Blasphemous preferences

[misanthropicsob]

So, I finally got down to watching the 1982 PBS release of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, my favorite musical of all time. And, it was surprisingly dank and sludgey. I loved it! Except for Angela Lansbury. She stuck out of the production like a sore thumb

Comments

[dendren]

I have to admit, Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd really is jarring. It just seemed such an odd fit for her.

I think singing is more important than acting in a musical. I can deal with mediocre acting when I see a musical, but if someone's voice is bad, or off in some way, it really ruins it for me.

[misanthropicsob]

After seeing her in The Machirian Candidate, I thought she would have brought that menace to the role. I was surprised she didn't.

I'm still unsure. Ive seen some who were good singers but couldn't act their way out of a paper bag, but I've also seen some who could act bit couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Each are rather intolerable. I think it depends how bad they are, though. I can take a shitty acting job over caterwauling. But, id rather have great acting and OK singing than OK acting and great singing.

[allanh]

Try this version, instead, which was a live concert performance featuring George Hearn, Patti LuPone, and Neil Patrick Harris:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300536/

There were two performances, and I was lucky enough to get a seat for the verrrrrrry top row of Davies Symphony Hall for the second performance...and La Sondheim Himself came out on stage afterwards to personally thank the cast and musicians for what he felt was HIS musically definitive version of "Sweeney Todd".

[nipper_dawg]

If it wasnt the singing it would be called a play :)

[misanthropicsob]

Ah, but if it wasn't acting, it'd be a concert. :-)

[nipper_dawg]

hehe it depends upon the actor and the pipes. Lauren Becall could not sing a note but did very well in Applause ,but her acting and name did it all.

http://youtu.be/71dRwNTN69I

Ethel Merman was a lousy actress, but she could blow anyone off the stage just by exhailing.

Two examples of where it really depends upon who it is.

[fillerbunny9]

Bad singing always trumps bad acting. It's much more difficult to suffer poor music than it is to suffer poor acting.

[misanthropicsob]

I think it depends. It's hard to suffer a bad interpretation of a role. I wanted to kill Angela every time she wasn't singing. Much like I wanted to kill Helena every time she was.

[mrdreamjeans]

Both! But, I'll take inspired singing over acting every time. I will never see the movie version of 'Sweeney Todd". I can't bare hearing the music massacred. Same with Madonna in "Evita", neither sung or acted well. You and I have such different tastes ... Angela's performance as Mrs Lovett to me was a creepy, and over the top masterpiece. Have you ever seen her in The Manchurian Candidate?

[misanthropicsob]

I think she was magnificently restrained in Manchurian. The opposite of her role in Sweeney Todd. I've seen several productions of Sweeney Todd in addition to these two, and I always respond to the Mrs Lovett's that are seething with joy but not loopy.

Her little soft shoe kick dance in A Little Priest, where she was brilliant otherwise, grated on me as much as her opening scenes of pure oblivious joy. To me, she's not an oblivious loopy character, so much as one who has a wicked sense of humor about herself and the world with a whole helluva lot of ego mixed in. The way i see her is as is Sweeney's other self with a sense of humor and self-awareness. Which makes it even more menacing. Sweeney is doing it because he's been kicked one too many times. She's doing it for kicks, and knows it too.

The movie kind of massacre's the music, but the interpretation of it is amazing. It's a weird almost-great movie, that would have shot to my favorites if he didn't kill the music so hard.