Aladdin

Dir: Ron Clements, John Musker

1992

*****

By 1992 Disney animation studios were enjoying something of a second wind. The last of the classics was The Jungle Book made in 1967, and while I love films like The Aristocats, Robin Hood, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron, none of them are real classics and 1989’s The Little Mermaid began a spate of modern classics. The Little Mermaid was followed by Beauty and the Beast which was a huge success, I can’t help but think they really went for it then with Aladdin. While I thought The Little Mermaid was fun, I found Beauty and the Beast a little too serious, and perhaps they did too, because Aladdin remains the most fun a Disney film has ever been, in my most humble opinion. The catchy songs are a big part of this, as are the characters, but the main reason is Robin Williams and the freedom he had with his character - not that things ran smoothly for Williams. The original idea was first pitched in 1988 by lyricist Howard Ashman. Ashman had written a 40-page film treatment remaining faithful to the plot and characters of the original story, but envisioned it as a campy 1930s-style musical with a Cab Calloway/Fats Waller-like Genie. Along with partner Alan Menken, Ashman conceived several songs and added Aladdin's friends named Babkak, Omar, and Kasim to the story. However, the studio was dismissive of Ashman's treatment and removed the project from development. Ashman and Menken were later recruited to compose songs for Beauty and the Beast. Linda Woolverton, who had also worked on Beauty and the Beast, used their treatment and developed a draft with inspired elements from The Thief of Bagdad such as a villain named Jaf'far, an aged sidekick retired human thief named Abu, and a human handmaiden for the princess. Then, directors Ron Clements and John Musker joined the production, picking Aladdin out of three projects offered, which also included an adaptation of Swan Lake and King of the Jungle – that eventually became The Lion King. Before Ashman's death in March 1991, Ashman and Menken had composed "Prince Ali" and his last song, "Humiliate the Boy". I wonder whether he really received his due credit. Musker and Clements wrote a draft of the screenplay, and then delivered a story reel to studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg in April 1991. Katzenberg thought the script "didn't engage", and on a day known by the staff as "Black Friday," demanded that the entire story be rewritten without rescheduling the film's November 25, 1992 release date. Among the changes Katzenberg requested from Clements and Musker were to not be dependent on Ashman's vision, and the removal of Aladdin's mother, remarking, "Eighty-six the mother. The mom's a zero." Screenwriting duo Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were brought in to rework the story and the changes they made included the removal of Aladdin's mother, the strengthening of the character of Princess Jasmine, and the deletion of several of the Ashman-Menken songs. Aladdin's personality was rewritten to be "a little rougher, like a young Harrison Ford," and the parrot Iago, originally conceived as an uptight British archetype, was reworked into a comic role after the filmmakers saw Gilbert Gottfried in Beverly Hills Cop II, who was then cast for the role. By October 1991, Katzenberg was satisfied with the new version of Aladdin. As with Woolverton's screenplay, several characters and plot elements were based on the 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad, though the location of the film was changed from Baghdad to the fictional Arabian city of Agrabah. Another reason the film was such a success, like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast before it – was due to the brilliant songs written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. Sadly Ashman died of AIDS-related complications part way through the production of Aladdin in early 1991 and Tim Rice took over as lyricist. I’ve always found The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin to be the best of Disney and Menken and Ashman are a big reason why. The character design was superb, with each character as strong as the next. The Genie, who was created with Robin Williams in mind, does get all the laughs but never has a Disney film had so many great side-kicks; Abu the monkey, Iago the parrot, Rajah the tiger and of course the magic carpet. John Candy, Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy were supposedly considered but Robin Williams was always favourite. Williams was approached and eventually accepted the role. Williams came for voice recording sessions during breaks in the shooting of two other films he was starring in at the time, Hook and Toys. Unusually for an animated film, much of Williams' dialogue was ad-libbed. For many scenes, Williams was given topics and dialogue suggestions, but allowed to improvise his lines. It was estimated that Williams improvised 52 characters in total. Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator for the Genie, then reviewed Williams' recorded dialogue and selected the best gags and lines that his crew would create character animation to match. However, Disney treated Williams poorly. Out of gratitude for his success with Touchstone Pictures' Good Morning, Vietnam (Touchstone being a Disney owned studio), Robin Williams voiced the Genie for SAG scale pay -$75,000 - instead of his asking fee of $8 million, on condition that his name or image not be used for marketing, and his supporting character not take more than 25% of space on advertising artwork, since Williams' film Toys was scheduled for release one month after Aladdin's debut. For financial reasons, the studio went back on the deal on both counts, especially in poster art by having the Genie in 25% of the image, but having other major and supporting characters portrayed considerably smaller. Disney, while not using Williams's name in commercials as per the contract, used his voice for the Genie in the commercials and used the Genie character to sell toys and fast food tie-ins, without having to pay Williams additional money; Williams unhappily quipped at the time, "The only reason Mickey Mouse has three fingers is because he can't pick up a check." Williams explained that his previous Mork & Mindy merchandising was different because, "the image is theirs. But the voice, that's me; I gave them myself. When it happened, I said, 'You know I don't do that.' And they apologized; they said it was done by other people."  Disney attempted to assuage Williams by sending him a Pablo Picasso painting worth more than $1 million at the time, but this move failed to repair the damaged relationship, as the painting was a self-portrait of the artist as Vincent van Gogh which apparently really "clashed" with the Williams' wilder home decor. Williams refused to sign on for The Return of Jafar so it was Dan Castellaneta that voiced the Genie. When Jeffrey Katzenberg was replaced by Joe Roth as Walt Disney Studios chairman, Roth organized a public apology to Williams. Williams would, in turn, reprise the role in the 1996 direct-to-video sequel Aladdin and the King of Thieves. I do love Aladdin but looking back there are a few glaring problems with it. There are several uncomfortable stereotypes and the original lyrics to some of the songs will make your toes curl. However, for me it marked the end of a very short peak in quality from Disney, sure the Lion King was good but I found it a little too serious. Aladdin was the satisfying climax to a great trio of films.

