The '50 and'60s were the standout era for Broadway classics on the big screen, with faithful renditions of shows such as "The King and I" and "The Music Man" vying for a spot in any best-of list. Reilly as the schlubby hubby singing "Mr. Other standout performances include Queen Latifah as a corrupt prison guard and John C. Catherine Zeta-Jones brought plenty of stage experience to the va-va-voom role of Velma Kelly, but Renée Zellweger more than held her own, and Richard Gere's turn as a sleazy lawyer couldn't have been better.
Broadway s;how dancing in the rain movie#
Starring Mark Lester as the plucky title character ("Please, sir, I want some more!").Īnother one of a handful of movie musicals to win the Oscar for best picture, director Rob Marshall's version of Kander and Ebb's Jazz Age musical about dueling jailbird divas is just about pitch perfect. This musical based on Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist," with songs by Lionel Bart, is a perennial family favorite and, just to rub it in, an Academy Award winner for best picture. OK, so there's a wide swath of moviegoers who will never be won over by adorable singing orphans. Reprising her stage role inspired by the life of Broadway star Fanny Brice, she created a complex character you couldn't take your eyes off of while delivering nuanced readings of the songs "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade." It's memorable for three reasons: Barbra Streisand, Barbra Streisand and Barbra Streisand. Steve Martin's turn as a sadistic dentist with a nitrous oxide addiction is over-the-top hilarious. The songs, written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman before they moved on to Disney, are great fun, but the laugh-out-loud zaniness (orchestrated by director Frank Oz) makes the film unforgettable. Rick Moranis stars as a nerdy flower-shop clerk whose prize plant, dubbed Audrey II, develops an insatiable taste for human flesh in this musical spoofing B movies. Cheryl Barnes' searing rendition of "Easy to Be Hard" is unforgettable.
With weirdly sensuous choreography by the great Twyla Tharp, it looks back on the '60s through the hedonistic lens of the '70s, even adding a subtle disco sheen to the songs. A twist ending pushes the entire affair over the edge into absurdism, yet this "Hair" remains exuberantly subversive and is even a bit Altman-esque in its deadpan, picaresque humor. The movie version proved just as irresistible, featuring a surprisingly touching (if hardly virtuosic) duet of "(You're) Timeless to Me" by Christopher Walken and John Travolta - the latter in drag and a fat suit as agoraphobic housewife Edna Turnblad.Ĭzech director Milos Forman's adaptation of "The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical" bears little resemblance to the original, making wholesale changes to the characters and storyline, with the character of Claude (John Savage) turned into a clean-cut Oklahoma boy who has an "Alice in Wonderland" adventure among hippies on his way to basic training during the Vietnam War.
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John Waters' 1988 cult film about a plus-size teenager who champions racial integration on a local TV dance show was an unlikely inspiration for a Broadway musical, but the infectious pop tunes of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, including "Good Morning Baltimore" and "You Can't Stop the Beat," made it work. Our all-time Top 10 list is not for musicals that were movies first and stage shows second - no "Singin' in the Rain," "Tommy" or "The Lion King." We did, however, bend the rules to include musicals that didn't actually make it to Broadway before the big screen, in order to make room for a certain B-movie spoof starring a giant flesh-eating plant from outer space. But the best adaptations don't always hew closely to the original, and true-to-the-stage renditions of "The Phantom of the Opera," "Rent," "A Chorus Line," "The Producers" and "Les Misérables" were all judged merely so-so.
Broadway is looking to Hollywood for ideas more often than the other way around these days, but there are still plenty of stage musicals with potential for big-screen success - including this year's Christmastime releases of Sondheim's "Into the Woods" and an updated "Annie."Īs the recent controversy over reported changes to "Woods" attests, theater buffs are keen to see "faithful" version of their favorite works.