN. Yes, the Arlen songs are classic, but... maybe since Warner Bros is involved they could integrate the old songs as well as the Gaga songs. I'm surprised they didn't in the film, actually (although a snippet of Arlen's "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" makes an appearance). Condon wields considerable power post-B&TB so if wanted to make it happen I'd think he could.

[quote]Evita is Trump's favorite musical. He’s said so on several occasions. Go back and listen to it with that in mind and our current misery will make depressing sense.

Instead of government, we had a stage

Instead of ideas, a prima donna's rage

Instead of help, we were given a crowd

She didn't say much but she said it loud!

At one point several years ago, Andrew Lloyd Webber was listed as a producer for a Broadway bound A Star Is Born. I don't know what happened to that or even if it got past considering who would write it and who would be cast.

MGM canceled "She Loves Me" but it had little to do with Andrews or Star (or Darling Lili). The company was in semi-trouble though most of the 1960s. The horrible Kirk Kerkorian bought MGM in 1969 and made the equally awful James Aubrey the studio head. Aubrey, with Kerkorian's blessing, made massive changes in the running of the company. He slashed staff and production costs and forced the studio to produce low-budget fare. The focus was shifted to youth-oriented films, and musicals were scrubbed from the MGM docket. Finally in 1973 they shut down theatrical distribution, and began selling off the property the studio was built on. By the end of the 1970s, MGM no longer had a studio home and Lorimar bought what was left of the lot (and then Sony followed suit later).

Julie Budd!!!

[quote]one might argue that Julie Andrews' strength, which also stood her in very good stead in THE SOUND OF MUSIC and presumably in the original MY FAIR LADY, is an important quality for Amalia to have.

Exactly. Amalia is gutsy, starting with her first scene and the way she gets the job. She's nobody's doormat, and neither, for that matter, was Barbara Cook.

O, mój człowieku, kocham go tak...

"most audiences would be majorly pissed if they didn't use the Gaga songs in a Broadway musical"

Oh, those discerning, erudite. educated Broadway audiences!

R302 reminded me of a post way back when GLEE started. A DLer described Matthew Morrison as having "rape-y puppetface." Or something similar.

LOL.

It's funny because it's true.

Thanks for posting that, R398. She's channeling young Barbra way too much, the arrangement is over the top (that weird rock break at 1:40), and I pity the poor pianist, Hank Jones, who must endure her gazing, flirting, engaging, ad nauseum. Julie needed some serious musical direction, and reining in.

All that said, her voice is incredible. Gorgeous, rich, expressive, incredibly sophisticated for anyone, let alone a 15-year-old.

Why didn't she have a bigger career? Was she unable to cast off the Babs-wannabe onus? Is there any truth to rumors of Babs having her blackballed?

[quote]Is there any truth to rumors of Babs having her blackballed?

It wouldn't be the first time!

[quote]I imagine most audiences would be majorly pissed if they didn't use the Gaga songs in a Broadway musical called A STAR IS BORN. Yes, the Arlen songs are classic, but... maybe since Warner Bros is involved they could integrate the old songs as well as the Gaga songs.

Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that any version of A STAR IS BORN could and should combine the songs from the Garland version and the songs from the Gaga version? Because that's a ridiculously bad idea.

Arlen? Gaga? What about MY music from "A Star Is Born?"

Matthew Morrison is going to be one of the judges on a UK TV talent show starting next Saturday.

And I just won an Emmy. Talk about a whoopsie

As a traditional birthday present I’m getting my 56-year-old mother tickets to an upcoming musical (in the UK). Recs?

To the tastemakers here her favourites probably seem very basic & childish (she is sort of exhaustingly immature and dumb, leery of regular plays) but nonetheless I should like to book a play she’ll enjoy. She adores: literary or historical melodrama from the ‘70s & ‘80s - think OLIVER!, ANNIE etc.); anything Lloyd-Webber (except CATS); and of course Disney classics like MARY POPPINS and her all-time favourite THE LION KING at the Lyceum (which she’s seen three times and counting..). Last year I took her to the final leg of a touring production of HAIRSPRAY in a local theatre, and she wouldn’t stop talking about it for week. The only musical I’ve known her to dislike is TOP HAT, which she fell asleep during and which we only attended because my grandmother loves the movie and wanted to see it live.

I’d book ANNIE as it’s playing in the UK 2019, but she’s seen it several times since she was a girl and wore out the tape on the ‘80s movie so it feels a stale choice. There’s MATILDA, but as much as I love my Mum and think she’ll like it I can’t bring myself to book or attend it with her as I hated the story so much as a kid (I was teased a lot on the playground for being as bookish as the titular character). In winter to my knowledge I can still get tickets for JERSEY BOYS or FAME; from March ‘til May my other choices are GHOST, KINKY BOOTS, THE KING & I, THE BODYGUARD, DIRTY DANCING, CALENDAR GIRLS, BLOOD BROTHERS and an amateur production of HAIR. Idk what’s showing in late summer but would welcome suggestions. I don’t know what’s best to choose, though I’m erring toward KINKY BOOTS. Would THE BODYGUARD be too OTT to attend with one’s mother? And will she likely find THE KING & I boring if she didn’t like TOP HAT and hates trad music-hall? As someone fairly provincial and squeamish about sex will she even enjoy KINKY BOOTS?

R399, yes, but she also has to have some vulnerability as well. Amalia is a difficult role as the actress must be able convey both qualities, and sing the role. It doesn't help that Julie Andrews is 5' 8" in stocking feet and big boned. She is great for roles that require a force of nature, such as Eliza, Maria, or even Mary Poppins. She probably would have been a wonderful Anna in The King and I, because one could really believe that she could hold her own against the king, but she isn't an Amalia.

Mary Martin missed one performance in The Sound of Music, perhaps the day she broke her arm.

r410 I thought she was wonderful in the studio recording.

Julie Andrews wuldn't have been a suitable Marian Paroo either, even if she might have sung the songs beautifully. Marian, like Amalia, are quintessential Barabra Cook roles, both a pefect blend of feisty and vulnerable.

