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Although some have tried to argue that he was an actual person, it seems likely that the story of a throat-cutting barber Sweeney Todd arose first as a bit of urban myth that was developed into an 1846 story titled THE STRING OF PEARLS by writer Thomas Prest. A year later the story was adapted to the stage as SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET. The story has remained popular into the 21st Century and is today best known as a musical by Stephen Sondheim.
The 1936 English film came about due to English laws which required film studios to produce a certain number of films for every film imported. George King was among the producer-directors who specialized in "quota quickies" and Tod Slaughter was his "star." Born in 1885, Slaughter was never among the great actors of his day--but he was a stage favorite with provincial audiences, most especially when he played villains, and most especially when he played Sweeney Todd.
This particular version of the story differs a great deal from later versions, but the basic story remains the same. Todd is a London barber who occasionally cuts a throat; Mrs. Lovatt (Stella Rho) is his partner in crime, who bakes the victims up into pies. Now, make no mistake about it: this version of SWEENEY TODD is essentially one made by a pack of hacks, so you'll find no art here. It really is a "quota quickie," badly written, badly filmed, with a cast that goes from adequate to inept. Even so, Slaughter and Rho are quite entertaining, playing so broadly and with melodramatic glee that offers a window onto the playing styles of a by-gone era. The whole thing is so over-the-top, ultra-Victorian, English-Gothic that it really can be quite a bit of fun if approached in the right spirit.
It would, however, be quite a bit more fun if the DVD prints available today were good quality. They are not. Indeed they are so poor that the film is barely watchable, and it goes without saying that there are no bonuses of any kind. Recommended, but really only for those who are interested in tracing the history of Sweeney Tod in his various incarnations.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
The 1936 English film came about due to English laws which required film studios to produce a certain number of films for every film imported. George King was among the producer-directors who specialized in "quota quickies" and Tod Slaughter was his "star." Born in 1885, Slaughter was never among the great actors of his day--but he was a stage favorite with provincial audiences, most especially when he played villains, and most especially when he played Sweeney Todd.
This particular version of the story differs a great deal from later versions, but the basic story remains the same. Todd is a London barber who occasionally cuts a throat; Mrs. Lovatt (Stella Rho) is his partner in crime, who bakes the victims up into pies. Now, make no mistake about it: this version of SWEENEY TODD is essentially one made by a pack of hacks, so you'll find no art here. It really is a "quota quickie," badly written, badly filmed, with a cast that goes from adequate to inept. Even so, Slaughter and Rho are quite entertaining, playing so broadly and with melodramatic glee that offers a window onto the playing styles of a by-gone era. The whole thing is so over-the-top, ultra-Victorian, English-Gothic that it really can be quite a bit of fun if approached in the right spirit.
It would, however, be quite a bit more fun if the DVD prints available today were good quality. They are not. Indeed they are so poor that the film is barely watchable, and it goes without saying that there are no bonuses of any kind. Recommended, but really only for those who are interested in tracing the history of Sweeney Tod in his various incarnations.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Although some have tried to argue that he was an actual person, it seems likely that the story of a throat-cutting barber Sweeney Todd arose first as an urban myth that was developed into an 1846 story titled THE STRING OF PEARLS by writer Thomas Prest. A year later the story was adapted to the stage as SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET.
In the 1970s composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim adapted a version of the story to the musical stage. SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET opened on Broadway on 1 March 1979 with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury in the leading roles. Although it swept every award available, box office fell short of expectation and the show ended with a run of 557 performances. Fortunately for us all, however, it has endured--first on the stage, then in concert, and now appearing as a film by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
The story, of course, is famous. Barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to London after having been falsely imprisoned many years ago. When he seeks his family he is told his wife is dead, his daughter Joanna (Jayne Wisener) a prisoner of the lecherous judge (Alan Rickman) who sentenced him. Mad for revenge and criminally twisted, Barker takes the name Sweeney Todd and is soon slitting throats right and left--first by necessity but ultimately for the pleasure of it. He soon associates with Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who finds a handy way of disposing of the bodies: she bakes them into meat pies and soon has a thriving business.