The Happiness of the Katakuris
Dir: Takashi Miike
2001
*****
If you are aware of the works of Takashi Miike then you will know to expect the unexpected, the strange, the wonderful and often the disturbing. No one does weird like Takashi Miike and his 2001 musical/comedy/horror The Happiness of the Katakuris is about as weird as it gets, however, I would argue that it is his most accessible - while 1999’s Audition is his most mainstream film but certainly not for anyone with a weak heart or nervous disposition. The film is actually a remake of the South Korean film The Quiet Family that came out in 1998. A remake with a Takashi Miike, as the original was a comedy horror but none of it was animated and at no point did the cast break into song. Kim Jee-woon, director of The Quiet Family, is also somewhat of a left-field film maker, so this is most certainly a tribute to him. Much like The Quiet Family, the Katakuris are a four-generation family of failures: patriarch Masao Katakuri (Kenji Sawada), his wife Terue (Keiko Matsuzaka), his father Jinpei (Tetsurō Tamba), his formerly criminal son Masayuki (Shinji Takeda), his divorced daughter Shizue (Naomi Nishida), her child Yurie (Tamaki Miyazaki, who narrates the film), and their dog, Pochi. The idea is essentially to risk everything in pursuit of the family ideal. So the family uses the father's redundancy pay to purchase a large old home situated on a former garbage dump near Mount Fuji that they have named the ‘White Lover's Inn'. They have the intention of converting it into a bed & breakfast, since the road running nearby is supposed to be expanded up to the house, which would bring many guests and tourists. However, the road hasn't been expanded yet and the Katakuris subsequently have no guests. When guests finally do begin to arrive, the Katakuris find (through no fault of their own) that their guests have an annoying habit of dying.Their first guest, a TV personality, arrives naked and subsequently commits suicide during the night. The Katakuris make the decision to save their business by burying the body and concealing the death. The second guest, a Sumo wrestler, dies of a heart attack during a tryst with his underage girlfriend, who also dies. Somehow, each of their guests ends up dead, either by suicide, accident or murder and pretty soon the bodies in the back yard begin to pile up. The Katakuris soon find themselves sucked into a nightmare of lies and fear (not helped by the arrival of the daughter's con-man boyfriend, an escaped murderer with police in hot pursuit). Just to add to their many worries, Mount Fuji has, for the first time in many years, decides to erupt. After many minutes of mania, musical numbers and claymation, Shizue meets a Richard Sagawa (Kiyoshiro Imawano), a mysterious U.S. naval officer who looks suspiciously Japanese but claims to be the nephew of Queen Elizabeth II. Thankfully, just when Richard stumbles into a clue that might lead him to uncover the string of disappearing guests, Mount Fuji begins rumbling to life with the promise of wiping their little secret away – as well as everything else. There are cultural themes that will go over the heads of a westerner like me but the puzzlement felt after this surreal ride is universal. The film itself is reminiscent of the music videos and live concert performances staged by 80s & 90's J-pop group Kome Kome Club who are widely recognized as the only Japanese pop rock musical group which achieved commercial success by blending soul and funk musical styles and the only band to have ever used the style of rakugo in their act. Miike's choice of Sawada Kenji as Katakuri Masao further accentuates this similarity, since he strongly resembles co-front man `Carl Smoky' Ishii Tatsuya. It may look like a film made up of several different films and ideas but that is Miike all over. The film maker makes several films a year and each one is as original and strange as the next. I gave up trying to understand everything that Miike does in his films, instead I just hold on tight, grab a large tub of pop-corn (and an alcoholic beverage) and enjoy the experience. It’s like Jan Švankmajer and 1980s bubble-gum pop got together to make a Monty Python style horror film and every bit as brilliant as that sounds. That said, with Takeshi Miike there is no comparison, he is a genre unto himself.