Could one imagine DL fave Elaine Stritch as Marian the Librarian?

One could not.

If anyone saw the most recent DRAG RACE, Trinity the Tuck claimed she was doing Caitlyn Jenner. She looked like Caitlyn, but acted 100% Elaine Stritch.

[quote]Could one imagine DL fave Elaine Stritch as Marian the Librarian?

I can imagine her as Mayor Shinn. Bonus points: It's a non-singing role.

R413 Andrews was the perfect blend of feisty and vulnerable! But she didn't really drop her accent well enough to play an educated midwestern American woman. English people generally do best when playing over the top southern accents. It is kind of a shame we never got to see Andrews attempt loads of American accents.

Marian and Molly Brown are similar types down to the region.

Chenoweth didn't quite pull her off because she wasn't confident with her 'educated' persona and never managed anything in that direction more coherent than her scrappy Reece Witherspoon impression when she played a smart woman in The West Wing. That is a shame and surprise. Marian should have been a great fit for her.

Barbara Harris was brilliant but she couldn't have pulled off Marian or Amalia either.

Kelly O'Hara could still do a perfect Marian.

Perhaps the role requires someone who can opt to not have an edge of any sort?

Of course Jackman can sing but you either love or hate the movie "Les Miserables". It wasn't shot to be a glorious technicolor movie. It was dark and gritty and sung live to get that grit. You would never see a stage Fantine in tears with snot running as you did in the movie. Maybe one day there will be a remake as a conventional high gloss studio sung to perfection musical.

R421 live singing can sound good. Plenty of stage actors sing live often and are pleasing to hear. Fact is, most of the cast of the LES MIZ film were mediocre to bad singers, Jackman included, though I think Anne Hathaway and Samantha Barks handled themselves well. But the rest had no business singing live if they couldn't handle the score. They obviously needed help in post-production to sweeten their voices. Too bad they didn't.

Besides, the score was originally written to be bombastic. Reducing the singing to mere talk-singing and whispering ruined it. If they wanted to go for 'realism' they should've just adapted the novel, instead.

There were several things wrong with that film. Another was the cinematography. The show should be and feel epic but it was mostly shot with too many close-ups. What was up with that?

I think that live it is possible that Jackman's athleticism and physical energy combines with his adequate voice to give the impression of great Tony worthy leading man talent. IE - he does sing extraordinarily well for a man who is dancing 8 times a week and the people who liked him in Boy From Oz appreciated that aspect of his live performance.

But he is not the kind of vocalist who's voice is iconic when recorded.

He wasn't the weak link in Les Miz -- but he wasn't great enough to compensate for the presence of weaker voices in the movie.

Iowa and Colorado are not similar regions, r418.

Barbara Harris wasn't a soprano so she most likely couldn't handle Amalia or Marian. That high note of her in "Gorgeous" in "The Apple Tree" was done by another soprano , which is apparent when you see the Tony broadcast of the number. Interestingly, there was once a "High Fidelity" article about the singing voice which was reasonably scholarly who went on and on about Barbara Cook, Julie Andrews, Streisand and talked about Barbara Harris' high note as if she indeed was able to sing it; Chenoweth in the revival, being naturally a high coloratura, was able to sing it.

Amalia is a tough role to pull off in terms of the acting. Even when I see Margaret Sullavan in the "Shop Around the Corner" I find that she really gets nasty and rather unlikable for a couple of minutes when she tells off George in the cafe and calls him nothing more than an insignificant clerk and that's all he'll ever be. The actress kind of has to risk being hated for a while, even though in the musical she has our sympathy before her date in "Will He Like Me". Andrews was a skilled actress, as was Cook, so I think Julie would have pulled it off.

Chenoweth singing the high note in The Apple Tree missed the point. The high note is supposed to be comical. You're not supposed to believe that the actress can hit the note. It's lipsynched to be funny.

Coup de theatre du costume.....

R424

Molly Brown was born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri.

Not in the movie.

What movie?

TUMB, r430.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Ann Darrow in Kong is simply supposed to be sexy, screaming gorilla bait. Not empowered. Thanks.

I think Jackman has a fine voice when he's singing roles he's right for. If we heard Patti LuPone or Elaine Stritch attempting to sing Too Many Mornings from Follies, I'm sure we'd think they sucked, too. It's just not right for their voices. Jackman wasn't vocally right for that role in Les Mis (especially if performed live) and they should have changed some keys to suit him if they were still insisting that he play the role. There's no shame in changing keys every now and then. I'd rather hear someone sing a song comfortably in their range than sound unpleasant singing in the original key.

[quote]Amalia is a difficult role as the actress must be able convey both qualities, and sing the role. It doesn't help that Julie Andrews is 5' 8" in stocking feet and big boned. She is great for roles that require a force of nature, such as Eliza, Maria, or even Mary Poppins. She probably would have been a wonderful Anna in The King and I, because one could really believe that she could hold her own against the king, but she isn't an Amalia.

I see what you mean, but are you really saying that Andrews CAN'T play vulnerable? I think she can and has done so in several roles. You know, a person (and a character) can be strong sometimes and vulnerable at other times. I don't understand why you seem to think it's either/or. As for the height thing, the simple solution is to cast a tallish leading man. This never seemed to be much of an issue throughout Andrews' career. And as for her not having attempted American accents, I think she has flat-out said she's just not good at it. In the case of THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, I guess she and the filmmakers decided she shouldn't even make the attempt.

[quote]I think Jackman has a fine voice when he's singing roles he's right for.

Of course, that's true. He was fine singing the songs in THE BOY FROM OZ and not even close to acceptable singing the score of LES MIS. The wonder to me is that anyone -- Jackman, the director, the producers -- considered his singing in LES MIS good enough that the film was actually released with him sounding like that. I mean, some of it is REALLY bad, like for example "Bring Him Home."

The film of Les Mis should have been a combination of live (“I Dreamed a Dream”) and pre-recorded (“Bring Him Home).

