This updated tribute to the classic Hollywood film musicals like Singing in the Rain has proven to be an absolute cultural sensation, and, along with the success of Hamilton, has done much to make musicals far more relevant to the mainstream culture than they had been in decades. It features a heartwrenchingly bittersweet love story of two idealistic dreamers with high artistic aspirations that wind up becoming each others’ muses, only to part ways when their dreams take them in different directions.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the basic, fundamental plot outline of the show is very similar to that of the movie and Broadway musical Once. The thing that makes these two works distinct from each other is that, while Once is relentlessly naturalistic, with its diagetic songs and ultra-subtle characterization, La La Land draws on a mix of high cinematic ‘Magical Realism’ and the fanciful tone of the ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood musicals to create a rhapsodic musical fantasy.

The influence of the classic movie musicals titles this film was intended to homage is evident in almost every element of the film, but it particularly pervades the dancing. From the Astaire-and-Rogers feel of the I’m-not-falling-in-love-honest-I’m-not duet “A Lovely Night”, to a climactic dream ballet straight out of An American In Paris showing the life the two main characters might have had together if things had gone differently, this film definitely dances like movie musicals used to before the 1960s.

The primary stylistic difference between those films and this one lies in the nature of the score. The lyrics to the songs were penned by overnight Broadway legends Pasek and Paul, and I commend them…they captured exactly the kind of heartrending hyperromanticism this story calls for. But the actual vocal music itself is really just an extension of Justin Hurwitz’s jazz-influenced instrumental score that pervades the whole film. This isn’t how they wrote in the ‘classic’ era…back then, they generally wrote songs and then worked backwards from them to create an instrumental score…but it works, and helps give the film a genuinely modern feel that makes it more than just a genre pastiche.

Ryan Gosling gives a fine performance is the male lead, with a kind of quiet intensity and low-key charisma that is very appropriate for his character, but the most impressive aspect of his performance is his piano playing, which was apparently done entirely by Gosling himself and which is absolutely mind-blowing, especially coming from someone who reportedly learned to play just months before the movie was filmed. Emma Stone in the female lead gives the most irresistible performance we’ve seen in a movie musical in decades, beyond adorable and breathtakingly sincere, especially in her monumentally moving eleven-O’clock number, “The Fools Who Dream”.

The other performance of exceptional note is singer John Legend as Gosling’s foil. He represents the modernization of Jazz that Gosling’s character defiantly resists, and it’s to the movie’s credit that they allow him to have genuinely convincing arguments (like when he points out that the Jazz greats Gosling worships were themselves revolutionaries, not traditionalists), and give him an absolutely blinding musical number to represent his preferred style of music. “Start a Fire” was written by an entirely different team of songwriters (including Legend himself) than the rest of the score, to give it the visibly out-of-place feeling that its dramatic function requires. It’s a phenomenal Jazz-Funk showstopper, and might be the best song that Legend has ever recorded…no small achievement for the man who sang “Ordinary People” and “All of Me”.

This is one of those rare pieces of cinematic alchemy where every individual element works perfectly and compliments every other aspect. As brilliant as all the artistic components I’ve described so far are in themselves, the film is still a million times more than the sum of its parts, so there’s really no describing its full greatness of paper. I’m obviously not the first to lavishly praise its achievements, and I certainly won’t be the last…this film is clearly in it for the long haul, and will undoubtedly be one of tomorrow’s classics…but this is one work that can’t really be fully described in any review. To really appreciate the impact that this one-of-a-kind-masterpiece has in the moment, you have to actually see it, from beginning to end, so I suggest you all make arrangements to do that as soon as possible.

The second installment of the High School Musical franchise was a step up in overall craftsmanship…Disney actually knew what a big deal this film would be this time around, and they poured a lot more effort and budget into it. The plot is quite a bit stronger, dealing with issues of temptation and selling out…not in the deepest way possible, granted, but one can’t expect miracles.

The real star of the show, acting-wise, is Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay Evans. Her role is greatly expanded from the first installment, and she plays a much more manipulative and diabolical villain here, playing up her campy portrayal from the first movie into a hilariously terrifying blend of lapdog and rottweiler. Her portrayal here may seem to contradict her friendly about-face at the end of the first movie, but I think it indicates that Sharpay Evans, like Velma Von Tussle from Hairspray, is that particular brand of the ‘conniving bitch’ archetype who’s actually a perfectly nice person until and unless she wants something.

The rest of the cast are about the same as they were in the first movie, although the more dramatic script gives them more opportunities for acting. The main difference is that the dubbed voice of Troy from the first movie, irritating proto-Bieber falsetto Drew Seeley, is gone, and Zac Efron is doing his own singing. Efron was still kind of figuring out the whole acting thing at this point, but he turned out to be a surprisingly strong singer…not only should he have been doing his own vocals from day one, but unlike Seeley, he has some heft in his voice. It was this realization that presumably led the songwriters to create the most dramatic song in this score, “Bet On It”. Yes, it’s incredibly melodramatic and has an almost comedic effect, but I think a fair amount of that was intentional…after all, this is a franchise whose saving grace was never taking itself too seriously. And in any case, Efron’s powerful baritenor and ultra-forceful delivery sell the Hell out of it.