Sextette

Dir: Ken Hughes

1978

*

I had been warned that 1978’s infamous Sextette was a film to avoid at all costs but frankly, a comedy musical directed by Ken ‘Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang’ Huges, starring Mae West, Timothy Dalton, Dom DeLuise, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, George Hamilton, Alice Cooper and Walter Pidgeon was something I wasn’t prepared to miss. It is indeed as awful as everyone says it is but instead of wanting to switch it off, I became utterly transfixed by just how misjudged it all was. It was based on the 1961 play Sextet that West had written and performed herself that in turn was based on a story idea by Charlotte Francis. The adaption was written by legendary TV writer Herbert Baker who had a successful career writing TV shows for Danny Kaye, Fred Astaire, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, John Denver and Gladys Knight and the Pips, as well as films for Dean Martin, Cary Grant, Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley. His humour is unmistakable, it just sounds horrible in the context that it is used. On paper is sounds amazing. Legendary Hollywood movie star and sex symbol Marlo Manners (Mae West) is in London where she has just married for the sixth time. She and her new husband, Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton), then depart for a honeymoon suite at a posh and exclusive hotel that has been reserved for them by her flamboyant manager, Dan Turner (Dom DeLuise). It just so happens that the hotel is also the location of an international conference, where leaders have come together to resolve tensions and problems that threaten the survival of the world. As the chairman, Mr. Chambers (Walter Pidgeon) is trying to call the meeting to order, the delegates are crowding to the windows in an effort to catch a glimpse of Marlo when she arrives. As they enter the lobby, Marlo, now Lady Barrington, and her husband, a knight, are swarmed by admirers and reporters. When asked, "Do you get a lot of proposals from your male fans?" she quips, "Yeah, and what they propose is nobody’s business." Once inside their suite, the couple are unable to go to bed and have sex because of constant interruptions due to the demands of her career, such as interviews, dress fittings (by a rather over the top and camp as hell Keith Moon) and photo sessions, as well as the various men, including some former husbands, diplomat Alexei Andreyev Karansky (Tony Curtis), director Laslo Karolny (Ringo Starr), gangster Vance Norton (George Hamilton), and an entire athletic team from the U.S., all of whom want to have sex with her. Meanwhile, Turner desperately searches for an audiotape containing his client's memoirs, in order to destroy it. Marlo has recorded extensive details about her affairs and scandals, with a lot of dirt about her husbands and lovers. Ex-husband Alexei, who is the Russian delegate at the conference, threatens to derail the intense negotiations unless he can have another sexual encounter with her. Marlo is expected to work "undercover" to ensure world peace but in the end her new husband has enough and vanishes, leaving her alone with only Alice Cooper and a transparent piano for company. She soon sees the error of her ways and goes to her new husband who has sought solitude on his luxury yachted. She sneaks aboard and he finds her in bed waiting for him, at last, James Bond and his 85 years old wife are alone. It’s pretty grim stuff. West, who was indeed 85 years old at the time couldn’t hear anything, could barely move (apart from constantly wiggling) and didn’t look as if she really knew what was going on. Her lines are particularly blue and distasteful, even by 1978’s standards. A once adored sex symbol, West kind of disgraces herself, appealing only to lovers of the ultra-camp and the god-awful. It’s not quite in the realms of ‘so bad its good’, it’s more like ‘car crash’ viewing: you know you shouldn’t watch but you just can’t help yourself. It’s a stunning cast but you do have to wonder what on earth made them agree to be part of it. I suspect it was West herself, she was a legend – still is – so I imagine it was a privilege for Curtis, Hamilton and Dalton, a dream come true for DeLuise and a bit of a laugh for Starr and Moon. All three for Alice Cooper. The film was a huge box office failure, thanks to its poor production, flat musical numbers and unfortunate script. It was funny, but for all the wrong reasons. However, everyone involved remained loyal and kind about West. There were several rumors about surrounding her behaviour, one such persistent rumor is that Mae West could not remember any of her lines and had to wear a concealed earpiece under her wig to have her lines fed to her. Tony Curtis later commented that West could not hear well, and thus required the earpiece. In reality, West wore an earpiece so director Ken Hughes could feed her lines. Hughes had rewritten most of the dialogue because he and West both felt the script was weak. As a result, West had no time to study the script to memorize her lines. Hughes has repeatedly debunked the urban legend that West's earpiece picked up police signals and that West repeated them. Ken Hughes did later state that with hearing loss, West was unable to take direction, which caused problems in filming. Hughes recalls one incident involving a scene of West in an elevator which took an entire day to film. After the scene was finished, Hughes wrapped production for the day. West was not within hearing range to hear Hughes' call to wrap and remained in the closed elevator for half an hour before being let out. Timothy Dalton has always politely stated that it was a privilege to be part of it and everyone else involve has either stayed silent or have praised West (even though Dalton was second choice behind Arnold Schwarzenegger who passed on the opportunity). However, years later Alice Cooper admitted that Mae West had sexually propositioned him and each of the film's other leading men throughout the filming, breaking the strange protective code the cast seem to have silently agreed on. Variety dubbed it "a cruel, unnecessary and mostly unfunny musical comedy.” The New York Times called it "embarrassing", and that "Granny should have her mouth washed out with soap, along with her teeth." The opening nights were greeted by thousands of West fans who showed up to see the legend but the film was eventually pulled from cinemas after it made only $50,000 on a $8 Million budget. Ouch. If someone were to write a musical based on the making of the film they would probably make a fortune but the film itself is about as bad as it gets and remains one of the most puzzling choices a group of film makers have ever made in the history of cinema.