Given his penchant for the Gothic, Burton would seem the perfect choice to helm a film version--and does so beautifully, especially in terms of design. This is the underbelly of Victorian, fog-shrouded London, rendered in dark tones with the occasional splash of red blood. The art design is nothing short of brilliant; the cinematography is all that you could wish. At the same time, however, there is something very slightly amiss: although it has its own fascination, the film simply isn't as funny as it should be. It is hard to say precisely why this is so, but it seems to me that the cause is two-fold: it lacks the satirical edge of the original and it has a slightly obvious quality. Instead of being innovative, SWEENEY TODD is simply Tim Burton as we already know him, and none of it comes as a surprise.
The DVD release is quite handsome, with a huge number of extras and bonuses that are sure to please. Recommended, and sure to find status as a cult classic.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
In the 1970s composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim adapted a version of the story to the musical stage. SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET opened on Broadway on 1 March 1979 with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury in the leading roles. Although it swept every award available, box office fell short of expectation and the show ended with a run of 557 performances. Fortunately for us all, however, it has endured--first on the stage, then in concert, and now appearing as a film by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
The story, of course, is famous. Barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to London after having been falsely imprisoned many years ago. When he seeks his family he is told his wife is dead, his daughter Joanna (Jayne Wisener) a prisoner of the lecherous judge (Alan Rickman) who sentenced him. Mad for revenge and criminally twisted, Barker takes the name Sweeney Todd and is soon slitting throats right and left--first by necessity but ultimately for the pleasure of it. He soon associates with Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who finds a handy way of disposing of the bodies: she bakes them into meat pies and soon has a thriving business.
Given his penchant for the Gothic, Burton would seem the perfect choice to helm a film version--and does so beautifully, especially in terms of design. This is the underbelly of Victorian, fog-shrouded London, rendered in dark tones with the occasional splash of red blood. The art design is nothing short of brilliant; the cinematography is all that you could wish. At the same time, however, there is something very slightly amiss: although it has its own fascination, the film simply isn't as funny as it should be. It is hard to say precisely why this is so, but it seems to me that the cause is two-fold: it lacks the satirical edge of the original and it has a slightly obvious quality. Instead of being innovative, SWEENEY TODD is simply Tim Burton as we already know him, and none of it comes as a surprise.
The DVD release is quite handsome, with a huge number of extras and bonuses that are sure to please. Recommended, and sure to find status as a cult classic.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
The rock band Queen formed in England in 1972. Although several critics admired their earliest releases, the public remained largely indifferent until the 1974 SHEER HEART ATTACK, which jolted the band to fame in both England and America--and throughout the 1970s Queen generated one major recording success after another with A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A DAY AT THE RACES, and NEWS OF THE WORLD. Even so, the band often provoked a "love it or hate it" reaction; they offered an odd mixture of thundering hard rock, English musical hall, and progressive sound in a "glamrock" package, and as time passed American audiences found it less and less appealing--particularly when dogged by rumors about lead singer Freddie Mercury's sexuality and the sexually "ify" nature of the band's name itself.
By the early 1980s those controversies, shifts in musical tastes, and the band's extremely ill-advised gig at the segregated South African resort of Sun City effectively knocked Queen out of the lucrative American market. But something unexpected happened: Queen, which had long been a concert favorite in Asia and Europe, emerged as the world's premiere stadium concert act, and quite suddenly the American market was almost irrelevant. Who cares about New York and Los Angeles when you have out-charted every one from Elvis Presley to the Beatles and when you are the single biggest concert draw in world history? In 1986 Queen played England's Wembley Stadium, one of the largest venues in Europe, performing two concerts (one in a rainstorm) to sold out audiences. The concert was filmed, and it presents a great band that clearly had a great talent for playing to such incredibly large audiences.
When you listen to Queen's most popular releases you listen to a band that knows how to work a recording studio to the nth degree--and so it is very easy to forget exactly how athletic and musically muscular Queen was. WEMBLEY reminds you of the fundamental facts in no uncertain terms: four band members, a single back up musician to pick up occasional phrases here and there, and that was it. And they clearly do everything but tear Wembley Stadium down to the ground.