[quote]The film of Les Mis should have been a combination of live (“I Dreamed a Dream”) and pre-recorded (“Bring Him Home).

I'm sure there was SOME pre-recorded (or post-recorded) singing in it, so there just should have been more pre-recorded, including "Bring Him Home." And if Jackman couldn't sing it properly in the original key, it should have been brought down. There would have been no shame in that.

Jumping back to Nicholas Barasch for a second, how would he do as a replacement Evan Hansen?

it's a shame that "Bring Him Home" was such a dud in the film. Whenever I've seen the show, it received an extended applause at the end. Always. It's Valjean's 11 o'clock number. I was expecting it to be one of Jackman's great Oscar moments, but it was truly an embarrassment. I get really bad second-hand embarrassment, and I wanted to crawl in a hole when people began sniggering in the movie theater. One person even said he sounded like a goat.

R438, I agree 100 percent, but regardless: Don't you think it's incredible that Jackman and the filmmakers approved that vocal for inclusion in the final version of the film? I guess there was some weird form of group delusion that it wasn't horrible.

[quote]Jumping back to Nicholas Barasch for a second, how would he do as a replacement Evan Hansen?

Interesting idea but he'd better do it soon :-)

Gerard Butler in the PHANTOM film makes Jackman sound like Pavarotti. Now that was truly bad casting. Jackman had a nasal rock tenor sound not unlike Colm Wilkinson, the forebearer of the role, whom many find simalarly goat-ish. That’s the sound they obviously wanted. Ditto the blustery Crowe.

Colm Wilkinson sounded wonderful in person and on the recording. Jackman sounds both nasal and constricted at the same time, not just in "Les Miz". Lower keys would have helped him, but he just doesn't have a very good technique.

Sono Osato is dead to us.

All this talk about Hugh Jackman stinking up the movie of Les Miz and no mention of Russell Crowe?

R443, yeah, but Crowe didn't win the GG nor was Oscar-nominated for his efforts, unlike Jackman.

But Crowe legit ruined the film.

His presence just spelled out how very much the director did not care about the actual score.

reply 440, Unfortunately, Joel Schumacher wanted a manly Phantom. He thought the Broadway interpretation was too effeminate. He would not cast Antonio Banderas for the same reason.

Indeed, R446. The problem is, ALW waited forever to make the movie - which was supposed to be done very soon after the Broadway opening, with Crawford and Brightman starring - and then when he finally did it, he kept Schumacher as director (bad move) and then signed off on Butler (deadly). If anyone but Butler were in it, the movie would be pretty wonderful. It just doesn't work with his voice in the role... he is sexy, but the role obviously doesn't require copious nudity and sex scenes, so it's a waste. For chrissakes, his face is covered up for the entirety of it all by heavy make-up/mask. It was a ridiculous decision. I understand ALW signing off on Madonna in EVITA and Glenn in SUNSET BLVD, but the Butler thing is a true head-scratcher. Maybe he thought lightning would strike twice like it did originally with Crawford in the role. It didn't, alas.

That's the problem with the PHANTOM movie and his recent interpretations on Broadway. He's supposed to be a grotesque freak, not some Harlequin Romance stud whose mask is more of a fashion accessory. He's the villain of the story, not a tragic hero.

R 432, in the world of PC Broadway, that characterization would have been blasted by MeToo and the SJWs. The show already got rid of the natives, lest it offend the BLMers. No, this is the new Broadway, where the shows actively lecture the audience and charge them hundreds of dollars to sit and listen to their shit.

Agreed, R448. Although, I thought Ramin Karimloo was absolutely spectacular in the show... especially PHANTOM 25... ditto casting a super-sexy Christine with Sierra. Their lust was palpable and it gave the show a new edge that it never had before. If Karimloo had been cast in the film, I think it would have worked. Too bad they chose another path.

I'm just surprised that Antonio would have been considered too effeminate for the Phantom.

Especially since he showed off his wee-wee in his early Spanish films.

Fun fact: ALW wrote Phantom with Colm Wilkinson in mind to play the title role. I guess Colm got tired of waiting around and took Les Miserables when offered.

For that matter, Joel F'n Schumacher -- Mr. Batsuit Nipples ...

[quote]Colm Wilkinson sounded wonderful in person and on the recording. Jackman sounds both nasal and constricted at the same time, not just in "Les Miz".

Nasal and constricted and so wobbly that he sometimes was off pitch. A disastrous vocal performance, and any comparison to Colm Wilkinson's singing of the role is R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S.

If it weren't so politically incorrect today I would love to see a remake of "Carousel" with that beautiful Rodgers and Hammerstein score.

But who today could even do justice to it?

Speaking of Hugh Jackman and CAROUSEL, there was talk about a possible film remake of the musical over a decade ago.

Interesting r457, thanks. Jackman would be too old to play Billy Bigelow now though, so I wonder who could play him?

I do like the 1956 original move with Gordon Macrae, but it has its flaws as well.

Oh well, who am I kidding? They aren't ever remaking "Carousel".

[quote]If it weren't so politically incorrect today I would love to see a remake of "Carousel" with that beautiful Rodgers and Hammerstein score. But who today could even do justice to it?

Martin Short and Chrissy Metz.

Chrissy Metz as June, I assume.

Chrissy Metz as the carousel

Chrissy Metz, bustin' out all over.

He's the wrong type and too old, but Martin Short has a much better singing voice than Hugh Jackman!

Martin Short would make the most adorable Uncle Arvide in Guys and Dolls.

Jake Gyllenhaal could do Carousel. They would have to Marni Nixon his high notes in Soliloquy. And Taylor Swift, having a swelled head for being in the movie version of Cats, would demand to play Julie Jordan. And there would probably be a huge outcry if Carrie, Enoch and Jigger were not played by POC.

[quote]And there would probably be a huge outcry if Carrie, Enoch and Jigger were not played by POC.

Even though it would make absolutely no sense on film where it's harder to suspend disbelief. Maine is currently 94% non-Hispanic white. It was definitely not multiracial in the 1800s.

The failure of both Star and Darling Lili did turn Andrews into box office poison. They were dreadful then and I'm sure they are dreadful today. The public turned on her with a vengeance as if to say what did we ever see in her in the first place?

It's too bad that the film musical was with rare exceptions dead at that point because there was still so much musical talent available. But people kept on insisting if a film music were to be made it had to be dreadful or dull like Bedknobs,1776, and Mame. Cabaret was sui generis and nothing came of it. I know people like Funny Lady but Streisand and Mackie together were a preview of La Cage aux Folles without the humor or fun.

I have to take issue with some posts way back. Scott Ellis's early 1990s revival of She Loves Me was just dreck. I wanted to leave at intermission but unfortunately my partner and our best friends who went with us loved it. None of them had any prior exposure to the show.

Scott Ellis is a terrible and coarse director. Anyone who thinks She Loves Me is improved by cutting Tango Tragique has no business directing the show.

I found his revival with the lovely jewel box set far improved but still totally unsatisfactory overall.

[quote]The failure of both Star and Darling Lili did turn Andrews into box office poison. They were dreadful then and I'm sure they are dreadful today.

Yes of course, but my comment was that the two MGM movies weren’t canceled because of her, but because of the massive changes happening at MGM.

STAR has a bunch of spectacular musical numbers. Unfortunately, it has a weak screenplay that doesn’t tell much truth about Lawrence - who was almost forgotten in the US by the time it was made. The show she was most remembered for here by the late 1960s was “The King and I,” which STAR perversely avoided.

"Star!" also comes across very enjoyably on the recording, and yes, a number of the musical numbers are great. Even though Andrews had played an at-times somewhat disagreeable and slightly sexually freer woman in "The Americanization of Emily", that was made around the same time as "Mary Poppins" and before the 2nd big nanny picture of hers, the even bigger blockbuster "Sound of Music". Plus "Emily" had a fine screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. "Star!" just kind of made Gertrude Lawrence out to be some sort of bitchy lady with loose morals, and the musical numbers, while musically fine, just weren't enough to make the public interested, certainly word of mouth was that it was a disappointment. "Darling Lili" had one or two fine songs, but otherwise people didn't like the idea of Mary Poppins and Maria von Trapp playing an enemy German spy in WWI.

The whole point of Billy is that he's a dumb masc alpha male ... so Jake is about as wrong as someone can be

ALW revealed in an interview in The Stage newspaper in the UK that “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” was originally titled “It’s Only Your Lover Returning.” He said that there’s been a female Jesus Christ Superstar but would never allow a gender swap of Evita because “You couldn’t do ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ in a different key. If you did, you might not realise it but everything around it would collapse like a pack of cards.”

I presume Karen Carpenter recorded it in a lower key.

I get not doing a gender swap bc Eva Peron was a real person, however, using keys as the defense makes no sense because the movie (and revival) used different keys than LuPone.

“Star” is pretty terrific in parts.

When "Star" didn't do well in its initial release, it was cut from 175 to 120 minutes (a lot of musical numbers were axed) and test-released under a few different titles, including "Music for the Lady" and "Those Were the Happy Days." Robert Wise was unhappy about the cuts and asked that his credit, "A Robert Wise Film," be removed. The repackaging failed.

("Star!" just kind of made Gertrude Lawrence out to be some sort of bitchy lady with loose morals) Well, that's not far from the truth.

Somethin' wrong with strippin'????

STAR!

In retrospect, STAR seems like the most wrong-headed project ever. Why would anyone have thought that Gertrude Lawrence, who was not only not remembered in the US but had NEVER been particularly beloved in the US, make a suitable subject for a musical film bio in the mid-1960s just as everything was going through a huge cultural shirt? I suppose it was more about creating an interesting new film musical for Julie Andrews but, my god, what were they thinking??

Even Streisand's next 2 film efforts after Funny Girl were out of step with the times. In spite of the supposed love her for Hello Dolly! and On a Clear Day (waitt....is there really any love here for that one?), they were also thought to be hopelessly old-fashioned at the time of their release. Broadway musicals were not what the kids were listening to and the bay Boomers had firmly taken over commerce of film by then.

cultural shirt = cultural shift

If the fates had been kind, Julie Andrews should have done the movie version of Mame. She could have done the role in her sleep and it would have propped up her early-mid 1970s work. Even if movie musicals were on their way out, Julie's Mame would have been a bright spot.

Oh shirt! I mean fork!

Ann-Margret's would have been better, hotter, AND she can do an American accent, r482!

Ann-Margret's what would have been better and hotter?

Her Mame you fool.

That's because she's lived in the US since she was 5. It's her real accent.

An aging kitten with a whip as a Manhattan sophisticate?

Dove Cameron posting about why she’s been out of clueless

"Why would anyone have thought that Gertrude Lawrence, who was not only not remembered in the US but had NEVER been particularly beloved in the US, "

I would strongly disagree, r480. While STAR! may have been a bit of a gilded lily as a title, Gertie:

WAS a Broadway star (Private Lives, Lady in the Dark, King & I)

Radio/Recordings

WASN'T a movie STAR, yet snagged the role of Amanda and was the first choice for Margo Channing

Extensively toured the US and for the troops

&1 TIME & 2 count 'em 2 LIFE covers

No one knew who the hell she was despite those lame achievements.

R490 but was she still relevant in the late '60s? She died in 1952, nearly two decades before STAR! was made. As R480 pointed out, pop culture had changed so drastically in that time. When Lawrence died, rock n' roll hadn't taken hold yet and Broadway was still the source for popular music. Heck, there was so much change between the early and late '60s.

He expression. Toast of two continents. Was coined for Gertrude Lawrence. She was one of the first international stars

But a bio movie about her may not have been the best idea

By the late 1960s, THE KING & I was mostly associated with Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner, particularly the latter.

but was she still relevant in the late '60s?

