Stage Musical To Movie Translations- Page 2

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 10/23/14 at 10:14pm

Re: going back to 8 1/2

Yes, Marshall is no Fellini, as much as he tried with that particular movie. The changes from the original movie were what made NINE a worthwhile property to begin with. Nobody wants a Fellini wannabe with songs (which is what the movie became) so the stage show took the premise and directed it in a completely different direction.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 10/23/14 at 10:35pm

^^An extended cut of a really bad movie is like putting lipstick on a skeleton, it doesn't make it any nicer.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/23/14 at 11:13pm

Pretty much every movie musical adaptation is complete garbage except for My Fair Lady. It's the only one where they trusted the material, made very few changes, and didn't try and make it into something that it wasn't.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 10/23/14 at 11:31pm

That's a rather HUGE statement don't you think?

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 10/23/14 at 11:40pm

Chicago was absolutely incredible. It was a perfect movie adaptation and the gold standard for musical to movie adaptations.
Updated On: 10/23/14 at 11:40 PM

[Fantod]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 12:42am

I would say strictly for adaptations of Broadway musicals, these are the ones that are proper presentations of the material:

My Fair Lady
The King and I
Carousel
Oklahoma!
The Sound of Music
South Pacific
West Side Story
On the Town
Funny Girl
Chicago
Show Boat (1936)
Guys and Dolls
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (very different, but still excellent)
Bye Bye Birdie
Little Shop of Horrors (with the new ending)
Cabaret
Damn Yankees
Fiddler on the Roof
Hairspray
Oliver!
The Music Man

[haterobics]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 1:34am

"I encountered Yeston in the audience of a show around the time Nine was coming out. I asked him about the rumor the score was being butchered and he got slightly defensive."

That seems an appropriate response to an aggressive inquiry from a stranger.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 10:22am

I was never a fan of the Cabaret movie. That goes in the "butchered score" category. So many cut songs! Plus, I found the plot changes to be uninteresting.

[Elfuhbuh]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 10:42am

"People seem to not like the Phantom of the opera Movie, but I'm not sure why."

For one, they oversexualized the title character. By taking your deformed villain and turning his crippling deformity into a mere rashy sunburn...thing just for the sake of making him more physically attractive to the tween girls who are seeing the movie, you completely miss the point of the ENTIRE story. Also, while his acting was decent, Gerard Butler's rock-styled singing was just not cut out for the role. If they really wanted him in the part, they should have just dubbed in someone else's voice.

Also, Emmy Rossum as Christine. I understand that they wanted a young, teenage girl for the role, but Rossum was just too young at the time; her voice was not strong enough, and her acting back then was sub-par at best. Had they made the movie with her a good five or ten years later, she could have done the part justice, but at the time she just wasn't right for the role. (Christine is supposed to be an opera singer, of which Rossum did not have the pipes to convince me with yet.)

The rest of the cast was decent, so I'll continue on to the other topic: Oversexualizing. Yes, the stage show has sensual themes throughout the story, but they are very subtle, and they are intertwined with a slightly gothic feel and an air of mystery surrounding the Phantom. However, the movie throws these other components completely out the window and bulks up on the sexiness, which is a HUGE thing that makes many fans of the musical groan and roll their eyes. The lair itself was very disappointing, as I felt like I was looking at some sort of sex chamber designed for a porno Dracula movie. (The place was too lit up. They should have designed it closer to the way it looks onstage.) On a random note, showing and explaining how the Phantom does his tricks (i.e. Carlotta's croaking) was a bad idea, because part of the fun of Phantom of the Opera is watching the Phantom screw around with everyone and wondering how he manages to pull off such bizarre acts of magic. Also, the sword fight was just STUPID and not needed at all.

The cinematography was gorgeous, and there were a few things that worked, but overall the movie was just not up to par with what many fans were expecting. I could argue that the 2004 Phantom film is one of the absolute worst musical-to-movie adaptations out there; the musical would do well to have a movie remake in the next ten to twenty years.

[Larcen26]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 12:17pm

I never liked the Guys and Dolls movie very much, but I agree that it captures the spirit of the stage show well.

I have also always liked the film of Superstar...mainly because it does a better job of pointing out Caiphas' and Judas's motivations. They add "Then we are Decided..." outlining Caiphas and Annas' concerns, and also, as completely over the top as it may be, it is the only version of Superstar that really hits home that the Roman occupation is an all-encompassing threat to these people.

I'm gonna leave this here about the Phantom movie...http://m15m.livejournal.com/6231.html

Nine was awful, not that I am a purist about the score, but it was SOOOOOO dull. Fergie was amazing, but in a movie where literally every other major actor is an Oscar winner, the pop diva should not have stolen the film.