At this point in the band's history concerts focused tightly around lead singer Freddie Mercury, who had a unique talent for dominating the massive audiences to which he played: handsome, muscular, he is all over the stage--and then there is that voice. Mercury is said to have had a four-octave range, and while his upper registers were too delicate for the demands of the concert stage you don't doubt it for a minute. This is a voice as delicate as a trembling candle flame, as roaring as bonfire, and shifting between both extremes without the faintest sign of strain or effort. And the band is behind him every inch of the way: Brian May, lead guitar, is a legendary performer in his own right, and bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor are rock solid as well.
That said, however, the film itself is actually only so-so, and the reason is very obvious: the editing. The thing consists of one flash cut after another, bouncing from Mercury to May to Taylor and shortchanging Deacon in the process. We have plenty of close ups, and very often some remarkable shots of the crowd--"Radio Gaga" is particularly extraordinary in this--but we seldom actually get to see the band as a whole. The endless cuts become more than a little wearing after a while and they ultimately undercut the energy of the concert itself.
The producers make up for this a little bit on the bonus disk, which includes a feature that allows you to focus exclusively on one performer at a time over the course of a few songs. The bonus disk also includes several documentaries that range from the "fair enough" to the "very good." Queen was a great live band, no doubt about it; the film falls short of that, but even so it reminds you very clearly of what Freddie, Brian, John, and Roger could do when they put their minds to it. It also has a certain poignancy, particularly when Mercury remarks that the band will stay together until they die, particularly given that Mercury very likely knew at this point that he was HIV positive and would not be able to tour much longer. He would be dead five years later. Strongly recommended in spite of flaws.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
By the early 1980s those controversies, shifts in musical tastes, and the band's extremely ill-advised gig at the segregated South African resort of Sun City effectively knocked Queen out of the lucrative American market. But something unexpected happened: Queen, which had long been a concert favorite in Asia and Europe, emerged as the world's premiere stadium concert act, and quite suddenly the American market was almost irrelevant. Who cares about New York and Los Angeles when you have out-charted every one from Elvis Presley to the Beatles and when you are the single biggest concert draw in world history? In 1986 Queen played England's Wembley Stadium, one of the largest venues in Europe, performing two concerts (one in a rainstorm) to sold out audiences. The concert was filmed, and it presents a great band that clearly had a great talent for playing to such incredibly large audiences.
When you listen to Queen's most popular releases you listen to a band that knows how to work a recording studio to the nth degree--and so it is very easy to forget exactly how athletic and musically muscular Queen was. WEMBLEY reminds you of the fundamental facts in no uncertain terms: four band members, a single back up musician to pick up occasional phrases here and there, and that was it. And they clearly do everything but tear Wembley Stadium down to the ground.
At this point in the band's history concerts focused tightly around lead singer Freddie Mercury, who had a unique talent for dominating the massive audiences to which he played: handsome, muscular, he is all over the stage--and then there is that voice. Mercury is said to have had a four-octave range, and while his upper registers were too delicate for the demands of the concert stage you don't doubt it for a minute. This is a voice as delicate as a trembling candle flame, as roaring as bonfire, and shifting between both extremes without the faintest sign of strain or effort. And the band is behind him every inch of the way: Brian May, lead guitar, is a legendary performer in his own right, and bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor are rock solid as well.
That said, however, the film itself is actually only so-so, and the reason is very obvious: the editing. The thing consists of one flash cut after another, bouncing from Mercury to May to Taylor and shortchanging Deacon in the process. We have plenty of close ups, and very often some remarkable shots of the crowd--"Radio Gaga" is particularly extraordinary in this--but we seldom actually get to see the band as a whole. The endless cuts become more than a little wearing after a while and they ultimately undercut the energy of the concert itself.
The producers make up for this a little bit on the bonus disk, which includes a feature that allows you to focus exclusively on one performer at a time over the course of a few songs. The bonus disk also includes several documentaries that range from the "fair enough" to the "very good." Queen was a great live band, no doubt about it; the film falls short of that, but even so it reminds you very clearly of what Freddie, Brian, John, and Roger could do when they put their minds to it. It also has a certain poignancy, particularly when Mercury remarks that the band will stay together until they die, particularly given that Mercury very likely knew at this point that he was HIV positive and would not be able to tour much longer. He would be dead five years later. Strongly recommended in spite of flaws.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer