BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Hrothgar
Date: 10 Jan 04 - 09:16 AM

Oklahoma?

My Fair Lady?

The White Horse Inn?

I'mn getting grumpier!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: beadie
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 10:58 AM

I still consider it one of my lifelong "best experiences" to have been able to catch a traveling company of "Camelot" with Richard Harris as Arthur (Even though I was never that fond of the music, his finale "One Brief Shining Moment" was enough to make my neck hair stand on end).

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Compton
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 07:58 PM

Ranger Steve,
I had the misfortune to see a touring version of Carousel with Darren day (!#*@$£). So many musicals are better on celluloid...Les Mis OUGHT to be wonderful on film...it aint bad, live!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: RangerSteve
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 08:36 AM

Thanks, Beadie. I always thought "The Music Man" was probably the best stage musical around. ANd the movie was great, too. One of the few where they didn't cut anything out. The film version of "My Fair Lady" also remained intact, making it one of the best. The same goes for "Fiddler on the Roof". Hollywood seems to have missed the point with musicals. You go to hear people sing, not talk. Showboat suffers because of this attitude. The last half of the Allen Jones/Irene Dunne version is almost all talk. Forget the color version, songs were deleted and the last half of the story never even made it onto film. In "Brigadoon" all the songs not sung by the two leads was discarded. I've never seen "Carousel" on stage, but the movie is more of a "Talkical", too much space between songs. (and now that I've grown up, I realize it's about an abusive husband that we're supposed to feel some kind of sympathy for, and a much too complacent wife. The song "What's the Use of WOndering" promotes a realy pathetic attitude: a woman who will eventually become a properly subservient wife with a dozen kids telling the abused wife to just live with it. Wow.)
"Grease", the stage version nearly put me to sleep. I don't think you can vote on the best musical unless you've seen the stage version.
And whatever happened to manly baritones like Howard Keel and Alfred Drake? THey've been replaced by Whispering Michael Crawford and other similarly wimpy singers.
Yeah, I'm a Grumpy Old Man, too.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Compton
Date: 07 Jan 04 - 08:12 PM

I once heard someone say that if White Bread could sing, it would sound exactly like Olivia Newton John....she was never the same after Cliff Richard had held her hand !!(or something).
After a lot of thought..It has to be "Singin' in the Rain!".
When IS the beginning of the Grumpy Old Men syndrome?...I'm 56 and been one around six years!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Jan 04 - 04:07 PM

I thought Fiddler on the Roof was a bit OTT.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: beadie
Date: 07 Jan 04 - 03:16 PM

"All That Jazz" as a motion picture

"The Music Man" as a stage production

. . . and I am grumpy, old (at least to my kid), and a man.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: s&r
Date: 07 Jan 04 - 08:40 AM

I loved Grease if only for the new slant on Olivia Newton John. But I never subscribe to the "best" of anything

a. It's so subjective
b. It depends on your mood, age and companions. I saw South pacific twice in one day, with two different companions...
Quite liked South Pacific ;)

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Jan 04 - 08:40 AM

Paint your Wagon gets my vote. But only to see Clint Eastwood singing:-)

I talk to the trees, that's why they took me away...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Pseudolus
Date: 07 Jan 04 - 08:27 AM

I'm kinda partial to "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" but I guess that's kinda obvious..... :)


Frank

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Jan 04 - 03:54 AM

Another one I've only ever managed to see bits of.... Musicals didn't go down well in our house unless they had Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire in them... I've always wondered about my dad....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 05:26 PM

Since the best musical in the world is "Seven Brides for Seven brothers", I dont see the point of discussing the matter further.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 03:19 PM

If these are movie musicals -- not the same as musicals -- almost anything is better than the film version of "Guys and Dolls" (I exclude The Wiz and the Beegees Sgt. Pepper). Many wonderful musicals are crappy movies -- e.g. Gypsy (Rosalind Russell!??); West Side Story (gee, both have Natalie Wood!); and Carousel (Shirley Jones, hand me my airsick bag, Gordon), among them.

Cabaret and Top Hat are probably the best, they are so beautifully crafted.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Compton
Date: 06 Jan 04 - 02:09 PM

Dear Grumpy Old Men (and ladies)
Seems to me, Eejots that voted for Grease must have been Sun readers not Mail readers

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Guessed
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 07:29 AM

Compton
Did you watch GOM?

FWIW i managed to see most of it in spasms but I missed Cat Ballou - was it there? If not then call me grumpy.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: DMcG
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 06:07 AM

My daughter (17) was not too upset about 'Grease' coming top, but the idea that 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' beat 'Les Miserables' and 'Guys and Dolls' horrified her. Does she qualify as a 'grumpy old man'???

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 04:44 AM

I'm not that old and not a man and I'm not that grumpy now that the medication has been altered, but I'm stunned that Grease got to No. 1 too.... Little Shop of Horrors is FAR better!

I was always amazed that that the TV/radio version of 'Greased Lightening' cut the line 'you know it ain't no shit, we'll be getting lots of tit' but allowed the lines 'it's a real pussy wagon' and 'the chicks are gonna cream' along with the associated gestures in the video to stay. Makes you wonder just what the criteria for censorship really are.....

And once again this Christmas I failed to see any part of 'The King and I', a musical that I've seen the beginning, middle and end of, but never in one sitting or even in the same year!

Still it was nice to see some of the oldies again.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Benjamin
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 02:23 AM

I'm not grumpy or old (although there has been some debate as to just how "negative" I can be). Still, I'll have to vote for Finian's Rainbow. It was absolutely brilliant in so many ways!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 09:22 PM

Havnt you noticed Compton??...Planet Mudcat contains only "grumpy old men", and as one of their number I fully agree with your dismay.
I think its to do with the people who actually vote on these programmes (has anybody ever met one).I suppose their all young and happy.....the bastards.
By the way my fav is CABERET.With the brilliant Joel Grey and Lisa Minnelli...Ake

Subject: BS: 'Top 100 musicals'-Chan 4
From: Compton
Date: 29 Dec 03 - 07:59 PM

So I sat through 6 hours of mine numbing nonsense over Crimbo to find (incredibly) that GREASE was nominated as top musical.After I came back off the ceiling, Who on earth, apart from nerdy people who went to the Chan 4 website would vote for that...above "Singing in the Rain" or even "Les Miserables"..It does make any sort of poll meaningless...or is it just me, being a grumpy old man??