Musicals: From Stage & Film to Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Mike Frezon]

I would think they could sell some of the stars of the current G&D "revival" to a television audience: Nathan Lane & Megan Mullally.

Lane and Mullally (along with Patrick Wilson and Sierra Boggess will be performing a one-night-only concert version of Guys & Dolls at Carnegie Hall in April. This would be much like the South Pacfic concert starring Reba McIntyre, Brian Stokes Mitchell, John Schuck and Alec Baldwin.

I could see Lane loving the idea of (and excelling in) a live TV performance.

 

[Matt Hough]

They would have a ready-made cast there with some big TV, Emmy-winning names.

The perfect show would be Carnival! but I fear it's not well known enough to draw an audience. I saw it as a preteen in NYC and was completely enchanted with it.

 

[JohnMor]

I would think they could sell some of the stars of the current G&D "revival" to a television audience: Nathan Lane & Megan Mullally.

Lane and Mullally (along with Patrick Wilson and Sierra Boggess will be performing a one-night-only concert version of Guys & Dolls at Carnegie Hall in April. This would be much like the South Pacfic concert starring Reba McIntyre, Brian Stokes Mitchell, John Schuck and Alec Baldwin.

I could see Lane loving the idea of (and excelling in) a live TV performance.

Lucky enough to see Lane on Broadway in Guys and Dolls in 1992. He was great. As was the entire cast. Happened to be Peter Gallagher's final performance as Sky Masterson that night. Fun, fun night at the theater. Would love to see him tackle Nathan Detroit again, and would especially love to see Faith Prince as Adelaide. She was wonderful.

 

[Ethan Riley]

I can almost guarantee the NBC production will be Grease.

 

[ahollis]

I can almost guarantee the NBC production will be Grease.

Interesting thought. I have expected that Paramount would convert GREASE to 3D and do another release.

 

[JohnMor]

Interesting thought. I have expected that Paramount would convert GREASE to 3D and do another release.

If NBC does do Grease hopefully they do the Broadway score and drop the songs added for the film, even though they're among the most famous from the film.

 

[Matt Hough]

Grease would certainly require some lyric laundering if it's to be a family presentation for the holiday season.

 

[Tom Clark]

Well, I love the score for Little Me, and it was certainly a tour de force for Sid Caesar on stage, but all those disguises probably wouldn't have worked on film, and since the stage show was not a box-office success (it only ran six months and didn't make back its investment; the show wasn't a hit in either of its major Broadway revivals either), no studio likely would have wanted to take a chance with it.

Besides, didn't Fox do a bit of the same idea with What a Way to Go! only with lots of different men?

The way I understand it, the Broadway production of Little Me started off as a sellout hit, but after a few months sales dropped, allegedly due to Sid Caesar's erratic performances. He began talking too fast and mumbling -- and coughing a lot, of course -- and losing a lot of laughs.

There's no reason to think one man playing several parts wouldn't work on film. Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers come to mind as two actors who did it quite successfully back in those days.

Actually, Little Me was going to be a movie, but with the emphasis put back on the woman by having different actors play all the men in her life (as was originally intended, until Neil Simon got the idea to have the show be a tour de force for his old boss, Sid Caesar.) I remember talk of Ann-Margret being the star of the movie that was never made.

Other Broadway musicals of that time that were going to be movies, and even mentioned in Variety ads, were No Strings and She Loves Me.

Before it opened, Frank Sinatra bought the movie rights to Subways Are for Sleeping, planning to star himself and Dean Martin (and presumably a female star, too). After it opened and he read the reviews, he changed his mind.

 

[Brian Kidd]

Disney's reportedly jump-starting a big-budget version of the oft-shelved "Into the Woods" movie

Oh, it's far beyond the "reportedly" stage. Filming is complete.

Set photos

 

[Eric Vedowski]

The way I understand it, the Broadway production of Little Me started off as a sellout hit, but after a few months sales dropped, allegedly due to Sid Caesar's erratic performances. He began talking too fast and mumbling -- and coughing a lot, of course -- and losing a lot of laughs.

There's no reason to think one man playing several parts wouldn't work on film. Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers come to mind as two actors who did it quite successfully back in those days.

Actually, Little Me was going to be a movie, but with the emphasis put back on the woman by having different actors play all the men in her life (as was originally intended, until Neil Simon got the idea to have the show be a tour de force for his old boss, Sid Caesar.) I remember talk of Ann-Margret being the star of the movie that was never made.

