I heard that it was superior.
If anyone has seen it, please tell me how it ends. I want to know since I will probably never see it.
It looks like it's coming to DVD this spring:
http://www.bbcamericashop.com/default.asp?cpa=upcoming&rpa=1
We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium
SPOILER WARNING!
In the end of the original BBC series Arthur is hanged, but then as Cheryl is seen crying on a bridge after the hanging, Arthur walks to her and says (in effect) that a happy ending is needed. They sing a song and the story ends in a falsely happy mood.
Thank You!!!
shareThe original was considered to be a landmark event in British television history. Bob Hoskins starred. It was the most controversial TV play of it's time and was campaigned against by Mary Whitehouse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whitehouse
Then you heard wrong.
The original is THE finest mini-series ever made. This was just the first of Steve Martin's misfires of trying to remake classics (funny as he can be, he's not in the same league as Sellars was).
I just re-watched the original after discovering it on tapes that had been in the garage for ten odd years. I'd been denying myself some brilliant story-telling. See if you can pick it up on dvd or whatever and though there's parts of the movie (Walken is good) that hint at just how great the story is (2nd best thing Potter did after 'Blue remembered Hills') you're depriving yourself if you never see the original as it was meant to be seen.
it's superior in that it's given much more time to flesh out its stories and characters. i had seen the american movie first and i loved that the miniseries gave joanie her own story and more songs to sing. however, i would say that i prefer the musical numbers in the film to the ones in the miniseries. it doesn't take away from the miniseries, but there are just so many songs that only a few remained memorable for me after viewing, and the BBC production values didn't really make them stand out. it may have been the director's intent to have them integrate seamlessly with the rest of the plot, but what i loved about the american version is how show stopping the musical numbers were. there's less of them so they really stand out and they only reiterate the idea of music as escape and fantasy because they're such great production numbers. i also think bernadette peters is AMAZING, really heartbreaking. a lot of actors, given a role where you have to go from one end of the spectrum to the other, would only be convincing as one type of character. so many other actresses could have done this part and only been beleivable as innocent eileen or disillusioned eileen, but peters does a great job on both parts. it's what makes her transformation so heartbreaking.
and steve martin has nothing on bob hoskins in the original.
the film is a bit like a "greatest hits" package of the Tv series, it is very similar inmany ways, but obviously it does not have the length to create the story and character of the mini-series, it was over 3 times longer after all. i'm glad i saw the tv series first as i used it to fill in all the gaps when watching the film as it rushed through the story.
shareYes.
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