The rest of the score is less even than the first one…it even features the franchise’s first true Floppo number, the indescribable Hawaiian novelty “HUMUHUMUNUKUNUKUAPUA’A”…but its best moments are much more sophisticated and well-crafted than anything in the previous score. Many of the songs are admittedly clear retreads of song models from the first movie…the love duet heard as a ballad for the heroes and as an up-tune for the villains (“What I’ve Been Looking For”/”You Are the Music In Me”); the R&B-influenced production number based on a sport (“Getcha Head In the Game”/”I Don’t Dance”); the melancholy third-act breakup ballad (“When There Was Me and You”/”Gotta Go My Own Way”); the soaring eleven-o’clock ballad (“Breaking Free”/”Everyday”); and the dance party finale with a message about togetherness (“We’re All In This Together”/”All-4-One”). But with the exception of that last one, all of these examples show a marked improvement from their predecessors in the original, which somewhat justifies the practice. (This wouldn’t stop with the third installment, either…”Bet On It” and the avaricious villain Wanting Song “Fabulous” would get counterparts there in “Scream” and “I Want It All”).

This film is more polished, and (I suppose) marginally more ambitious than its predecessor, but it is ultimately the same kind of silly but harmless guilty pleasure that the first film was. That said, it’s interesting to note that this particular installment of HSM has almost exactly the same plot setup and structure as Jason Robert Brown’s 13, and despite marginally less interesting music, it is actually much more likable, consistent in tone, and generally satisfying than that show will ever be. So if you ever feel the need to see a production of 13, remember: this movie has about equally good music and tells almost the same story, in basically the same genre, but in a much more enjoyable fashion. And frankly, you can watch this film for a fraction of the ticket prices even at the regional theaters 13 has now been consigned to. So this movie does have a definite use—as a positive alternative to an overrated second-tier musical, and a reminder that the HSM movies actually did some things better than some of their more sophisticated imitators.

This was probably the best of the crop of live television musicals up to that point. It probably isn’t as good as Hairspray Live, given that it doesn’t live up to its source, but to be fair, that source was a pretty hard one to top.

Apart from importing a few lines from the audience participation script into the actual show and reinserting the stage version’s final song, “Super Heroes”, the script is almost dogmatically faithful to the original screenplay. Indeed, given today’s politically correct world and the pressures generally placed on primetime television, I was amazed at how much of the transgressive debauchery that made up the original plot was unapologetically retained in the finished version.

Much was made of an actual transgender actress, Laverne Cox, playing Frank N. Furter, but I tend to judge these cases solely on an artistic level. Fortunately, Cox more than passes muster on that front. If she doesn’t equal Tim Curry’s original (which, let’s be honest, no-one will ever do), she still has all the evil charisma and twisted sex appeal to be worthy to fill his shoes, and that alone is more than you’d expect from practically anybody.

The supporting cast are equally excellent. If I had to lodge any criticism, it would be that Reeve Carney and Christina Milian as Riff-Raff and Magenta, while certainly capable enough, are a bit too normal compared to the terrifyingly weird Richard O’Brien and Patricia Quinn in the original.

But several of the performances actually improve on the ones in the first film. Ryan McCarten is much more likable as Brad than Barry Bostwick, although I suppose you could debate whether that’s really a good thing given that being unlikable is essentially the point of Brad’s character. But Annaleigh Ashford is a much more human and touching Columbia than ‘Little’ Nell Campbell’s hyperactive cartoon, and Victoria Justice is indisputably a huge improvement on Susan Sarandon in singing, acting, and even looks.

Ben Vereen is, to be frank, a far more interesting Dr. Scott than Jonathan Adams, and, in a nod to the show’s legacy, Tim Curry plays The Criminologist, providing a sense of gravitas that is at least equal to Charles Gray’s original. And Adam Lambert is a natural choice for Eddie, given that he is modern Pop’s closest equivalent to Meat Loaf, albeit thinner and prettier.

This may not equal the legendary project on which it was based, but it did as good a job at recapturing what made it work as anyone could possibly expect. It’s often helpful to think of these TV adaptations of musicals that are already famous on film as revivals, rather than remakes, and if this were a stage revival, it would be the best we’d gotten since the Tom Hewitt Broadway revival back in 2000.

