With the reflexes of a dinosaur, I finally saw the movie this week. And, I'm sorry, but I'm going to grump about it. (And I could, if required grump for England on most things, so don't take these out of proportion).
For at least two years I've been listening to the Broadway soundtrack CD, and it's vastly better than the movie soundtrack (which I also bought this week). More annoyingly, I was totally bemused by some of the changes made for the movie to the narrative and (presumably - being as I've never actually seen the stageplay) staging.
First is the "Miss Baltimore Crabs" song, which totally lost all of it's bombastic arrogance in the film. I just cannot work out why the song was rewitten and stages alongside a rhumba type dance which distracted both the singer and the audience by splitting the focus of the piece.
But the biggest mistake was the "Without Love" staging. I mean, what the heck was going on there? You have a series of two powerful duets - the key being Tracy and Link, and in the film they effectively split the most important couple up for the duration of the song? And somehow, having Link singing to an animated picture is supposed to indicate the passion of the song? Rubbish. Total rubbish. And being as the prison sequence was removed (as well as one of my favourite songs "The Big Doll House") the actual words of the song had no meaning what-so-ever for Tracy and Link.
Also we missed out "Cooties" another song with tremendously witty lyrics (up there with "You're Timeless to Me") but a perfect example of Amber's cruelness. I won't even begin to mention the monstrosity that pretends to be "Cooties" on the film soundtrack.
I was also a bit disappointed with the stanging of some numbers. There seemed to be an urge to showcase as many locations as possible in each musical number. Most other film musicals seem to manage with only 1 or 2 per sequence, including HSM. I don't think the rapid scene changes on "Run and Tell That" or "I Can Hear the Bells" helped the film at all in any shape or form (likewise the splitting of "You Can't Stop the Beat").
As for the new songs, they were OK, "Ladies' Choice" is rapidly growing on me. But I'd rather have the missing songs and plot reinstated. I'm under no illusion why they add new songs to motion picture musicals - it's so they can submit them for the "best original song" Oscar® rather than actually improving the original stage experience (in most cases).
That said, I don't want people to think this means I thought the film was a disaster. I was still incredibly moved by the film, still found it one of the most life-affirming movies I've seen for a long, long time and still (despite my critisisms) enjoyed it enormously. Sadly, although I have said many times before seeing it I expected it to be the film of 2007, it clearly wasn't.
If anyone thinks my complaints are wrong or over the top, I urge them all to try and get hold of the Original Broadway Cast soundtrack album and give it a couple of quick listens. It's far superior to the motion picture's.
Let the flaming begin.
.
.