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Thread: Musicals

  1. #1

    Musicals

    Broadway, B'way musicals made into films, etc. Some love them dearly, others hate them. I tend to think B'way musicals come off as sounding 'samey', but I guess that's said about many different genres. But I do like a few, including Godspell. I was watching the 1973 film today with Victor Garber & loved it. I'd only seen summer camp productions of it. It was tough to not compare aesthetics of late 60s/early 70s youth to those of today's while watching.


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    Member Oreb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rickenbacker View Post
    I was watching the 1973 film today with Victor Garber & loved it.
    Nice to read someone else who loves that movie: IMO it's beautifully done and the last 20-30 minutes are very moving. JC Superstar gets much more attention, but IMO Godspell is far superior.

    Other musicals made into films that IMO work really well - regardless of the views of professional critics - include:

    Sweet Charity - adapted from a Fellini movie and featuring a gorgeous Shirley MacLaine



    Man of La Mancha



    and Finnegan's Rainbow, which get's very unfairly slammed IMO:


    Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you?

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    Member Oreb's Avatar
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    One more:

    While it wasn't originally a broadway musical, I also love Goodbye Mr. Chips, which also has Pet Clarke and Peter O'Toole:


    Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you?

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Reviving this rich thread, because tomorrow night I'm seeing the new King Kong musical on Broadway. I predict it will either be amazing, or suck. It opens tonight, so look for reviews late tonight or tomorrow.

    I can see how they can come up with songs that work for the beginning and final NYC sequences, but the middle of the movie is pretty much all action, so I don't know what they're going to do. And I don't think they're going to have Kong sing (he's a giant puppet). They might have to go all cultural-appropriation on us and have big native dance sequences with chanting and whatnot. There are really only three characters who could realistically sing, maybe they're going to give a number to the ship captain and the native chief?

    Will there be dinosaurs and other creatures? The spider pit? Actually, I can guess what a lot of the songs will be, thematically, and it just doesn't seem good on paper. Or maybe it's going to be VERY different from the movie, which would kind of suck too...

    Anyway, I can't wait to see!

  5. #5
    I always knew this thread would break the 4 post mark.
    Currently attempting to catch up on all of the chaos in the Market Square.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    ^ LOL Wait till tomorrow night, when the King Kong musical explodes.
    Last edited by JKL2000; 11-08-2018 at 10:04 AM.

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    Member adap2it's Avatar
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    Saw THE MUSIC MAN earlier this year, absolutely loved it!! Sat next to a music critic, who enjoyed it just as much as I did, even though he'd seen it numerous times.
    Dave Sr.

    I prefer Nature to Human Nature

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    This thread was originally about musicals mad into films, but if we are talking musicals in general we saw Hamilton in Chicago earlier this year and it is one musical that really lives up to the hype. I have seen many musicals over the years (even played in a few pit orchestras back in the day), and Hamilton is one of the most original unique theatrical productions I have seen in years. I went into it skeptical, but I loved every minute of it.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveSly View Post
    This thread was originally about musicals mad into films, but if we are talking musicals in general we saw Hamilton in Chicago earlier this year and it is one musical that really lives up to the hype. I have seen many musicals over the years (even played in a few pit orchestras back in the day), and Hamilton is one of the most original unique theatrical productions I have seen in years. I went into it skeptical, but I loved every minute of it.
    If you re-read the beginning of the OP, it has a wider scope than that. But it's all good!

    I'm still skeptical about Hamilton, but I haven't seen it, and I have to admit I really like the songs from the Disney movie "Moana," and he wrote them. So I'll suspend judgement until I see it one day. I think it'll be around forever!

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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    If you re-read the beginning of the OP, it has a wider scope than that. But it's all good!

    I'm still skeptical about Hamilton, but I haven't seen it, and I have to admit I really like the songs from the Disney movie "Moana," and he wrote them. So I'll suspend judgement until I see it one day. I think it'll be around forever!
    I didn't think I would like the hip hop / rap elements of the show, but they way they did it was amazing to me. Much of the "dialogue" is rap. I am not a rap fan at all, but in this show it works.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Wow, I saw the King Kong musical tonight. Other King Kong purists like me are not going to like it. The Kong "puppet" thing is pretty cool, but the rest of the show is terrible, and they revise it in ways I just can't accept. I'll just mention a couple:

    - It's given a feminist angle, so Ann Darrow never screams. Instead, she roars.
    - Only about 20 minutes of the show takes place on Skull Island, and the only other life they encounter there aside from Kong are plants and a giant snake. No natives, no dinosaurs. In the 1933 film, events on Skull Island take up probably 2/3 of the film and are my favorite parts.

    But, as lots of people have said in reviews and comments about it, it is really meant to be more of an arena show that somehow wound up on Broadway. The songs are almost all terrible and inappropriate, musically and also regarding where they are in the show and what they're there for. I wanted to see it right away because I was curious but expected it to be bad and get bad reviews, and possibly close soon because it's very expensive. But there were people in the audience who seemed to eat it up, so who knows. I hadn't seen a Broadway show in a long time because I feel Broadway has become a mockery of what it once was, and dreadfully overpriced.

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    Member rickawakeman's Avatar
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    BTW Godspell was an Off-Broadway show.

    Musical theater Geek Rick

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rickawakeman View Post
    BTW Godspell was an Off-Broadway show.

    Musical theater Geek Rick
    Didn't know that! I actually saw a Broadway revival, in which during intermission you could could go up on stage and get a Dixie cup of wine from Jesus himself. I've been saved! (I mean that in a purely artistic way.) Actually, MAYBE that was an off-Broadway revival. Can't remember. But that does seem more like an off-Broadway thing to do. Kind of like when we saw Jim Dale in an-off Broadway production of Candide, and during intermission they had big barrels of peanuts and you could just throw the shells on the floor. Woo-hoo!

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    Member rickawakeman's Avatar
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    I grew up in Newark NJ. Mom took me to many a Broadway and off-Broadway show during my impressionable youth. Why she thought it appropriate for her 10 year old to see Hair is beyond me, but I'm thankful.

  15. #15
    I like some musicals. Seen Cats twice and The Phantom of the Opera once.

    What I don't really like is they idea of using existing songs, to create a musical. Or musicals without the name of the composer, which makes me feel the music is just an afterthought.

    I'm not sure how it is elsewhere, but I feel in the Netherlands there seems to be a movement to turn almost everything into a musical. Including old television-shows.

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    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    the only two that I've only been interested in were also later made into movies: Hair and (despite being an atheist) JC Superstar
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

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    Member rickawakeman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rarebird View Post
    I like some musicals. Seen Cats twice and The Phantom of the Opera once.

    What I don't really like is they idea of using existing songs, to create a musical. Or musicals without the name of the composer, which makes me feel the music is just an afterthought.

    I'm not sure how it is elsewhere, but I feel in the Netherlands there seems to be a movement to turn almost everything into a musical. Including old television-shows.
    the Carole King musical "Beautiful" was quite good.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rarebird View Post
    I like some musicals. Seen Cats twice and The Phantom of the Opera once.

    What I don't really like is they idea of using existing songs, to create a musical. Or musicals without the name of the composer, which makes me feel the music is just an afterthought.

    I'm not sure how it is elsewhere, but I feel in the Netherlands there seems to be a movement to turn almost everything into a musical. Including old television-shows.
    That is quite common these days, and I agree usually it comes off pretty lame.

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    I saw Monty Python's Spamalot last night. I have seen it before, but we had some friends who wanted to go, so went to see it again. A funny, very well done musical for sure.

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    We cower in our shelters
    With our hands over our ears
    Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
    Runs for years and years and years
    An earthquake hits the theatre
    But the operetta lingers
    Then the piano lids comes down
    And break his fucking fingers
    It's a miracle

    Roger Waters Amused To Death '92.

