Movies where you miss the music

[James2]

After enjoying musicals like The Band's Visit, She Loves Me, and The Light in the Piazza, I checked out the movies that inspired them and found myself missing the scores too much.  What are some movies & musicals that provoke that feeling in you?

[NOWaWarning]

Definitely Hairspray and Kinky Boots. Those were both really screaming to be musicalized.

[darquegk]

Nobody really does the once-revered Christopher Bond melodrama of "Sweeney Todd" anymore, because it was musicalized so well- and so literally- that it made the play obsolete.

[BroadwayRox3588]

For me, Waitress.

Also, this thread title caused me to get "I Miss the Music" from Curtains stuck in my head. And I am not complaining about this :)

[Wick3]

Whenever I see a Jane Eyre movie I always think of the music from the musical. I know it didn't do well on Broadway but when I saw it I loved the music! Loved Marla!!!

Same for The Full Monty!

 

[dramamama611]

Legally Blonde.  Not joking.   I know it's not a great musical, but I had a blast.

[henrikegerman]

The only movie where I "miss the music" might be one made from a straight play: Roxie Hart (based on a 1920s straight play that was also called "Chicago.".  Roxie Hart is mildly diverting but it seems incomplete to me for not being enough like the musical Chicago, both because the libretto of the show is better than the screenplay for the "legit" movie and because the movie seems incomplete to me with Kander and Ebb's score - perhaps moreso because the movie starred a musical comedy star, Ginger Rogers, who at that time would have been an ideal musical Roxie.
 

[WhizzerMarvin]

For me The Matchmaker is unwatchable without Jerry’s score. So much of Dolly’s book is lifted from The Matchmaker and it’s hard to hear the song cues and then not get the songs. 

[James2]

Groundhog Day is another one for me.

[dmwnc1959]

“The Bridges of Madison County”

 

[(Insert Clever Name)]

Heathers, GHD

[Dancingthrulife2]

I watched the hbo version of Angels the other day, and absolutely hated the music in it. It is way too intrusive and this is not a play or a movie where your audience needs or wants to be told how to feel.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

It's funny, people always say Hairspray, but I actually found it to be the reverse - the musical just can't stand up to the grimy, funky, legit doo-wop and motown of the original. I know I'm a minority opinion on that front, though.

Anyways, La Cage aux Folles comes to mind, at least the original 1978 film. The movie is fine, pleasantly frothy, but though the musical isn't necessarily a heavy-hitter, it adds a certain dimension and elevates the story. The placement and construction of the songs is so inspired, just funny enough where they need to be, and with just enough sentiment elsewhere ("Song on the Sand" is legit). Hello Dolly has been mentioned, and of course Mame is much the same - as great as Rosalind Russell is in the title role, it's impossible not to hear those fabulous songs playing in the back of your head throughout.

From what I recall, most of Pygmalion is left entirely as is in My Fair Lady, which explains why it's eight hours long, and watching/reading it now feels like seeing My Fair Lady with the songs removed. Slightly more obscure, but if you go back and read the original Kaufman/Hart Merrily We Roll Along it hews astonishingly closely to the musical.

Also, a reversal: I badly miss the choral parts of Sweeney Todd in the film.

[frapp2latte]

Legally Blonde and Waitress! 

[PaintTheMusic]

Disney's 2015 live action "Cinderella". I think it's a beautifully done film, but it's almost criminal that they didn't use the songs. You hear "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and  "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" over the end credits, but it only makes me wish they had used them in film all the more. 

[Mister Matt]

I was a senior in high school when Hairspray was released and I loved it so much, I saw it 6 times in the movie theatre.  The soundtrack was constantly playing in my car for about a year, which became as inseparable from the film to me as the screenplay.  I even recorded the audio from the VHS and would play the whole film in my car on long road trips.  Then the Broadway musical premiered and despite my hesitation, the musical was different enough to allow me to fall in love with the material all over again, but in a completely different way, without hesitation of comparison.  It was the film treatment of the musical that let the air out of the story for me a bit.  There are only a couple of numbers I enjoy from that film that I'll revisit.  So if anything, it's the film version of the musical that makes me miss the show, despite sharing the score.

But specific to the question, I'd have to say Little Shop of Horrors.  The original film is an interesting curiosity, but the musical lifted that nearly-forgotten cult film to an iconic status as a modern classic.

[IdinaBellFoster]

Legally Blonde & Hairspray for sure. 

[ABitOnTheSide]

IMHO, Andrew Lloyd Webber's score for Sunset Boulevard is far superior to Max Steiner's original. Just that overture alone brings me straight to Hollywood of yesteryear.