Certainly it did a vastly better job than any previous live TV musical except perhaps The Wiz Live, and that one was dealing with a much more minor classic whose earlier film adaptation had been an unmitigated disaster. This one, on the other hand, chose source material that seemed impossible to improve on and even pointless to attempt to duplicate, and if its reach to equal the original ultimately exceeded its grasp, its frankly astounding quality serves as a reminder of the benefits of reaching for the impossible.

At last, we finally have a decent video resource for the Broadway musical classic Hairspray. The earlier film version has its admirers (mostly among people who never actually saw the stage show), but it completely fudged the tone of the piece and offered a horribly uneven cast capped by a terrible performance by John Travolta as Edna.

This live TV version, on the other hand, sticks quite faithfully to the stage show, only making some slight cuts and abbreviations here and there for the sake of the running time, and features superb performances across the board. Above all else, Harvey Fierstein reprises his legendary performance as Edna Turnblad, offering a chance for the non-theater-going public to see how this role is supposed to be done (Fierstein, a successful playwright and musical librettist, also did what little adaptation had to be done to the stage book for this production).

Newcomer Maddie Baillio makes an absolutely delectable Tracy. As good as Nikki Blonsky was in the earlier film, she lacked the fundamental sex appeal that is so important to this role. A good Tracy should be not only adorable, but also genuinely sexy; Baillio has both qualities locked down, and her singing, dancing and comedy skills are almost on a par with Marissa Jaret Winokur’s legendary original.

Ariana Grande did an impressive job of not hogging the spotlight…she’s worked well in ensembles before, of course, but that was before she was the most famous person in the cast, so it’s impressive that she didn’t overpower her colleagues in the role of Penny. That said, she was also beyond adorable as the pig-tailed, bespectacled wallflower and steamingly sexy after she comes out of her shell, and she sang with all the power we know she possesses.

Kristen Chenoweth was show-stealingly marvelous as villainess Velma Von Tussle, even managing to make the cheesy “Miss Baltimore Crabs” seem thrilling. Dove Cameron was an amusing Amber, if perhaps just a bit too likable for the part…even on her most venomous lines, she came off a bit too nice in this version. That said, she was a damned sight better than the annoying Brittany Snow in the first movie version.

Garrett Clayton was a less interesting Link than Matthew Morrison in the original Broadway cast or Zac Efron in the first film…he has the basic style of the part down and is likable enough, but neither his singing nor his acting approach that of his two famous predecessors. But Ephraim Sykes is just as dynamic and charismatic a Seaweed as Elijah Kelley was in the earlier film, and Derek Hough is easily the best Corny Collins in the history of the role, stopping the show with a big number interpolated specifically for him, “Ladies’ Choice”.

Jennifer Hudson looks a bit too slender in the role of Motormouth Maybelle…they really should have padded her costume more…but that’s the only conceivable complaint about her performance; her singing and acting were superb, especially on the unforgettable eleven-o’clocker “I Know Where I’ve Been”. Martin Short does somewhat overplay the part of Wilbur…the role really calls for a subtler actor like Dick Latessa…but at least his overplaying was actually funny, rather than just annoying like Christopher Walken in the first film, and he does have the warmth the part needs.

More than any one performance, though, what makes this film such a revelation is that it actually captures how the show plays on stage in a way the earlier movie didn’t even attempt. The feeling of a musical-comedy fantasy landscape just real enough to make you care about the racial issues at the story’s center is preserved, and the jarringly indecisive mood swings of the alternately blithe and gritty movie version are nowhere to be found. In particular, Hairspray has one of the most thrilling final scenes of any musical ever seen on Broadway, and for the first time audiences can witness its glories in the comfort of their own living rooms.

The show does interpolate the two songs written for the movie (including the film’s credits song “Come So Far (Got So Far To Go)”, which might be a mistake as it comes off as quite anticlimactic after the epic finale), and deletes the stage show’s weakest and least plot-relevant song, “The Big Dollhouse”. But apart from that, and a few trimmings to the plot to keep it within the allotted TV running time, this really is basically the stage show transplanted to the screen. Even the occasional fourth-wall breaks (which, to the producers’ credit, were far less relentless than they had been in Grease Live) don’t really hurt the effect, as Hairspray is, as I stated, a musical-comedy fantasy that winks at the fourth wall a few times even in the original stage script.

The dancing is just as thrilling as it was in the stage production, which is key in this show where the very plot itself revolves around dance, and the production has the same energy that characterized the Broadway show. Apparently this did less well in its initial viewing than some of the other live musicals (such as The Sound of Music, Grease, The Wiz and Peter Pan), but that’s to be expected, as it’s a newer and slightly less well-known show than the old-school classics those were drawn from. But now that people have actually seen it, I imagine it will at least equal The Wiz Live and Grease Live and far outstrip the inferior Peter Pan and The Sound of Music adaptations in its actual legacy. After all, which would you rather watch…a production of Peter Pan starring Christopher Walken, or a flawless recreation of the Broadway production of Hairspray with Harvey Fierstein in his original role? Seriously, it’s not even a choice.

