Stage to Screen Adaptations: Scott Edmiston's List of the Ten Best and Worst
In fall 2005 theatre lovers are wondering: will the film of RENT capture on the big screen what was so fresh and exciting about the musical when it debuted onstage in 1995? Or will we be subjected to yet another inept cinematic mishandling of a once memorable stage work? We breathed a collective sigh of relief when Angels in America went to cable with its integrity intact (and perhaps even enhanced), rather than see it reworked to accommodate movie stars with box office clout (say, Vin Diesel as Roy Cohn?). Over the years Hollywood has, on occasion, served us very well, and on other occasions, butchered a stage work that we cherish dearly. Here are my nominations for the ten best and worst stage to screen adaptations.
THE BEST
1. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
Directed by Elia Kazan
Starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando
Kazan's stunning film is a work of art in its own right, indelibly capturing the poetic, brutal devastation of Tennessee Williams' greatest drama. The mood, the language, and the characterizations sensitively unite to offer deeper emotional and psychological intimacy than is possible in a theatre. Leigh's stagey, artfully crafted, Oscar-winning performance as Blanche DuBois evokes our collective memory of her as Scarlett O'Hara but reveals dimensions of desperation we never imagined possible from the legendary acting beauty. Teaming her with the cinema verité honesty of a methody young Brando in his erotic prime was a masterful idea. Their two acting styles clash like their characters and create a palpable, dangerous sensuality that Brando later admitted was real. Their performances are so iconic that no actors have ever erased them. Throw in Oscar-winners Karl Malden and Kim Hunter reprising their stage roles as Mitch and Stella and you have the most definitive stage to screen adaptation ever.
2. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
Directed by Robert Wise
Starring Natalie Wood and Richard Breymer
We don't even care that Maria and Tony don't do their own singing. Wise and choreographer Jerome Robbins opened up Bernstein and Sondheim's modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet with such expertise that it is often forgotten that West Side Story was a much bigger hit as a movie than it ever was on Broadway. They find a sort of epic American grandeur in this simple tale of star-crossed teenagers. The camera bursts along the streets and alleys of New York City in a way that serves the dynamic energy and power of the music, the dance, and our emotions. Arguably, this is the peak moment for the American musical both on stage and on film.
3. WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)
Directed by Mike Nichols
Starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
The Brad and Angelina of their day, “Liz and Dick” were the world's most famous lovers – and they were never this good again. Playing husband and wife George and Martha, there is something chemical and frightening happening between them that is more than acting. Nichols turns Edward Albee's verbal and psychological slugfest into a gritty, claustrophobic, black-and-white nightmare that is as funny and sad as it is harrowing. Earning Oscars for Taylor and Sandy Dennis as Honey, the film allows you to get under the skin of the characters with a rawness that never denies them their humanity. The tender, final moments as sunlight dawns aptly earned this film the nickname “Long Night's Journey Into Day.”
4. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
Directed by George Cukor
Starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart
Hepburn had a Broadway triumph as brittle heiress Tracy Lord (a role written for her by Phillip Barry) and requested Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy for her film co-stars. Happily she got Grant and Stewart instead, and the peerless trio glides effortlessly through this quintessential American comedy of manners with an elegance and romantic sophistication that will never be matched. The screenplay smartly tightens the script – beginning with a hilarious, wordless prologue showing Tracy's combative first marriage – and gives Grant's character more melancholy charm and integrity than he had on stage. Hepburn and Stewart's divine, delirious drunk scene in the moonlight indelibly demonstrates the hearth fires and holocausts in the hearts of the idle rich.
5. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
Directed by Robert Wise
Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer
This movie is so indelibly etched in the American psyche that if you encounter the original stage version it feels like they got it wrong. Reworking the song sequence, adding new songs, and filming in actual Austrian locations transport this musical into a universe of its own. Andrews sings the score with crystal clarity that sounds like the songs were written for her, and her acting has an unaffected combination of spunkiness and grace. Stoic non-singer Plummer keeps the proceeding from teetering into cuteness, and Eleanor Parker's Baroness adds a touch of bittersweet bitchiness. Whatever the power of the theatre, we can never compete with the thrill of soaring down from the sky to discover Maria on that mountain top. Somewhere in our youths – or childhoods – we did something good to deserve this movie.
6. YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1937)
Directed by Frank Capra
Starring Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur, and James Stewart
Capra was an inspired choice to helm the film version of the Pulitzer-Prize winning Kaufman and Hart play. He brings his trademark affection for the common man and seasons it with screwball romance and anti-establishment sentiment. Alice, who comes from a poor and very eccentric family, falls for rich boy Tony Kirby but their family values inevitably clash. Here, the plot is expanded when the powerful Kirby industry tries to buy and tear down the Sycamore family's beloved home for financial gain. More than on stage, the comedy resonates as a shrewd metaphor for American individualism battling capitalist greed and offers charming performances by its three stars and some of the best character actors of the 1930s.
7. HENRY IV (1989)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson
Only rarely has Shakespeare been effectively transferred to the screen – his enormous emotions and glorious iambics often fit uneasily in realistic settings. Laurence Olivier's Hamlet is filled with great sequences (though Jean Simmon's Ophelia doesn't hold up), and Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing is a delightfully satisfying romp. But my vote for the best is this searing story of the reluctant British monarch's rise to self-fulfillment and military victory. It's all here – the poetry and the history – told with an urgency that makes the story feel as relevant as today's headlines. From the inspired “Crispin's Day” speech to the bloody realities of battle, the glories of the Bard and both the horrors (and honors) of war have never been so powerfully captured on film.
8. LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Starring Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell
They rehearsed and filmed this drama in sequence like a play, and it shows in the modulated, moment-to-moment unraveling of a day in the life of the doomed Tyrone family. Lumet's focus grows tighter and tighter and allows his actors to make bold, daring, ever-deeper choices as they navigate through Eugene O'Neill's cyclical love-hate relationships. The greatest actress of the 20th century, Hepburn, takes on the greatest role of her career and her well-known mannerisms beautifully serve Mary's high-strung descent into morphine madness. It's a gutsy performance that dominates the film, though an embittered Robards (recreating his stage role as Jamie) and a silver-throated Richardson hold their own. Filmed in black and white, this is an unvarnished depiction of the light and darkness of the human soul.
9. CABARET (1972)
Directed by Bob Fosse
Starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and Joel Grey
Actors take heart. Kander and Ebb wrote this musical for their friend Liza but stage director Harold Prince turned her down for the Broadway production. Eventually, she got the role of Sally Bowles in the film version, won the Academy Award, and became a superstar. The accolades were deserved. She makes the character entirely her own – giggling gamine, delusional loser, bohemian sensualist -- acted and sung with a shattering vulnerability and survivor's self-awareness. But Fosse's film is more than a diva turn. It darkly captures the decadent, sensual, foolish society that gave birth to Nazism between the two wars. The visual style and editing have impacted everything from MTV to the way we now produce stage works by Brecht. Much of the original stage script and songs were dropped but who cares? Fosse had a theatrical-cinematic vision uniquely his own.
10. CHIGAGO (2001)
Directed by Rob Marshall
Starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere
This is the best movie Bob Fosse never made. Marshall improved on the stage version in every way – adding real scenes and context while theatrically abstracting the musical numbers with a razzle-dazzle showmanship that is often breathtaking. We thought Broadway was resigned to be the graveyard of movie adaptations and the era of smart stage-to-screen musicals was dead. This proved us wrong.
Honorable Mention: Hamlet (Olivier), A Raisin in the Sun, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Glengary Glen Ross, Stage Door, Plenty, Much Ado About Nothing, Desk Set, Picnic, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, An Ideal Husband, The Iceman Cometh, The Little Foxes, Bus Stop, Little Shop of Horrors, Look Back in Anger, Night of the Iguana, Hair.
THE WORST
1. THE GLASS MENAGERIE (1950)
You've probably never seen this perverse mishandling of Williams' tender, haunting play. Be grateful. Noel Coward's glamorous chum Gertrude Lawrence assumed the role of Amanda on the condition that she be shown in flashbacks as youthful and beautiful. Kirk Douglas is a respectable Gentleman Caller, but as Laura, Jane Wyman's perfectly coiffed platinum bangs are a greater disability than her limp. You will shriek in horror when, in the end, Laura cheerfully persuades Tom to guiltlessly leave home – and another Gentleman Caller arrives so she can get married after all!
