The day the film version of “A Chorus Line” opened across the country, director Richard Attenborough was interviewed by Jane Pauley on the Today Note. “And what’s this film really about? ” asked Jane. Sir Richard answered, “It’s about kids trying to rupture into expose business.”

And there you have everything that’s just and bad about the film. Some have enjoyed this film (as you can notice from some of the other reviews), and even been inspired by the inside ogle at young professionals trying to perform it to the top, or even fair gain in the door. I’m very delighted for them.

The only plight is, that’s NOT what A Chorus Line is about – at least the Pulitzer prize winning stage musical conceived by the tedious Michel Bennett. And if the movie’s director is that far off outrageous, well what you destroy up with is confusing series of characters and stories that don’t seem to have a lot of point to them, other than all these folks are auditioning together one afternoon.

Buy,Download, Or Stream A Chorus Line! Click Here

Buy,Download, Or Stream A Chorus Line! Click Here

Kids breaking into reveal business? No, A Chorus Line is (was) about top-of-their-career professional dancers trying to score one more lousy job to hold food on the table and injuries at bay, letting them work one more year. And asking the demand “Is it really worth the physical afflict, humiliation, and invisibility? ” Most had already let go of the dream of being a star – that would have happened by now if it was in the cards. No they were dancers – but what did that mean?

Although the creators opinion they were putting a project together in workshop that would appeal only to the Broadway community – audiences strongly identified with the dancer’s stories. The audition became a metaphor for any space where people are treated as interchangeable commodities, whether its on a stage, in an office, or in a factory. We’re all “on the line”.

It’s this core that is missing from the film. The stage musical has three pivotal group numbers: the opening “I Hope I Catch It”, “Montage”, and “What I Did For Appreciate”. The rest are individual character songs. (The approved number “One”, is really outside the residence, more of a curtain call than a book number.) “What I Did for Esteem” is practically the emotional climax of the expose – the dancers reaching for an retort to the inevitable ask of “why do this? ” In the film, however, it’s a worship ballad for Cassie, musing over her extinct adore for Zach. On stage, the heart of the display is “Montage”, a single musical number about 15 to 20 minutes long takes the characters stories from the injure and wonder of childhood related in the first half, through puberty, and into young adulthood. It contains the song “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen”, as well as several other themes. It’s not in the movie – replaced with a fresh (and remarkable less ambitious) song “Surprise”. That leaves only the opening number, which thankfully is tranquil there. Unfortunately it pails in comparison to Bob Fosse’s “appropriation” of the notion that he old to initiate his film “All That Jazz” in 1980.

With the major themes shuffled off to the background, what you are left with is the dancer’s shimmering stories, and the Cassie / Zach failed cherish affair melodrama pushed to the fore. The fancy yarn isn’t any more compelling here than it was on Broadway, where Bennett wisely kept it in the background, only using to add an extra layer of tension to the proceedings. But it is friendly to peep the individual dancer’s stories and songs can peaceful notice in the film. The leisurely Greg Burge is riveting in what, on Broadway, was the shrimp role of Ritchie. The film gives him his believe number, the aforementioned “Surprise”. Michael Blevins is sweet as the young Notice, experiencing his first audition. Janet Jones lights up the veil in the small allotment of Judy, demonstrating why she was the sole newcomer to go on to other films (and to marry star hockey player Wayne Gretzky) . Broadway broken-down Terence Mann (Cats, Les Miserables, Man of La Mancha) is memorable in the runt allotment of Larry, the assistant choreographer with a heart of gold. Cameron English gives a heartfelt rendition of what is probably the greatest fragment of writing in the canon of American musicals: Nicholas Dante’s memoir of Paul, the young blissful dancer who’s family disowned him after seeing him invent in a rush reveal.