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    Quote Originally Posted by BravadoNJ View Post
    We cower in our shelters
    With our hands over our ears
    Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
    Runs for years and years and years
    An earthquake hits the theatre
    But the operetta lingers
    Then the piano lids comes down
    And break his fucking fingers
    It's a miracle

    Roger Waters Amused To Death '92.
    For the most part I agree with Rog on Webber. I have seen many of his musicals and have had mixed to negative feelings on most of them. The one exception would be "Evita". Not talking about the movie here, but the stage production. I still think the music in that one is excellent, and the story is cool and something different.

    Speaking of Webber we are talking my father to see "Phantom Of The Opera" if February. I have seen it before and don't think it is as good as most theater geeks seem to laud it, but the musical does have it's moments.

  22. #22
    Geriatric Anomaly progeezer's Avatar
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    It's very nice to see a thread on this topic.

    Growing up in NYC in the 50s & early 60s, I was fortunate enough to see the original casts of West Side Story, Lil' Abner, Damn Yankees (Gwen Verdon, later of Cocoon was actually a personal friend of my mother), Bye Bye Birdie, as well as revivals of South Pacific, Oklahoma & Carousel on Broadway. I also sang the lead in HS productions of Pajama Game & 42nd Street, as well as performing in 2 Gilbert & Sullivan productions in an amateur local company.

    I've also posted before on PE that the summer I was 14, I went away to summer camp and wound up in a production of The King & I playing a supporting role to eventual rock icon Al Kooper's King of Siam.

    I still watch movie musicals all the time, and I guess if I had to pick my favorite B'way movie/musical ever, it would be Brigadoon.
    "My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"

    President Harry S. Truman

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveSly View Post
    For the most part I agree with Rog on Webber. I have seen many of his musicals and have had mixed to negative feelings on most of them. The one exception would be "Evita". Not talking about the movie here, but the stage production. I still think the music in that one is excellent, and the story is cool and something different.

    Speaking of Webber we are talking my father to see "Phantom Of The Opera" if February. I have seen it before and don't think it is as good as most theater geeks seem to laud it, but the musical does have it's moments.
    Exactly my feelings on Webber, Steve. I really enjoyed Evita, and saw it on Broadway and in the West End. I also think Joseph and the... provides good material for all the high-school productions, etc. In 4th grade our music teacher made us sing the songs too.

    Quote Originally Posted by progeezer View Post
    It's very nice to see a thread on this topic.

    Growing up in NYC in the 50s & early 60s, I was fortunate enough to see the original casts of West Side Story, Lil' Abner, Damn Yankees (Gwen Verdon, later of Cocoon was actually a personal friend of my mother), Bye Bye Birdie, as well as revivals of South Pacific, Oklahoma & Carousel on Broadway. I also sang the lead in HS productions of Pajama Game & 42nd Street, as well as performing in 2 Gilbert & Sullivan productions in an amateur local company.

    I've also posted before on PE that the summer I was 14, I went away to summer camp and wound up in a production of The King & I playing a supporting role to eventual rock icon Al Kooper's King of Siam.

    I still watch movie musicals all the time, and I guess if I had to pick my favorite B'way movie/musical ever, it would be Brigadoon.
    Some good ones there, Steve. I probably saw some of the same revivals you did, but not the original productions you saw.

    My first musical was the original, off-broadway "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," with a very young Gary Burghoff (AKA Radar O'Reilly) as Charlie Brown.

  24. #24
    I've seen many Broadway shows, unfortunately, and most were because I was forced to go (I felt like I needed a shower after seeing A Chorus Line). I will say, however, that I thought Les Miserables was fantastic in both the powerful songs and stage settings.
    "And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."

    Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/

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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Exactly my feelings on Webber, Steve. I really enjoyed Evita, and saw it on Broadway and in the West End. I also think Joseph and the... provides good material for all the high-school productions, etc. In 4th grade our music teacher made us sing the songs too.



    .
    I have seen Joseph a few times. In fact we saw it in Chicago with Donnie Osmond in the lead role and he was actually amazingly good. I agree it is probably one of Webber's better efforts.

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