2. A CHORUS LINE (1985)
This is no one's idea of what we do for love. Avert your eyes from the screen or you may go blind.
3. DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS (1958)
Tragic, but not in the way Eugene O'Neill intended. His provocative retelling of PHAEDRA explores the doomed, forbidden passion between a son, his stepmother, and his father on a remote New England farm. In this homogenized Eisenhower-era movie, that love triangle is enacted by pyscho Anthony Perkins, buxom Sophia Loren, and snowman Burl Ives in possibly the most repellant ménage à trois ever committed to celluloid.
4. A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (1977)
Sondheim's only major solo work to receive a film adaptation has all the elegance, wit, and nuance of a 1970s Alka Seltzer commercial. As the fading actress Desiree, puffy Elizabeth Taylor is clearly in an alcoholic haze and hasn't a clue what she's doing. It's no surprise that after filming she married a Republican and checked into Betty Ford. Len Cariou as Frederik appears embarrassed, and the glorious waltzing score is trimmed or muddied beyond recognition. Send in the clowns? Don't bother...they're here.
5. OUR TOWN (1939)
It was suicidal to realistically film Thornton Wilder's brilliant stage-bound work which is built on the essential metaphor of Theatre as Life. But to make matters worse, in the final reel, Emily comes back from the dead to live happily ever after with George. This may be someone's town, but it certainly isn't ours.
6. MAME (1974)
Although well filmed by Gene Saks and boasting fine production and costume designs, nobody loved Lucy as everybody's favorite aunt. Past her madcap prime and with a singing voice like Fred Mertz, her performance is only mitigated by the fact that you can barely see it through the gauzy lens with which she was filmed. In a supporting role, Bea Arthur has a few good moments playing a drag queen.
7. LOVE'S LABOURS LOST (2000)
Kenneth Branagh's concept of setting Shakespeare's sparkling minor comedy in the 1940s and adding Cole Porter songs sounds like a good idea. It would have been a much better idea if he had cast actors who could speak verse or sing.
8. THE WIZ (1978)
L. Frank Baum goes disco in this shockingly ill-conceived, over-produced, and utterly charmless spectacle that transforms Oz into 1970s Manhattan. As an afro-ed, agoraphobic, middle-aged Dorothy, Diana Ross flails her arms and legs, and shrieks or weeps her way through the songs as if she were still playing Billie Holiday on withdrawal. Director Sidney Lumet is hopelessly out of his element, and only Lena Horne (though presented like she is on the Muppet Show) manages to offer an honest musical moment. Recommended for hardcore Nipsey Russell fans only.
9.BETRAYAL (1983)
Harold Pinter's austere, mesmerizing play dramatizing a merciless love-triangle gone wrong as it reveals ever deeper levels of betrayal – by love, youth, art, language, friendship, and self – painfully revealed by mysterious elliptical dialogue. On stage, its reverse sequence of events seems revolutionary. On film, it becomes a limp, unpleasant soap opera about adultery between unattractive, non verbal British people told in flashback.
10. ANNIE (1983)
Hey! Hard-drinking, cigar-smoking legend John Huston did a great job directing The Treasure of Sierra Madre – let's ask him to do Annie! The stage hit was a clever reworking of how perennial film-orphan Shirley Temple optimistically helped America survive its Great Depression. That basic idea is lost in this sugary, clunky, rhythm-less movie which hasn't a clue how musicals work and squanders its miscast cast. Carol Burnett works her head off as Miss Hannigan, trying valiantly to lift the proceedings to no avail. I heard the poor child who played Annie was admitted to the witness protection program.
Dishonorable Mention: Dancing at Lughnasa, Fool for Love, Mack the Knife, The Pirate Movie, Hello Dolly!, The Importance of Being Earnest, Brigadoon, South Pacific, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Mourning Becomes Electra, Phantom of the Opera
Scott Edmiston has spent the past twenty years working as an artist, administrator, and educator in theatres and universities throughout the Northeast. An award-winning director and recipient of the 2005 StageSource Theatre Hero Award, Mr. Edmiston currently serves as the Director of the Office of the Arts at Brandeis University and has served on the StageSource board since 1998.
posted November 17, 2005