Buy,Download, Or Stream A Chorus Line! Click Here

Buy,Download, Or Stream A Chorus Line! Click Here

Others don’t fare as well, however. Audrey Landers is exactly the Despicable type of vixenish actress to play Ms. Dance-Ten, Looks-Three. The song comes off as shameful and slutty. It only worked on stage because these repulsive things were coming out of the mouth of a tiny blond Drew Barrymore look-alike in disarming pigtails. And Alyson Reed, a astounding dancer, doesn’t really register as Cassie. Perhaps if a star had been achieve in the fragment, it would have justified all the extra veil time devoted to Cassie’s chorus girl to star to chorus girl legend. But Alyson doesn’t have the lawful charisma or face for the camera. Choreography was handed over to Jeffery Hornady, who was the man of the moment after the success of his Flashdance numbers. Sizable mistake. Obviously Mr. Hornaday had never view a Broadway expose, for the dances peer like outtakes from a Wham! video.

So there you have it – add this one to the list of landmark Broadway musicals butchered on film, along side Gypsy, A Minute Night Music, and Man of La Mancha. Maybe someone can convince Chicago film director Win Marshall to give us a television version of Chorus Line? It really deserves a do-over.

Back stage note: When Universal studios bought the rights to Chorus Line in 1976, they also hired Michael Bennett as producer (and implicitly as director) . Michael spent over a year and a half working on various versions of the screenplay, but eventually got tired of “taking meetings” and left LA for Fresh York where he went to work on Dream Girls. One conception for the movie was to recede from the fresh setting and perform it about dancers auditioning for the film version of “Chorus Line”. He had already approached two hot newcomers to participate. He wanted Mikhail Baryshnikov as Zach, and in a gender switch, Saturday Night Fever star John Travolta in Cassie role. Already that sounds like a more curious movie.

Good Lord, where do I commence?

I’ve held out seeing this “film” because I’ve seen the Broadway production, as well as a worn-out unlit and white beta-video version of the current cast, and I’m jumpy puny was left of the fresh in this “cloak version”. I also have a anecdote in my head told to me by an acting teacher who saw the new production at The Public in NY before it moved to Broadway. He told me he’d seen it with a friend and both walked around the Village, down to the Financial District and then home to 46th Street in silence because they’d been so moved by what they saw.

The film version is a profitable example of what too considerable success can do to something. As other people have suggested – it might have been better to film the stage version, or better yet compose a documentary about the ground breaking “work-shopping” the demonstrate went through in development. It revolutionzed the plan plays and musicals were conceived.

I don’t mean to diminish the talent of any cast member, (well… I could have done without Judy Landers – too definite a choice, and a dinky too clumsy a performance, as well as Mr. Boring-Hollywood himself, Michael Douglas) as they all, of course, suited dancers and singers – I judge some were pulled from the Broadway cast. I liked the actress who plays Cassie very great, but I didn’t like Michael Douglas, and I really hated the fact that they chose to focus on the “Appreciate Memoir” of Zach & Cassie. Accept over it! It was an unbalanced relationship! They probably would be at each others throats during the rehearsals for the demonstrate Zach is directing, and when the prove ends I imagine Cassie saying to Sheila (her original best friend) “Thank God THAT’S over! I mean… ZACH! WHAT WAS I THINKING?!”

Other reviews have captured a lot of things I could say. If you like this film – more power to you, but know if you notice it that it is SO not what the modern was. The stage indicate came at a time when Broadway was in a meander, and some of the themes; homosexuality, sexual experimentation, plastic surgery, etc. were topics that existed but were detached were very taboo, and qualified of ghastly a 70’s audience. It had more relevance aid then, because it seemed that the dancers’ pickle was a metaphor for “Broadway” itself… what do you do when this is all over? There was unexcited some romance in being a “Broadway Dancer”. Currently Broadway seems to be nothing but revivals and corporate sponsored “machine musicals” that will form money no matter what.

Try to behold a touring version, or pick up the play and read in conjuntion with the current cast recording.
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