No, but neither was Fanny Brice. Fran set that ball in motion with her making her parents' story a tragic love story (ignoring her mother's first husband) on Broadway with a great score and Babs. The studio wanted their own Funny Girl. It wasn't like there was a more suitable British performer Julie could have played. Gertie just didn't have a central great love story to revolve the numbers around. Fanny didn't really either, but that didn't stop Fran.

HIGH FLYING ADORED began life as a country song called DOWN ON THE FARM...

The problem with STAR! is that it's story follows the FUNNY GIRL rags-to-riches template point by point, certainly in the first half of the film. That said, some of the numbers are spectacularly staged and the orchestrations are the equal of MGM's in its heyday (Salinger, et al).

[quote]Ann-Margret's would have been better, hotter

Nobody wants a sexpot Mame. Plus, I don't think Ann-Margret would have done it. When the movie of Mame was being made, she was still positioning herself as a sexy women, filling the void that Marilyn Monroe left. Even her Mother in Tommy is more sex appeal than matronly. Mame has to have a sense of age about her, otherwise the jokes between her and Vera don't work.

Love the Cahn/Van Huesen title song! It's silly-fun.

MAME should have starred Zombie Kay Kendall!

R495 but FUNNY GIRL was first a hit Broadway/West End musical. I doubt they would have made a film about Fanny Brice, otherwise.

[quote]HIGH FLYING ADORED began life as a country song called DOWN ON THE FARM... later recycled into their score for "Evita"

In the late '60s, Rice and ALW wrote several songs for one Ross Hannaman, but her pop music career never took off. The entire tune of one song, "Down Thru Summer," was later recycled extensively in EVITA:.

Well I grew up with the Star lp. And I also had the souvenir roadshow program which must have been wrapped with the lp when it ended up in the cut out bins. Finian's Rainbow lp ended up that way as well.

The lp was great- one of my most played-if Andrews was wrong for the character she was great for the songs. And the souvenir program was one of the more lavish. It certainly had a beautiful production.

Did you read what I wrote, r501? I believe I covered that.

[quote]when it ended up in the cut out bins.

Mame also ended up in the cut out bins. And then the video came out and THAT ended up in the cut out bins. And then the dvd came out and THAT ended up in the cut out bins.

The old fashioned movie wasn't dead yet after the cultural shift of '67, and remember the big musicals of '68 were made during that time which coincided with the general release of Sound of Music which was just as big a hit as ever. The enormous success of both Funny Girl and Oliver! prove that. And then Airport of '70 in which Ross Hunter was channeling his 50s inner self was a blockbuster which nobody saw coming. Except for its profanity Love Story was nothing but a woman's weepie.

Big bestsellers make the movie versions eagerly anticipated, r506. Airport was going to be a huge hit with or without Ross Hunter.

Ann-Margret always read as an airhead, which Mame most certainly was not.

Yes but still nobody thought it was going to be as big as it was. Also if I remember the reviews were pretty poor and sometimes those eagerly anticipated movies can still fizzle.

I disagree, r509. I think few were surprised that Airport was boffo at the B.O.

[quote]The failure of both Star and Darling Lili did turn Andrews into box office poison. They were dreadful then and I'm sure they are dreadful today. The public turned on her with a vengeance as if to say what did we ever see in her in the first place?

My first reaction to this was, "They didn't turn on HER, they reacted against those two awful movies. " But I do remember Julie and Blake Edwards making some public remarks about "changing her image" around that time. I think some of her fans from MARY POPPINS, THE SOUND OF MUSIC and THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE didn't like those remarks, and maybe they DID turn on her for that reason (and because STAR and DARLING LILI were do awful).

[quote]It's too bad that the film musical was with rare exceptions dead at that point because there was still so much musical talent available. But people kept on insisting if a film music were to be made it had to be dreadful or dull like Bedknobs,1776, and Mame.

Do you want to try that again when you're not on drugs? And 1776 is not dreadful or dull.

[quote]ALW revealed in an interview in The Stage newspaper in the UK that “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” was originally titled “It’s Only Your Lover Returning.” He said that there’s been a female Jesus Christ Superstar but would never allow a gender swap of Evita because “You couldn’t do ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ in a different key. If you did, you might not realise it but everything around it would collapse like a pack of cards.”

A typically idiotic ALW remark. In the movie of EVITA, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" was sung by Madonna in a lower key than the original. Why did he allow this if he felt that made "everything around it collapse like a pack of cards?" On the other hand, several years before the EVITA movie was actually made, ALW had said that casting Madonna as Eva in the movie would be "a joke." So I guess he just says whatever comes into his head at the moment, with no editing, and then if necessary he pretends he never said anything in the first place.

[quote]If the fates had been kind, Julie Andrews should have done the movie version of Mame. She could have done the role in her sleep and it would have propped up her early-mid 1970s work. Even if movie musicals were on their way out, Julie's Mame would have been a bright spot.

She would have been a great MAME except for one thing -- I do think it's really important for the character to be American, not British, and Julie could never do an American accent.

[quote]No one knew who the hell she was despite those lame achievements.

Agreed, and the movie of THE GLASS MENAGERIE was so bad -- and Lawrence so insanely miscast in it -- that it was already pretty much forgotten by the time STAR! was made.

[quote]In the late '60s, Rice and ALW wrote several songs for one Ross Hannaman, but her pop music career never took off. The entire tune of one song, "Down Thru Summer," was later recycled extensively in EVITA

R502, thanks for that. I thought by now every instance of ALW shamelessly recycling his own tunes and "borrowing" tunes from other composers had already been revealed and commented on, but I guess not. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of examples. I wonder what's the total number of good melodies ALW wrote that were actually original? Maybe around 10?

With such a musical ear, I wonder why Julie couldn't do an american accent.

[quote]The old fashioned movie wasn't dead yet after the cultural shift of '67, and remember the big musicals of '68 were made during that time which coincided with the general release of Sound of Music which was just as big a hit as ever. The enormous success of both Funny Girl and Oliver! prove that.