Other Broadway musicals of that time that were going to be movies, and even mentioned in Variety ads, were No Strings and She Loves Me.

Before it opened, Frank Sinatra bought the movie rights to Subways Are for Sleeping, planning to star himself and Dean Martin (and presumably a female star, too). After it opened and he read the reviews, he changed his mind.

I read an interview with Jerry Orbach where he said he was offered She Loves Me opposite Julie Andrews but his agent convinced him he shouldn't make his starring movie debut (he'd done some films in small parts) in a musical lest it typecast him. Orbach was steamed later since he had been offered a play or pay contract which would've paid him when the movie was cancelled.

 

[KMR]

The perfect show would be Carnival! but I fear it's not well known enough to draw an audience. I saw it as a preteen in NYC and was completely enchanted with it.

Carnival! is one of my two all-time favorite musicals. I performed in a high school production (many, many years ago!) and it was 30 years before I was finally able to see a performance of this absolutely wonderful, charming show. It has many very lovely songs. While the book is credited as being "based on material by Helen Deutsch" (i.e., the screenplay for the movie Lili), that movie was in turned based on the novella Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico. But it goes back even further: Gallico used the same basic theme and the most significant plot elements in a short story in the Saturday Evening Post called "The Man Who Hated People". In that story, the setting was a TV show like Kukla, Fran and Ollie--but the story was still the same one about the relationships between the human star, the puppets, and the puppeteer. For me, a perfect film version of Carnival! would include some material from the climax of that short story.

 

[KMR]

Well, looks like I'm a bit off on the Carnival! pedigree. According to the article on Lili currently in Wikipedia, turns out that Deutsch based the movie on the short story, and Love of Seven Dolls came after the movie!

 

[Vic Pardo]

When I discussed the recent NBC telecast of "The Sound of Music with a theatre buff co-worker who was quite critical of it, I asked her what would have been a better choice for a live TV musical starring Carrie Underwood and she suggested "Annie Get Your Gun." Which sounds like a good idea to me.
I've only seen the movie version with Betty Hutton, which I found problematic and thoroughly undermined by Hutton's miscasting, so it's something I'd like to see done over.

 

[Mike Frezon]

And, of course, Reba McEntire starred in a Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun several years ago. It was quite well received (in particular, McEntire's performance).

 

[Ethan Riley]

Grease would certainly require some lyric laundering if it's to be a family presentation for the holiday season.

They softened the lyrics for "Greased Lightning" on Glee last year.

 

[Tom Clark]

I read an interview with Jerry Orbach where he said he was offered She Loves Me opposite Julie Andrews but his agent convinced him he shouldn't make his starring movie debut (he'd done some films in small parts) in a musical lest it typecast him. Orbach was steamed later since he had been offered a play or pay contract which would've paid him when the movie was cancelled.

Orbach may have said that, but it doesn't ring true. If it is true, he has the world's worst agent.

But I always heard the movie of She Loves Me was going to reunite Julie Andrews with Dick Van Dyke.

 

[Todd J Moore]

Just a guess, but why wouldn't NBC try their hand at White Christmas?

 

[Matt Hough]

The NBC president said that of the three shows they were considering, they were all from the classic Broadway canon. White Christmas wouldn't qualify.

 

[Rick Thompson]

When I discussed the recent NBC telecast of "The Sound of Music with a theatre buff co-worker who was quite critical of it, I asked her what would have been a better choice for a live TV musical starring Carrie Underwood and she suggested "Annie Get Your Gun." Which sounds like a good idea to me.
I've only seen the movie version with Betty Hutton, which I found problematic and thoroughly undermined by Hutton's miscasting, so it's something I'd like to see done over.

The real "Annie Get Your Gun" or the PC revisal? If the PC version -- you could call it "Annie Get Your Gun After the Background Check and Five-Day Waiting Period" -- I wouldn't be watching.

And it likely would be the PC script, probably denatured further. Musn't offend the professionally offended.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Ugh. But shipping is nearly $20.

But...I pulled the trigger anyway.

Merry belated Christmas to me.

Ullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllla!

How do they do this?

The disc was delivered today...from Japan. FROM JAPAN!!! In four days!

My Golden Retriever Ike signed for the package (delivered by DHL):