The film of The Producers musical is a steaming pile. They should have just filmed a performance and released that.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 3:26pm

Lil Abner was one of the better ones

The Producers went downhill with the deletion of King Of Broadway. A more boneheaded decision was never made.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 10:11pm

"Pretty much every movie musical adaptation is complete garbage except for My Fair Lady. It's the only one where they trusted the material, made very few changes, and didn't try and make it into something that it wasn't."

Um... In addition to LI'L ABNER, you might try any of the following for a reasonably faithful adaptation:

BELLS ARE RINGING
DAMN YANKEES
THE PAJAMA GAME
FUNNY GIRL
OKLAHOMA!
CAROUSEL
THE MUSIC MAN
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
OLIVER!
MY FAIR LADY
THE KING AND I

etc. and so forth. All of the above cut minor songs, but most movies aren't as long as most stage musicals (particularly in the past).

[SweeneyLovett]

Posted: 10/24/14 at 11:47pm

Gypsy has never fared that well, either. The 60's version made Herbie and Uncle Jocko the same person, added unnecessary narration, and films the big numbers with zero imagination. Act 2 gets a little better, but still feels incredibly stiff.

The Milder version at least kept act 1 tighter, but it suffers from a similar lack of imagination. And that's saying nothing of Midler's manic performance that would have been too over the top even in the last row of Radio City Music Hall.

I hope whoever ends up directing this Streisand version at least has a little imagination with the musical numbers or else they'll feel just as stagey as the previous versions.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 1:04pm

I'm hoping the "Streisand version" is like V-----mort: if we don't say it out loud it will never appear.

Streisand sang on the Tonight Show this week ("Come Rain or Come Shine") and I was very impressed that she was willing to wail a bit, even though it showed how ragged her voice has become. But I was equally convinced she has no business singing the part of "Grandma" Rose!

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 1:10pm

Another vanity project for Babs?

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 4:07pm

"The King of Broadway" was cut, I believe, solely because of the blatant swearing in it and the fact that the film received a PG-13 rating from the MPAA.

[MikeInTheDistrict]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 4:32pm

Burton's SWEENEY TODD is not as bad as some of the others mentioned in this thread, but it felt like Burton had no respect for musical theatre as an art form and did everything he could to underplay the fact that this was a movie musical: he had the leads under-sing (and even under-play) their roles, the musical numbers were dispatched with very little affection for the score, etc. It was just a very unsatisfying film for me.

I had looked forward to LES MIZ for all of 2012 and enjoyed the film when I first saw it (went to an early screening even), but in the almost two years since I first saw it, I've had no desire to watch it ever again. Not even clips of it on YouTube. I'm not sure why that is, but mostly I think the film just reveals the flaws of the material: the musical condenses the story to such an extent that it's difficult to connect with any of the characters on anything but a very superficial level. Cutting it down even further by about 30 minutes makes the action even more whiplash-inducing. The stage version has the benefit of the frisson and electricity of a live performance. The film's version of the key moments just feels oddly airless. I re-read parts of the novel ("The Descent", and "The Noxious Poor" are some of my favorite pieces of writing anywhere) again and again, and am moved every time. But the film is just kind of there.
Updated On: 10/25/14 at 04:32 PM

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 5:33pm

I think some old movie musicals are faithful to a fault, becoming stagebound in their cinematography. Matthew Broderick's "The Music Man" was a rather mediocre film, all things considered, but it looks like a film. There is a fluidity of camera movement and directorial choices. Compare that to Robert Preston's version, in which the performances are much better, but the musical numbers default to a stage-like presentation of what (one can only assume) is the original staging, played with a two-dimensional "proscenium" effect. Some of them even end with button and hold pose for applause.

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 6:56pm

I think the major problem with the film version of The Producers was the fact that it was mounted by the entire original Broadway creative team, and most of its original cast. They might have as well pro filmed the Broadway production with the original cast for a special on PBS by Great Performances.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 7:28pm

Screw the kiddies Re King of Broadway

The screwing little old ladies & Ulla were OK for the censors but not this one song? Please

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 10/25/14 at 9:53pm

"I think the major problem with the film version of The Producers was the fact that it was mounted by the entire original Broadway creative team, and most of its original cast."

I think the biggest problem was that it was a "Mel Brooks movie" without any sense that he had put his hand in at all once the script was delivered. It was clear that Stroman was a first time movie director and really needed some guidance to truly open it up and avoid the feel of an archival taping of the stage show.

For example look at the "Springtime for Hitler" sequence. In the original film Mel gave us that great overhead shot to show us the chorus marching in the spinning swastika formation. Obviously when moving the movie to the stage that wasn't possible so Stroman and her team used the overhead mirror to replicate that shot. In the film of the musical she did both the overhead camera shot and the mirror shot, which just ended up being overkill. It only needed one or the other. It was small things like that that could have been advised against and avoided to give the movie more of a cinematic feel.