Original musicals written specifically for the screen like STAR! and DARLING LILI were dead by then. THE SOUND OF MUSIC, OLIVER!, and FUNNY GIRL were based on hit Broadway musicals. They were considered safe bets because they already had a built-in audience.

R512 I whenever Julie, Audrey Hepburn, and Hayley Mills attempted American roles, they always sounded like they were from 'anotha lahnd.'

1776 is a very long bore and when it was released it was a big fat flop. The Broadway director should have never gotten the film. I grew up with the obc and loved it. Addicted to it really. Jack Warner was senile when that film was made.

And by your reckoning R513 1776 and Mame should have been big hits but they were just bad . Funny Girl and Oliver were terrific movies.

"....and the movie of THE GLASS MENAGERIE was so bad -- and Lawrence so insanely miscast in it -"

I totally agree, r511. The point is, she was a big enough name to snag the role. I also don't consider the list of her accomplishments as...lame. To each his own I suppose.

Funny Girl lumbers in the second half, r515.

Lawrence has her moments, I think the director was the one who screwed that one up. Lots of bad choices.

Has there ever been a truly satisfying filmed Menagerie? They all seem to have drawbacks to one degree or another. I've been meaning to give Joanne's another viewing.

Speaking of the 1950 film of "Glass Menagerie," this poster must've been an embarrassment afterward. They were boldly predicting Oscar nominations for all the actors involved. The movie got zero nods!

Oh....Gertie.....

I don't agree because I think those dramatic scenes are beautifully directed written and acted. The scene with her mother, when Nick is offered the job and his genuine happiness turns to the realization that Fanny has literally bought the job for him and then the scene where he's going to jail and she asks him why he didn't lie. Very good melodrama which is why the explosion of my Man is so effective. Along of course with Streisand's singing. But there is a genuine emotional build up to it.

I realize I'm in the minority on this but it is pure Wyler drama which I've always enjoyed.

Julie Andrews had to be coached also in Cockney when she was doing "My Fair Lady". Plus they had to make it Cockney which was comprehensible to American audiences. I don't know if she ever, other than a few lines here and there, and perhaps on a sketch on her tv show, where she tried an American accent. Maybe a little bit in "Victor/Victoria" when she tried to "play tough" when talking to some Chicago gangsters? But at least Julie knew she couldn't do a good American accent so she knew her limits.

R515 the poster R506 was talking specifically about the musicals of the late '60s. By the time 1776 and MAME were made (1972 and 1974, respectively) the old-fashioned movie musicals were dead. That's why CABARET (also released in '72 and a huge hit) was revised a lot so that it resembled more a movie with song performances than the book musical of the stage version.

They weren't so much dead as bad. Remember That's Entertainment was a monster hit. Yes it skewed to an older audience but what pulled them out of their living rooms? They could still watch those movies on local channels. Also young audiences went to see it as well. Also Murder on the Orient was no youth movie but people enjoyed it enormously.

Gerald Mohr is also terrific in the job offer scene. Confidently hiding he's in cahoots with Fanny and then seeing Nick is on to them both.

Sadly he died about a month after the film opened while still in his 50s.

In the late 70s, movie musicals were dead, but I tried my damndest to revive them with my movie of A Little Night Music.

Grand hotel. Yes I know the musical is based on a film.

[quote]1776 is a very long bore and when it was released it was a big fat flop. The Broadway director should have never gotten the film.

It may not have done well when it was originally released, but it is NOT a bore, and time has turned it into a beloved film. And although of course we'll never know what some other director might have done with the movie, I think the Broadway director did a fine job with it as far as his actual direction, plus if he hadn't done it, we probably wouldn't have all those fabulous actors from the stage show in it.

[quote]Has there ever been a truly satisfying filmed Menagerie? They all seem to have drawbacks to one degree or another. I've been meaning to give Joanne's another viewing.

The Woodward one is not a disaster but not good. I love the Hepburn one overall, even if arguably her New England accent sometimes creeps through the Southern. She's still the best Amanda I've seen on film or TV and one of the best ever, and the rest of the cast (Sam Waterston, Joanna Miles, Michael Moriarty) is perfect.

And a book, r529, and a......book!!!

The Shirley Booth TV version of "Glass Menagerie" resurfaced recently and is quite good indeed.

I've been meaning to watch that one, r532. I saw it as a kid and thought she was wonderful. But Shirley was not happy with it, so I'd like to see it again with a more critical eye.

[quote]But Shirley was not happy with it, so I'd like to see it again with a more critical eye.

Probably because Barbara Loden looked more like a 1960s MILF than a young, crippled girl with anxiety issues.

R533 Yikes! Aren't those people a little too old for the parts? Booth was in her sixties, Barbara Loden was in her thirties, and Hal Holbrook and Pat Hingle were both in their forties.

Yes, one of the great things about the Hepburn version is that the young people are, or look like they are, much closer to the ages of the characters than the actors in other versions. Hepburn was technically a little too old for Amanda, but that role is almost always cast older than she would actually be, and for good reason, because it helps the character seem more desperate and pathetic.

Per BBCNews and other outlets: Tracie Bennett IS Mame in Manchester in the fall of 2019.

[quote]No one knew who the hell she was despite those lame achievements.

"The King and I" is hardly a lame achievement. She not only starred in it, she was directly responsible for its creation. She took the idea of adapting "Anna and the King of Siam" into a musical to Rodgers and Hammerstein.

WEHT Jonny Orsini? Micah Stock?

Wow, that Julie Andrews/Angela Lansbury extravaganza is god awful. And I usually love both ladies.

Tracie Bennett in Mame? Wow! I guess we'll see if several DL folks are right in saying that it's dated and needs a new book.

WEHT Jonny Orsini? Micha Stock?

Jack O'Brien has moved on to fresher pastures.