The Greatest Showman

Dir: Michael Gracey

2017

*

The Greatest Showman is proof that mediocrity rules. If you look under the reviews on IMDB you’ll see a string of comments such as ‘Ignore the critics, this film is great’, written I imagine by the same people who have been watching the same audition-style television programs for the last few decades not realising that they are watching the same thing over and over again. P. T. Barnum is a fascinating historical character, not a particularly nice man in truth, but someone it would have been interesting to learn more about. This film is largely (almost entirely) fictional and a tad bit insulting to the many people who suffered him back in the day – including the slave he kept thanks to a legal loophole. He exploited the vulnerable and profited from marketing racism to the masses. There was a great show back in the 1980s called Barnum originally starring Jim Dale but was later played by Michael Crawford whom was more famous in the role. I saw the Michael Crawford version and was blown away by it. It had great songs and plenty of action but it didn’t shy away from the darker side of Barnum and it also showed how he was reflective of the bad things he had done later on in life. It was enjoyable but still questionable in taste. The Greatest Showman isn’t quite ‘Springtime for Hitler’ but it sugar-coats a man and a legacy to uncomfortable levels without any regard to truth or indeed ethics. The people thinking I’m reading too much into what is a ‘light-hearted musical’ are the very problem. It is not their fault though, we as a society are force-fed mediocrity daily and have been for years. Little by little, anything of worth has disappeared from the mainstream and where is should be accessible. The story begins in the late 19th century, P. T. Barnum and his troupe perform a show at the circus. In a flashback to Barnum's childhood where he and his father Philo, a tailor, work for the Hallett family, he becomes infatuated with their daughter, Charity. Though Charity is being sent to finishing school, Barnum reassures her they will not be separated. The two keep in touch through letters until they meet again in adulthood, eventually marrying and raising two daughters, Caroline and Helen, in New York City. They actually had four children but their third, born two years after Helen, died aged 2 and as this is a happy and fictional tale, the last two children are erased from history. They live a humble life, although Charity is happy, Barnum dreams of more. We then see Barnum as he loses his job as a clerk at a shipping company after the company goes bankrupt. Taking a risky bet, he takes out a large loan from a bank, deceiving the bank into accepting his former employer's lost ships as collateral. He uses this loan to buy Barnum's American Museum in downtown Manhattan, an attraction showcasing various wax models. Again, this is complete nonsense. Barnum had several businesses over the years, including a general store, a book auctioning trade, real estate speculation, and a statewide lottery network. He started a weekly newspaper in 1829 called The Herald of Freedom in Danbury, Connecticut. His editorials against the elders of local churches led to libel suits and a prosecution which resulted in imprisonment for two months, but he became a champion of the liberal movement upon his release. He sold his store in 1834 and moved to New York City because lotteries were banned in Connecticut, cutting off his main income. He began his career as a showman in 1835 when he was 25 with the purchase and exhibition of a blind and almost completely paralyzed slave woman named Joice Heth, whom an acquaintance was trumpeting around Philadelphia as George Washington's former nurse and 161 years old. Slavery was already outlawed in New York, but he exploited a loophole which allowed him to lease her for a year for $1,000, borrowing $500 to complete the sale. Heth died in February 1836, at no more than 80 years old. Barnum had worked her for 10 to 12 hours a day, and he hosted a live autopsy of her body in a New York Saloon where spectators paid 50 cents to see the dead woman cut up, as he revealed that she was likely half her purported age. I guess they couldn’t find the music to go with that slice of truth. Initially, sales are slow; on the suggestion of his children to showcase something "alive", Barnum searches for "freaks" to serve as performers for his museum. This attracts a large audience despite protests and poor reviews, prompting Barnum to rename his venture "Barnum's Circus." Searching for ways to further his reputation among the upper class, Barnum meets playwright Phillip Carlyle and convinces him to join his venture. Carlyle is mesmerized by Anne Wheeler, an African-American trapeze artist, but he hides his feelings. The very idea of Barnum hiring an African-American as an equal in his circus is insulting. Barnum was a producer and promoter of minstrelsy. He was once involved in a hoax about a weed that would turn black people white. During a trip, Carlyle arranges for Barnum and his troupe to meet Queen Victoria. Afterwards, Barnum meets Jenny Lind, a famed Swedish singer, whom he convinces to perform in America, with him serving as her manager. Lind's first American performance is a rousing success. While Barnum gains favour with the aristocratic patrons, he begins to distance himself from his original troupe, refusing to socialize with them. Dejected, they decide to stand against their local harassers. Carlyle and Wheeler attend the theater together one night, only to run into Carlyle's parents, who are blatantly racist toward Wheeler, causing her to leave. The hypocrisy is painful. Carlyle chases her and tries to convince her that they can be together, but she rejects him despite her feelings towards him. As Barnum takes Lind on a US tour, Charity feels isolated from her husband as she stays home with their daughters. While on tour, Lind begins falling in love with Barnum, but when he refuses her advances, she calls off the tour and kisses him at the end of her last show, which is photographed by the press. This never happened, indeed, Lind began to despise Barnum. The blatant commercialism of Barnum's ticket auctions distressed Lind and she persuaded him to make a substantial number of tickets available at reduced prices. Lind soon became uncomfortable with Barnum's relentless marketing of the tour, and she invoked a contractual right to sever her ties with him. Barnum returns home to find his circus on fire, caused by a fight between the protesters and the troupe (more fiction, the fire was actually more likely to be insurance fraud). Carlyle, who had tried to save Anne not knowing she had already escaped, is rescued by Barnum amid the chaos but suffers severe burns. Most of the sets and props are destroyed. Word of Lind's cancellation and Barnum's public intimacy also reaches New York, resulting in his mansion being foreclosed upon and Charity taking Caroline and Helen to her parents' home. Depressed, Barnum retreats to a local bar, where his troupe find him there and explain that despite their disappointments, they still consider themselves a family that needs him (ugh!). An inspired Barnum resolves to start anew and not let ambition overtake his loved ones anymore. Meanwhile, the injured Carlyle wakes in a hospital with Anne by his side. Barnum leaves and finds his estranged wife, and they decide to mend their relationship. Faced with the financial difficulty of rebuilding the circus, the recovering Carlyle steps in, offering to use his earnings from his share of the circus's profits to rebuild it under the condition of becoming partners, which Barnum happily accepts. As rebuilding the circus in its original location would be too expensive, Barnum rebuilds it as an open-air tent circus by the docks. The revamped circus is a huge success, and Barnum gives full control of the show to Carlyle so he can focus on his family. The reality is that he carried on working until he was an old man. He ditched Carlyle and remarried within months of his wife’s death. The film is a vomit-inducing CGI mess. I found the songs to be as uplifting as stubbing one’s toe on a hard step and as catchy as a fire alarm. I love both Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams but I’m sad that they were involved with this. There is nothing about this film that I enjoyed but it seems I’m in the minority. Barnum wins, and in his own words "There's a sucker born every minute."

