movie cut out all the best songs which are Rosies songs! an english teacher, spanish rose, and, what id i ever see in him!
shareI agree. Let's not forget Albert's "Baby, Talk to Me." I think "Healthy, Normal American Boy" would have worked, even with the chain of terrible decisions that is this movie.
sharePaul Lynde said it best when he said instead of "Bye Bye Birdie" it was "Hello, Ann Margret."
Resulting in the heavy focus on A-M in the movie.
I'd put a stupid saying here but I won't.
Paul Lynde said it best when he said instead of "Bye Bye Birdie" it was "Hello, Ann Margret."
Paul was a little snarkier than usual about the heavy focus on Ann Margret... She and the director had a very cozy relationship. Paul, being in the Broadway show, felt he was justified in his sarcasm. A lot of people agreed with him.
Plus the '95 movie suffers from terrible production values. Bad lighting, uninteresting direction, canned acting and terrible orchestration. I edited out the unnecessary additions to make it exactly like the original broadway, and it's still terrible. If the '63 cast had the 1960 Broadway material, it would be more beloved by more generations and by broadway theatre and movie theater lovers.
shareIt's a question of economics. In the 60s, there were two ways to adapt a Broadway musical: with the complete score that would involve a running time of usually close to 3 hours with a road show release, or cut it down to a more normal running time of 1.5-2 hours in which case a lot of score has to go.
Certain prestigious musicals like My Fair Lady, Sound of Music and West Side Story warranted the road show treatment. "Smaller" musicals like Birdie, Funny THing Happened and How to Succeed got the condensed treatment.
But in some cases, less can be better. On You Tube, one can see the family kitchen scene from the original which leads up to "Ed Sullivan" and truth to tell, it does run on a bit long with the one joke about how Paul Lynde isn't the king of his castle.
I agree with the reason behind cutting songs. Baby, Talk to Me and An English Teacher would have added more to the Albert and Rosie story in my opinion.
The "Hymn for a Sunday Evening" scene from the play IS a tad long; A few of the lines were cut from my high school's production. But, somethings work better on stage than a play broadcast on TV.
One thing that doesn't work in this movie for me is the rearranging of the sequence of songs. The Broadway order works better with keeping me interested in the story. I'm never bored with a live production, but this movie always bores me by the fourth or fifth number.
In the play, the last scene in the 1st act and all the 2nd act (sans the last scene) take place in one night. It works well and doesn't feel rushed. It balances the action of Albert and Rosie, the family and the townsfolk and Kim, Conrad and the teens well. Albert and Rosie are prominently featured in the first couple scenes in the movie, then almost disappear. The 2nd act of the movie seems rushed. I think it's due to all the extra dialogue in the movie.nThe play and the movie have about the same running time, but the play has 6 more numbers.
I agree, we never saw the play hut had the original cast recording, which we enjoyed listening to a lot. We went to see it as a family, at a drive-in double feature (the other film was Jason & the Argonauts). We were very disappointed in the film, obviously tricked up with a lot of silly gimmicks, changed story line, and this obsession with Ann-Margret (Her entrance & exit song was added for the film). We came away with the impression that it was just another overdone, overproduced silly Hollywood musical, typical overkill. Makes an interesting time capsule today of the pre-Beatles, pre-hippie era. All those clean cut nicely dressed teenagers !
RSGRE