Oh, for heaven's sake: By the time the movie of STAR! was made, Gertrude Lawrence was unknown to most Americans because she had been dead more than 15 years but also because she had almost no movie or TV career in the U.S. Yes, the same is true for Fanny Brice and FUNNY GIRL, but I think her life story as presented in that show and movie are a lot more interesting than Lawrence's as presented in STAR! I still can't believe the people in charge of STAR! decided NOT to include Lawrence's performance in THE KING AND I and her death DURING THE RUN OF THE SHOW. I guess it's because they didn't want to ending to be a downer, but if the script were better written, that would have made the whole movie a lot more compelling.

[quote]WEHT Jonny Orsini? Micah Stock?

They both do seem to not be doing very well at the moment. Stock in particular was given such an aggressive build-up by various people in positions of power. Maybe each of them just needs one more good role to get them back in the mix.

I always had a thing for Gerald Mohr.

I assume they were unable to get the rights to the R&H score, r543.

R447, JOHN TRAVOLTA of all people was the expected casting for the Phantom movie, contract negotiations never advanced and then Joel went with a “talented unknown”, disappointment of course followed!

The Broadway show Funny Girl brought Fanny Brice's repuatation back into the public's conscience. She was a fascinating, multi-faceted performer whose ugly duckling becomes the swan and wins and then loses the prince story was irresistible (try summarizing Lawrence's fame as aptly). By the time the film opened, everyone knew who Fanny Brice was.

The same cannot be said about Gertrude Lawrence and Star! She was bitchy British actress who starred in English music halls and then met Noel Coward....etc...etc.....and ignored her daughter......etc??

r268 She Loves Me was a flop. It's still a flop. Just because a few theater queens cream over it doesn't make it any good.

LEAVE 'SHE LOVES ME' ALONE!

Also, Yul Brynner was still alive during filming of Star! and STILL playing the King all over the place so it's not like The King & I was exactly fresh and vital material Americans (or the world) were aching to see.

[quote]WEHT Jonny Orsini? Micah Stock?

Micah was just in two episodes of the Showtime mini-series ESCAPE AT DANNEMORA starring Benicio Del Toro, Paul Dano, and Patricia Arquette. He played Arquette's son.

[quote]r297 And who writes the history of Broadway? Theater queens who cream over mediocre musicals like She loves Me!

I fell in love with SHE LOVES ME when I saw it on TV as a child. (And I was a [italic]precocious[/italic] child, bitches!)

The number that stole my little gayling heart is at [bold]06:30[/bold] mark:

Now wait, you can't say, "Nobody knew who Gertrude Lawrence was, and that's why STAR flopped, then say, "it's not like THE KING AND I was exactly fresh," and THAT"s why STAR flopped. Who knows why audiences soured on musicals--too many roadshow disasters, like PAINT YOUR WAGON, too much youth rebellion-flower power-summer of love stuff, blah, blah, blah. All I know is STAR is a helluva better than a lot of the other lumbering dinosaurs of the period, like DOCTOR DOOLITTLE which, despite its very good score, has a terribly derivative, interest-free screenplay. Strangely enough, HELLO DOLLY!'s reputation seems to have been rehabilitated over the decades--it's on cable ALL THE TIME, and I can't tell you how many people of my acquaintance from all walks of life (not theatre bunnies) absolutely LOVE it and talk about it after a broadcast, praising the production values (which ARE spectacular), the score and Streisand, of course, miscast or not.

Re: Gertrude Lawrence...I guess I'm one of the very few that like her in MENAGERIE and the movie as well, bowdlerization and all. I find her a very forceful screen presence, especially in films like REMBRANDT and MEN ARE NOT GODS.

By the way, the Shirley Booth MENAGERIE is still up on YouTube and I love it, too. Spoiler... I think she plays it very interestingly, as if all her hopes and dreams are just a mask for the despair she truly feels down deep. .

r551 And the end of that broadcast (on your link) there's a discussion led by a very young Craig Zadan (RIP), with Barbara Cook and Harnick and Bock.

[quote]DOCTOR DOOLITTLE

It's "Dolittle," as in "do little" -- get it?

That production of Mame in Manchester starring Tracie Bennett is playing in a tiny theatre, though, not even the Royal Exchange Theatre.

[quote]With such a musical ear, I wonder why Julie couldn't do an american accent.

Julie does not have a musical ear, something she admits to. Andrews is really not as talented she appears, but she has determination. She has to work twice as hard as others to get the same result. She is best with a very strong actor's director who will work with her, but her talents are limited. (Read what Hitchcock had to say about her during Iron Curtain..)

I had to laugh when someone upthread said she was a talented actress. She really isn't. A strong film director can get a semblance of an acting performance, but she is not an actress. Fine for musical comedy. Fine for film where there are numerous takes, but not an actress.

Where is "Days Gone By" in that British She Loves Me r551 posted? That's the mitteleuropa number. Thanks for posting it, though. I didn't know Robin Ellis (Poldark from waaay back in the day) had played Mr. Novak, nor David Kernan, whom I saw a couple of times in Side by Side By Sondheim, Mr. Kodaly.

r547 = idiot

Torn Curtain, r556. I think your assessment is probably on the money. Her talents are limited, but she certainly makes the most of them. I imagine she worked very hard and made it look effortless. Michael Kidd certainly put her through the wringer for the overblown Jenny, but she delivers!

R558 why is that idiotic?

R559, I was friend with one of her daughters/stepdaughters (yes, I am being vague). Julie Andrews was pretty upfront about how hard she had to work to get where she needed to be. She was a ball buster off stage/screen which also helped her get where she wanted to be.

I think that the movie of Funny Girl was popular because everyone wanted to see that new young talent, Barbra Streisand. The PR machines were buzzing right along to get Barbra out there and those who couldn't make it to NYC could see her performance in the local movie theater.

Because, r560....

Nobody here is equating Funny Girl with STAR! outside of Fox wanting their own bio musical for their biggest musical star. Funny Girl's genesis as a Broadway musical with a fictionalized book, original score, and an incandescent star really can't be compared to STAR!'s.

"She was a fascinating, multi-faceted performer whose ugly duckling becomes the swan and wins and then loses the prince story was irresistible (try summarizing Lawrence's fame as aptly)."

Gertie was every bit as fascinating and multi-faceted as Fanny. The real Nicky was NO prince. Funny Girl, as r562 stated wasn't about Fanny, it was about BARBRA as Fanny. It was her film debut.

I just think you're not giving Gertie her due.

That makes me love her all the more, r561!

Gertrude Lawrence was indeed almost forgotten by 1968, but she was the very definition of a big Broadway star in the late 20s, 30s, and 40s. Up until her death in 1952, actually. And that was the era when a star closed a show on Broadway and then toured it extensively, sometimes for a year or more, hitting all the major cities and some not so major. Lawrence toured most of her shows, so she was well known throughout the country. Back then, it could happen off a Broadway career, even without a real screen presence ("Margo Channing" in All About Eve is that kind of star). Mary Martin was a superstar off her Broadway shows, not her meager early Hollywood career. Same with Merman, although she kept appearing in films here and there and did do the truly iconic role in "It's a Mad, Mad World."

Anyway, Gertrude Lawrence was very well known nationally, and popular, in her era. But without a real film presence, her fame faded by the end of the 1950s. But Wise, et al, certainly had a basis for thinking that she would be a fascinating subject for a film.

worst thread of 2018

Thank you for bringing your ray of sunshine to it, r566!

R409 your mother has had a sex life and has a gay kid, and grew up in the 80s with Cyndi on the boombox. So she’ll be just fine with Kinky Boots. Alternatively support your local Amdram’s Hair. As a third choice in case tix aren’t available, swallow your angst and go with Matilda if you believe she’d enjoy it.

[quote] The same cannot be said about Gertrude Lawrence and Star! She was bitchy British actress who starred in English music halls and then met Noel Coward....etc...etc.....and ignored her daughter......etc??

I thought Gertie and Noel were childhood friends before either went into music hall and the theater.

[quote]I assume they were unable to get the rights to the R&H score, [R543].

I don't think you should assume that, because it doesn't make any sense. First of all, STAR! was made by 20th Century-Fox -- the same studio that made the film of KING AND I, as well as CAROUSEL and THE SOUND OF MUSIC. And I can't imagine any scenario in which the R&H org would have refused to have songs from THE KING AND I included in STAR!

[quote]Yul Brynner was still alive during filming of Star! and STILL playing the King all over the place so it's not like The King & I was exactly fresh and vital material Americans (or the world) were aching to see.

This is an incredibly weird comment. First of all, I don't think it's true that Brynner was still playing THE KING AND I "all over the place" in the late 1960s -- I'm pretty sure he didn't take up the role on stage again till years later. And regardless, what would that have to do with "Americans" (or the world) not wanting to see Julie Andrews in scenes from THE KING AND I on screen? What might have saved STAR! would have been a couple of songs and scenes from THE KING AND I with Andrews and Brynner. As it is, we had to wait decades for Andrews to finally take on the role of Anna in THE KING AND I, and then only for an audio recording, at a point in her career when here voice was deteriorating badly. Context is indeed everything, and you have no idea what that means.

[quote]Where is "Days Gone By" in that British She Loves Me [R551] posted?

A few of the songs from SHE LOVES ME had to be cut from that TV version for time.

Wasn't "Days Gone By" cut from the original London cast, too, r570. I know there were several changes (Like "Heads, I Win" instead of "I Resolve") and I think the cutting of "Days Gone By" was one of them.

This is an incredibly weird comment. First of all, I don't think it's true that Brynner was still playing THE KING AND I "all over the place" in the late 1960s -- I'm pretty sure he didn't take up the role on stage again till years later.

Of course you're correct. At the time of STAR!, Yul's film career was still strong.

You are correct r569.

Noel and Gertie met in in 1913 as young teenagers when they were both cast in the same play, so no, their friendship didn't precede their careers.

Gertie met Noel in a children's play she was in, Hannele, where she first met Noël Coward. They were both children, but a little older than they are portrayed in the film when they met.

Speaking of "Carousel," in the words of Stefon, this clip has EVERYTHING! Ed Muskie! A Greek Orthodox archbishop! Lolly Parsons!

[quote]worst thread of 2018

Who can hope to compete with the high standards set by Shawn Mendes, Part 22?

Days Gone By was in the London She Loves Me; it was just left off the record.

So were Will He Like Me? and Tango Tragique. But they were in the show, too.

Does anyone post gossip in these threads anymore? It's just not what it used to be.

I'm sad that hunky Robert (110 in the Shade) Horton wasn't identified as anyone more than Barbara Ruick's husband in the Carousel premiere clip. Had Wagon Train not premiered on TV by then?

Why don't you contribute some, r581, instead of just complaining?

[quote]Does anyone post gossip in these threads anymore? It's just not what it used to be.

You go first.

Yes r581, we do. .......when there IS gossip. Why don't YOU dig some up?

I wonder if the lack of theatre gossip is because all the news about new shows is reported years in advance once the workshops begin, even the gossipier news?

r583 and r584, let's do lunch.

R581 you think the thread is boring because there's no juicy gossip? I bet you also watch REAL HOUSEWIVES and those trashy reality shows. Can't stand vapid queens!

Gertie was so graceful......

Karma is a bitch, bitch

That was posted two threads ago, r590, when it actually happened.

"1776" may have been a box office disappointment overall, it was however a smash at Radio City Music Hall being held over which was unprecedented and at the time the longest running Christmas show in RCMH's 40 year history. It also returned for the Bi-Centennial.

Yes, 1776 may have been a box office disappointment but it was NOT a flop.

r587 They won't be able to do lunch ... they're lounging in their caftans and planning a brunch -- on their own behalf.

What sort of gossip could possibly be of any interest concerning Tootsie, Beetlejuice and King Lear?

How did Santino Fontana access his inner female for Tootsie?

Kristin Chenoweth has scabies.

Happy

New

Year!

Bajour!

Lucy’s MAME was a big hit at Radio City too. We all know how well that worked out