West Side Story
Dir: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise
1961
*****
I hear ‘I hate musicals’ quite a bit from friends. I do understand the puzzlement of watching people suddenly burst into song for no apparent reason but I would argue that when done well it can be a magical experience. I generally remind them that Little Shop of Horrors, The Muppet Movie, Meet the Feebles and The Rocky Horror Show are all musicals and they relent a bit. I then tie them to a chair and make them watch All That Jazz, Fiddler on the Roof, Once and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. In all honesty I’d much rather watch The Great Race (technically a musical) over Singing in the Rain and to be honest there are musicals that really do nothing for me, such as My Fair Lady, Moulin Rouge and Meet Me in St Louis. I won’t get into Mama Mia because I will get upset and angry and will most likely use rude words. West Side Story on the other hand is something else. Musicals are very much about personal taste – some people like one and not the other and vice-versa – but everyone loves West Side Story. The idea itself works because it is a familiar story (William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet) but more than that, it’s a brilliantly contemporary adaptation. Modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays are generally awful and West Side Story still remains the most successful over fifty years later. I would hazard a guess that more people know more about West Side Story then they do about Romeo & Juliet but then a lot of that has to do with the other thing the film gets right – the songs. While many of the original songs were changed for the film for legal reasons (In the scene on the roof before the musical number "America", when the girls are mocking Bernardo's speech, one of the girls say ,"We came with our hearts open", one of the Sharks says, "You came with your pants open!" This line had to be changed to "You came with your mouth open," for the movie because of censorship standards) they mostly remained in tact and in the case of ‘America’ they were changed for the better as there had been complaints that the Broadway version was too belittling to Puerto Ricans, in that the song mainly ridiculed Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. The movie lyrics emphasize the racism and discrimination that Puerto Ricans were subjected to in America, making the film a remarkable social piece as well as a great musical. I struggle to think of a musical with as many well-known and much-love songs in it than West Side Story. Songs include; ‘America’, ‘I Feel Pretty’, ‘Maria’, ‘Tonight’, ‘Somewhere’, ‘Cool’ and ‘Something’s Coming’. My personal favorite is ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ but they changed all the good bits. Stephen Sondheim (who wrote the lyrics) said in a 2010 interview that while he was writing the stage musical, he originally wanted the show to be the first one in Broadway history to use the words "fuck" and "shit" in its song lyrics. He wanted the end of the song "Gee, Officer Krupke" to be "Gee, Officer Krupke/Fuck you!" (instead of what it became, which is "Gee, Officer Krupke/Krup you!"), and he wanted the lyrics in "The Jets Song" to be "When you're a Jet/If the shit hits the fan" instead of "When you're a Jet/If the spit hits the fan". However, the show's writers were informed that if the Original Cast Album contained those profanities, it would have been illegal to ship the record across state lines. So Sondheim made the substitutions for those words that appear in both the stage show and the movie. The dance-sequences and choreography is something else. West Side Story isn’t my favorite musical in terms of song (but it’s up there) but in terms of movement and dance it has got to be one of the greatest contemporary pieces of all time. Turning a street fight into a dance is a weird thing to do but an amazing thing to watch. The ‘Cool’ sequence in particular has to be one of the coolest scenes in the history of cinema – it’s just phenomenal. I also think a big part of the film’s success is down to the fact that it had two directors. Veteran director Robert Wise was brought in for the serious scenes thanks to his work on Odds Against Tomorrow and other gritty New York films. Jerome Robbins, who directed the stage version, was brought in to work on the musical numbers, although he over-ran quite a bit costing the studio a lot of money, so he was let go and his assistant director finished the scenes he hadn’t done. It is a shame that Robbins was cut from the film, he was clearly a perfectionist and I do think there is a clear difference between the dance scenes he did shoot and those he didn’t. Both directors won Best Director at the Academy Awards, making them the first to ever share an Oscar. The awards and praise were well deserved as the direction and cinematography were sensational. The composition in every shot is stunning and the colours pop magnificently. The use of then modern effects was pretty neat too, the look of the film now being iconic. It’s not just great musical direction but great cinematic direction, one of the best of all time. The original stage actors were controversially overlooked for the film version but West Side Story wouldn’t be the same without the beautiful Natalie Wood. Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris were all great but Wood stole every scene she was in. None of them sung but they almost all danced themselves. Pretty much every element of the film is perfect, from the costumes to the social comment on immigration and diversity. It’s a stunning film and you can only imagine just how much work was involved while watching it. If you still don’t like musicals after watching it then you don’t deserves eyes or ears.

A Very Murray Christmas
Dir: Sofia Coppola
2015
**
I'm not a huge Christmas guy to be honest but I love the old seasonal television specials from Bing Crosby and the like, where everyone was wearing Christmas jumpers, sat in a log cabin somewhere with someone at the piano and a special guest here and there bringing a touch of comedy to proceedings. Cheesy as hell but magical all the same. An updated version of one of those classics starring the one and only Bill Murray sounds like an awesome idea on paper, but unfortunately the reality is something quite flat. The premise is that Murray, who is playing himself, is set to put on a live Christmas Eve show in a fancy hotel somewhere in down-town Manhattan. Due to heavy snowfall, New York suffers a power cut and the live link is severed, as is Murray's obligation. The food in the kitchen needs to be eaten before it goes off and so the remaining guests cosy up in the bar and eat, drink, sing and drink some more. Sounds great, but it really isn't. There is, in my opinion, far too much singing. The guest stars aren't great and are written into the 'plot' rather badly. It feels like a very tired take on the rather tired Muppet theme of needing to put on a show - which is in turn the actual show. The Muppets get away with it (just) because they are the Muppets and the Muppets can do no wrong (apart from Lady Gaga and the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular that is). Scrooged is one of my very favorite Christmas films but this is nothing like that, it is just odd, and the idea of a Bill Murray-doesn't-want-to-be-in-it parody about Bill Murray not wanting to be in something - even though he wrote it, doesn't really work. I'm under the impression that the USA has quite a few seasonal specials around Christmas and I can see why this might come as something of a relief, but we don't have many at all in the UK, and that comes as a relief, if this is the best of the best. I like the way Sofia Coppola directed it, I liked the boozy feel of it and most of the songs. I also loved seeing a glimpse of New York in winter, I just didn't think much of how the guests were introduced and how they were written. Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman didn't play themselves even though Chris Rock and George Clooney did, neither Cera or Rock had great cameos, they were there purely to add a name to the credits and Clooney and Miley Cyrus's dreamlike appearances verged on cringe-worthy as Clooney's comedy was off and watching a half-naked Cyrus dancing around two men who are triple her age is a little distasteful, even if it does seem authentic to the Christmas specials of yesteryear. I guess I thought it would be funny, and if not funny then at least melancholic - which I think it was trying to be but didn't quite get there. Written by a heavy drinker, starring a heavy drinker and should only be watched after a few long drinks for optimum enjoyment. Keep drinking until you like it is my advice.

Purple Rain

Dir: Albert Magnoli

1984

*

Prince is, and will always be, a legend and a pop icon. However, his 1984 musical Purple Rain will always be a huge pile of awfulness. It may well feature classic hit songs, most of which I like, but the story and the acting are among some of the worst committed to celluloid. The film stars Prince in his acting debut playing 'The Kid', a quasi-biographical character who sings as a regular in a club but is looking to be replaced by the club's manager. When not singing or driving around on his purple motorbike, 'The Kid' lives with his mother and abusive father in their basement. He's 26 years old, clearly has money (designer clothes, purple motorbike etc) but still lives with mum and dad. He meets a young girl called Apollonia who clearly worships him and makes her strip next to a lake before ridiculing and abandoning her. He later punches her in the face. A bit odd for a man who admits in the film that his own father used to beat his mother. His father also shoots himself in the head, something that didn't happen in real life. Now like I said, I'm not a huge Prince fan but this film did not make me warm to him much. The band members (The Revolution) played themselves, indeed Clarence Williams III, Olga Karlatos and Apollonia Kotero were the only professional actors in the entire cast, and The Kid's treatment of Wendy and Lisa in the film is pretty much how Prince treated them in real life. Like a jerk. When The Kids and the band receive success and a standing ovation following their final show I didn't feel happy at all, I simply though yeah, it does seem to be the assholes who somehow become the most successful. It was a cheap and easy way to showcase Prince and sell some albums, and that is exactly what it did. The film grossed more than $68 million at the box office in the United States and over $80 million worldwide, thus making a large profit on its $7.2 million budget.The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, the last to receive the award. It was written by Albert Magnoli and William Blinn, and produced by Prince's managers Robert Cavallo, Joseph Ruffalo and Steven Fargnoli. Prince developed the concept during his 1999 Tour. The original script by Blinn was darker. Later Magnoli was brought aboard and rewrote it. The film was directed and edited by Magnoli who had next to no directional experience. Blinn was an established writer and work on some of the best TV shows of the 60s and 70s, everyone else was winging it and it shows. Prince intended to cast Vanity, leader of the girl group Vanity 6, but she left the group before filming began. Her role was initially offered to Jennifer Beals (who turned it down because she wanted to concentrate on college) before going to Apollonia Kotero, a virtual unknown at the time. Prince had seen her appearance on the February 1983 episode of Tales of the Gold Monkey, in which she played a saucy island girl who was sleeping with a German man of the cloth. Excluding Prince and his onscreen parents, almost every character in the movie is named after the actor who plays him or her, adding to the amateurish feel of the movie. After the character change from Vanity to Apollonia, the script was drastically revised, and many dark scenes were cut. Some of these scenes include Prince and Apollonia having sex in a barn (a concept which was the story behind the 1985 song "Raspberry Beret"); Prince going to Apollonia 6's rehearsal and engaging in a physical fight with the members of The Time; and a scene which featured Prince's mother talking to him about her shaky relationship with his father. There was a second love scene that was not included in the final cut of the film. This scene has special meaning because it contains the actual illusion of the purple rain. A snippet of this scene is included in the theatrical trailer for the film as well as the When Doves Cry montage. This scene, as well as the other deleted footage that led up to it, is also outlined in the film's screenplay found on various websites. It is rumored that this second love scene almost earned the film an X-rating although it's unclear as to whether this scene was actually included in early edits of the film or actually submitted to the MPAA. Why cut the 'Purple Rain' scene or make it so unsaleable. It's an awful film made by amateurs. Great songs, and I understand the ultra-camp appeal but it is taken far too serious for me to even sit back and laugh at. It's pretty nasty in places and I really didn't care for it. Listen to the album instead, super-fans will probably disagree.

The Muppets Take Manhattan

Dir: Frank Oz

1984

*****

The Muppets Take Manhattan was the third Muppet film and the last the great Jim Henson would be part of. I love all of the Muppet films, even the awful ones, but the original three combined are like a golden triangle to me that formed a huge part of my childhood and made me into the Muppet-obsessed adult that I am today. I will attack anyone (with a rubber chicken) who says that The Muppets Take Manhattan isn't as good as the first two, I would agree though that I like it least out of the three, although it is a masterpiece, so let’s leave it there (unless you want to be attacked with a rubber chicken?). Filmed on location in New York City during the summer of 1983, it was the first Muppet film to be directed solely by Frank Oz (AKA Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Animal the drummer). Jim Henson initially planned to direct but having directed The Great Muppet Caper and The Dark Crystal back-to-back, he decided to serve as the producer along with David Lazer. Upon selecting fellow Muppet performer and Dark Crystal co-director Frank Oz to handle directorial duties, Henson stated, "I was looking at the year ahead and I thought my life was very busy and I thought maybe it was a time to have Frank directing one of these."

