Movie Musicals

Last night, I started off my film and video class, by watching two musicals. A good way to end last semester, also. :-)

I checked out a documentary (made by D. A. Pennebaker) on the making of the cast album of Stephen Sondheim's Company, a 1970 musical (book by George Furth), directed by Harold Prince. It was on a VHS tape, so I don't know when or how it was first released.



There's a more recent DVD release on Worldcat (New Video NVG-9457), but I chose the 1970 VHS (Docudrama) from the Browsing Collection. It was originally filmed on May 3, 1970, with a cast including Dean Jones, Barbara Barrie, George Coe, and Elaine Stritch. Wow, to see Elaine Stritch from 1970 was really something. I've been a fan of the original cast album, but it's fun to see how people talked and looked like back then (5 years before I was born). The VHS picture was pretty good on my screen. It's interesting to hear the sound mix though. I guess there hadn't been too many of these kind of musical documentaries back then. At one moment, you hear just the timpani, or an individual singer, or the trumpets--and you'll hear that track most prominently; and everyone else in the background. It made me wonder how many tracks go into recording a studio session anyways.

Also, I couldn't tell how authentic this was. Were there really the artistic conflicts I saw between singers and music directors? What footage didn't they include? The shots with Sondheim, Hal Prince, and the other bigwigs in the bar between sessions were really interesting. It was also a hoot to see a 40-year old Sondheim with black way hair (no gray) talking to the actor/singers how he wanted them to sing his music. Photography seems to have come since a long way since then...you don't have the same level of clarity, focus, or color. You can definitely tell that you're observing them through a camera. Maybe that's the idea. It was a good reminder that all is not what it seems in show business. ;-)

I also got two copies of the movie adaptation of the musical Carousel, with stars Gordon McCrae and Shirley Jones. One looks like a fullscreen version, and the other's been remastered and letterboxed in the late 1990s. There's also a laserdisc version in a "remastered wide screen edition" that I want to check out. :-) (Anyone remember those? They were going to be the next big one back in the early '90s!)



I got through the first act of the letter-box version last night. What great music--Rodgers and Hammerstein were first-class. I'm looking forward to catching up on more movie musicals this summer.