 The first draft titled The Muppets: The Legend Continues, written by Muppet Caper scribes Jay Tarses and Tom Patchett, was dismissed by Oz for being "way too over jokey", but it would have been something I would have loved to have seen. After being given Henson's encouragement to tinker with the script, Oz revised the screenplay in an effort to develop the "oomph of the characters and their relationships". Once the script was completed and the sets were built, special consultant David Misch was brought in to write cameos for some guest star appearances. Originally, this list of guest stars contained the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Steve Martin, Michael Jackson, Lily Tomlin, Richard Pryor and Laurence Olivier among many. According to Misch, Hoffman was going to play a Broadway producer and planned to do an imitation of legendary film producer Robert Evans (The Godfather), which he later did in the film Wag the Dog. However, at the last minute, Hoffman decided that the role could be offensive to Evans and dropped out, following which all the other big names dropped out as well. Because of the dropped cameos, Misch and director Oz ended up rewriting most of the film's dialogue. One could point at this as being the catalyst of one the Muppet's downfalls in later films. The Muppet Movie has one of the best cameo casts of all time. The Great Muppet Caper has a great Cameo cast too but the thing is, the Muppets never really needed them, they were just a bit of fun. Celebrities would do anything to appear with the Muppets but when the cameo thing became something the Muppets sought out as priority, it became less special. I wonder if this was a confidence thing, the Muppet people just not realizing why people loved them so? Still, the cameos were still good; Art Carney, James Coco, Dabney Coleman, Gregory Hines, Linda Lavin, Frances Bergen, Elliott Gould (his second Muppet film cameo), Mayor Edward I. Koch, John Landis, David Lazer, Liza Minnelli, Vincent Sardi Jr, Brooke Shields and Joan Rivers is an impressive line-up and each performance serves a purpose - with Rivers, Shields, Lavin and Hines being particularly good. There are some brilliant sketches within the story, Kermit with temporary memory loss is fantastic, from his medical examination with Linda Lavin to meeting advertising executives Bill, Gill and Jill, it's the Muppets at their funniest. The film also introduced the Muppet Babies, as toddler versions of the Muppet characters in a bizarre but brilliant fantasy sequence. The Muppet Babies later received their own Saturday morning animated television series, which aired from 1984 until 1991, which is enough reason to love Manhattan alone! It's more of a musical than the two previous films too, not because the music is any better or that there are more songs but mostly because it is about a musical itself. 2011's The Muppets was famous for winning the academy award for best original song but it wasn't the first Muppet song to have ever been nominated as Jeff Moss was nominated for his song score but just lost out to Prince for Purple Rain. The big reason Muppet fans favour Manhattan is because it is the film where we finally see Kermit and Piggy get married. The cast of Sesame Street, the whole Muppet crew and even the Fraggles are invited to the wedding and it's a great way to end the film. It also feels like a nice way for Jim Henson to have ended his Muppet film career on looking back at it now. It's wonderful, overlooked by Muppet and casual Muppet enthusiasts but it has plenty going for it and my childhood wouldn't have been the same without it.

Privates on Parade

Dir: Michael Blakemore

1983

****

Michael Blakemore's adaptation of Peter Nichols farcical play about the fictional military entertainment group, the 'Song and Dance Unit, Southeast Asia' (or SADUSEA for short) assembled to entertain the troops in the Malayan jungle during the Malayan Emergency just after World War II, is a Handmade Film production classic and something of an overlooked gem. The special unit is led by Maj. Giles Flack (played by John Cleese in one of his most overlooked performances) who yearns to be back on the front lines again, playing his part in the war effort in the name of God the almighty. He seems completely oblivious to the fact that most of his crew are homosexual and are in relationships with each other. His strong military rhetoric and woeful naivety are a stark contrast to the persona of the units Captain, Capt. Terri Dennis. Played by the great Denis Quilley, Capt. Terri Dennis (based on real life comedian, performer and drag-queen Barri Chatt) is over the top, a born performer and fiercely protective of his all singing, all dancing troop of misfits - all of whom are given ladies names. However, their Sgt. Maj. Reg Drummond (played by Michael Elphick) has other ideas and sees the unit as a great cover for his underhand arms dealing. It's brilliant at highlighting the naivety of war and that there was life beyond it. Based on Nichols's time in Singapore in his own army entertainment troupe, many of the characters were written with his fellow soldiers in mind including British comedy legends-to be; Stanley Baxter and Kenneth Williams. The play is noteworthy for its series of musical numbers, all performed by the male lead, parodying the style of such performers as Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich and Carmen Miranda. It's a camp comedy with a sharp sword of sorrow in its side. It's joyful but also rather tragic but its 'the show must go on' attitude puts everything into perspective, in all aspects of the overall story. The troop is made up of some of the best of 60s/70s British television, including Joe Melia and one of my personal favourites Simon Jones. It's directed very well and you'd never guess that you were watching solders dancing in sunny Shepperton Studios, rather than in the 1947 jungles of Malaya. Although the budget is clearly not that big, there is something about it that goes beyond money constraints or production values. It's got that certain something that makes a film special, to be honest most of Handmade Film productions have it. Not all of them were well received when released but looking back at them now they're nearly all masterpieces of low-budget British cinema.

The Apple

Dir: Menahem Golan

1980

*****

The late great film director Menahem Golan proved one thing with his 1980 film The Apple and that is that you don't have to be a great film maker in order to make a great film. The Apple is a particularly bad film in the sense that everything that is needed in order for a film to be considered good is missing, but somehow it is so spectacularly wrong, that it becomes entertainingly fascinating and I'm not sure something can be considered bad when it both entertains and fascinates an audience. Regarded as one of the worst films ever made, The Apple is actually rather good from a technical aspect. The big dance numbers are shot beautifully, the dancing, singing and performances are of a very high quality. The cinematography is incredible and the special effects are pretty good compared to many serious sci-fi films released the same year. This is a big money picture, glossy and highly polished. The negatives are that the songs aren't very good, in fact they're awful, which isn't good for a musical. The script is also pretty hard to listen to, although it is delivered perfectly by a cast of very competent actors. Everything that is wrong about the film could be said of any number of 70s and 80s movies, I think The Apple suffered most due to it making absolutely no sense, being a little too obvious in what it was trying to achieve and what had influenced it and because, quite frankly, people were being a little too critical about it. I know it seems somewhat contradictory for a film critic to suggest film critics were too critical at the time but there is a lot of fun to be had with this film and I'm not sure why it has been overlooked. Menahem Golan was one half of Cannon films. Cannon films made some of the most notoriously bad films of the 70s, 80s and 90s but they have gained a huge cult following. It's all about enthusiasm at the end of the day. Enthusiasm is infectious Although Cannon was started by Dennis Friedland and Chris Dewey, it is Menahem Golan and his cousin Toram Globus who bought the company in 1979 who made it the cult film studio that it was. Neither were that good at making films and for every good idea they had (and they had a few) there were five bad ideas that lost them money. The business model was to buy cheap scripts and throw money at them, and money was a big motivator, but the two men were passionate about film and had bags of enthusiasm. It is this enthusiasm that is behind their fan-base and the 'so bad they're good' catalogue of films. The Apple is over the top, camp as hell and about as dazzling as a film can get. It is hard to defend the film, I loved it like I love many films regarded as 'the worst' (Robert Altman's Popeye - 1980 and Steven Spielberg's 1945 - 1979 for example) but I ask this: How can a film starring Catherine Mary Stewart be bad (boys growing up in the 80s know what I mean), can you hand on heart tell me you don't love Vladek Sheybal's performance as Mr. Boogalow and is there anything more amazing than Joss Ackland playing God in a floating golden Rolls Royce? I think we all know the answer. The Apple is a masterpiece.

Absolute Beginners

Dir: Julien Temple

1986

****

Julien Temple's outlandish rock musical is an overlooked and underappreciated classic and a brilliant adaptation of Colin MacInnes's overlooked and underappreciated novel. MacInnes's 1959 novel deals largely with London life in the late 50s, areas of vibrancy but abject poverty where immigrants, homosexuals and drug addicts live together in the margins of society. The film follows the novels story and changes little apart from the fact it's a larger than life musical but it works extremely well. It still has an authenticity about it though, with people like Edward Tudor-Pole playing A Teddy Boy with far-right tenancies and Lionel Blair playing 'Harry Charms', based on the infamous Larry Parnes, there is something quite effective about it. Julien Temple was criticized upon the film's release however by many who held the novel in high regard, as well as those who didn't like it in the first place. The British film industry was in turmoil at the time - even though some great little films were being made - and the press didn't like to shy away from laying on the doom, even when it wasn't justified. However, it was once described as being a flawed attempt to harness the contemporary musical in the services of politics and social equality and that it fell very short of capturing the tormented romanticism that made English adolescents in the 1970s swear by the by the novel the same way American kids had earlier sworn by The Catcher in the Rye. You do have to wonder how MacInnes would have reacted to it but this was a 1986 reaction to the story, how could Temple have made anything other? Personally, I thought Temple highlighted many of the same events that were happening in the 80s that mirrored the events of the 50s and showed them for being the ridiculous events that they were. He showed what a broken record this country is through exuberant exaggeration, a truly 80s response to such a thing. It may not have made sense at the time but in retrospect it's just as fascinating as the original novel. The rise of the far right was back with vengeance, immigrants were once again the focus of attack, capitalism was at its peak and even Teddy Boy fashion was making a comeback. The film ends with the Notting Hill Race Riots of 68, a very sad day in recent history. The film was made in 1986, a couple of years between two of the worse riots this country has ever seen. For every bastardization of the original novel that there is, there is an interesting historical comparison that only now can we see, understand and learn from. There is so much more to the film than is ever given credit for, I believe it should be seen as more than just a cult hit and the film that finished Goldcrest. The truth is the studio just didn't know how to handle time and money, they never made a single bad film in their history.

La La Land

Dir: Damien Chazelle

2016

*****

I sat down to watch Damien Chazelle's with certain trepidation, it's a hugely hyped film but I've heard negatives. I think to fully appreciate it you have to understand it, although at the same time, you really can just kick back and enjoy it. It is the ultimate love letter to theatrical and musical cinema, not necessarily just the bigger and better known studio productions of the 40s and 50s but everything that one associates with that golden era. The two leads are Mia (Emma Stone), a wannabe actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) a jazz enthusiast and piano player who dreams of opening his own club. Both have the Hollywood dream while living the Hollywood reality. The way the pair meet is staggered, starting in a traffic jam following the film's big booming musical number. I had huge reservations at this point as I didn't feel the opening song and dance number really worked, it was jumpy, poorly cut and just that little bit amateur looking. I found it a little hard to focus on if I'm being honest but I did love the big film title that popped up in the style of the old 50s films. The second number which featured Mia and her friends getting ready for a party was straight out of On the Town, however, I don't think it worked in the slightest and I really didn't like it. I love the era but I felt the film should have been a little more Stanley Donen, with FunnyFace and Singin' in the Rain in mind. Thankfully this soon followed but it was a good half an hour before I felt the film was authentic and not just pretending to be something it wasn't. There is a point in the film whereby Sebastian is asked to play in a modern jazz band by and old friend (played by singer and the film's co-producer, John Legend). Sebastian is a jazz purest but his friend reminds him that jazz is about the future, about change, that old jazz is dying because it isn't engaging new audiences, get them interested and then educated, then they will discover the roots of jazz and it will become popular again. It's a small scene but it explains exactly what Chazelle is trying to achieve in the film. Chazelle is a music man (I now expect music to be a big part of all his future films and will be disappointed if it's not) and he has this amazing ability to explain many of life's most complicated aspects through the music he is most passionate about. Mia states in one scenes that people love other people's enthusiasm and it is absolutely true. I think I resisted somewhat but it wasn't before long that I realized resistance was futile, La La Land won me over big time. There are quite a few aspects I have issues with, there are some amazing scenes in it that I absolutely adore but there were moments that left me a little perplexed and if I could make changes I'd make many. However, chemistry is key and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling had it in spades. The two actors more than make up for any of the film's misgivings. It's a chemistry that works, they've stared together before so Chazelle is no genius for putting them together but my word, they are sensational together. By the end of the film the film comes together quite nicely, incorporating and addressing a lot of things that happened early on in the film that had yet to be addressed. The conclusion won't please everybody but it certainly is in keeping with tradition of the style and the modern reworking of it. It's a tribute, a take on a classic format but it's also a brand new type of film and beautifully unique it is too. It makes you question which is the real La La Land, Chazelle could have easily just made a modern day musical in the same style and everyone would have loved it but what he has actually done is very clever, with lots of different layers to it, just like jazz and the film's he clearly has a passion for. It's a four star film really but I give it five because I love it, even with its flaws and maybe even because of them.