There are three separate video resources for Les Miserables, the most familiar of which to the general public would be the 2012 film version. The best way I can describe that film version is to say that, as a movie, it is close to spectacular, but as music, it’s something of a disappointment.

The show’s epic historical scope was captured extremely well, the material is faithfully treated, and most of the performances were excellent. However, the beauty and emotional power of the show’s score is somewhat weakened by the technique of filming the vocals live rather than using a soundtrack. This results in a somewhat talky vocal style even on the show’s most expansive numbers, and an overall loss of the sheer richness and sweep of the stage score.

Granted, the other two Les Mis video recordings are concerts, so everyone is standing at microphones rather than acting out the scenes, and there is only the most minimal of scenery. But since Les Mis was modeled on real opera, the score carries most of the dramatic content anyway, and the action and conflict still come across strongly.

Hugh Jackman, one of the few modern A-list movie stars who is also a seasoned Broadway veteran, is an absolutely luminous Valjean in both his acting and singing, even if the film’s talky singing style detracts somewhat from his vocal splendor. Alfie Boe is a bit of a blusterer as Valjean in the 25th Anniversary concert, emoting melodramatically and sometimes shouting more than singing, but despite being a far less talented performer than Jackman, he still does more singing and less talking on Valjean’s songs that Jackman did. However, Colm Wilkinson in the Tenth Anniversary concert has them both beat by a mile. He was the very first Valjean in both the London and Broadway productions, so the part was specifically written for him, and he sings and acts it better than anyone else ever has or ever will, hands down. (He also makes a cameo in the movie, bringing a special gravitas to the small but key role of the Bishop of Digne).

Russell Crowe is about as bad a singer as reputation has made him out to be, but he does provide an impressive study of Javert’s character, and is surprisingly interesting in the role despite his poor vocal performance. Still, he doesn’t come close to the level of Phillip Quast in the Tenth Anniversary cast or Norm Lewis in the 25th Anniversary version, both of whom make marvelously intimidating Javerts (Lewis may be the scariest Javert on record). They may be a little too imposing for this ultimately rather pathetic character, in contrast to Crowe or Terrence Mann on the Original Broadway cast album, but they both have the strong baritone voice that the role requires, which Crowe emphatically does not.

Lea Salonga in the 25th Anniversary cast may well be the best Fantine of all time. If you’ve been so jaded by the overexposure of “I Dreamed a Dream” that you think you’ll never be able to properly appreciate it again, just listen to Salonga’s version. Anne Hathaway, who plays Fantine in the movie, gets the best chance to show off her beautiful singing voice and abilities as a serious actress that she’s ever received, and the role won her a level of credibility she had never received before, showing that in spite of her lengthy list of bad roles she is still a splendid performer. Ruthie Henshall in the Tenth Anniversary cast is a less distinctive Fantine than the other two (not surprising, given who she had to compete with), but she too does a fine job with the part, singing well and acting with suitable intensity.

Marius is rather an underwritten character to begin with…the original authors relied too heavily on the personality of his original performer, Michael Ball, and didn’t write enough actual interest into the character’s material. Ball is on hand to reprise his role in the Tenth Anniversary cast, and he will always be the ideal choice for the role. That said, Eddie Redmayne in the film does a better job of making this two-dimensional role seem genuinely interesting than anyone else since Ball himself. Nick Jonas in the 25th Anniversary concert, on the other hand, comes off as downright annoying in most of his scenes, although he does deliver a moving “Empty Chairs At Empty Tables”.

The character of Cossette is essentially a lost cause in any production…if Judy Kuhn can’t make your character seem interesting, no-one can. Kuhn does her best on the Tenth Anniversary recording, as does Amanda Seyfriend in the movie, who at least has the advantage of actually being as gorgeous as Cossette is supposed to be in-story. Katie Hall’s girlish, prettily sung performance in the 25th Anniversary is no more than capable, but this is a thankless part no matter what you do with it, so it doesn’t make that much difference.

More than a decade before Lea Salonga played Fantine, she was Eponine in the Tenth Anniversary cast, and she offered an extremely interesting take on the character, drawing on the novel to create a more bitter, complex figure that the sweet ingenues we usually see in the role. Samantha Barks played the role in both the second concert version and the movie, and while she probably sang the part better in the concert, her performance there was somewhat more simplistic than in the movie. In either case, though, she gave an excellent performance, although it would have been fascinating to see what the movie’s original choice, Taylor Swift, would have made of the role, given that the character is similar to the persona she created on her early albums.

Alun Armstrong in the Tenth Anniversary is a brilliant Thenardier, hilarious when he’s called on to be funny but never losing his character’s underlying sense of menace, and his “Dog Eats Dog” is truly chilling. Matt Lucas in the 25th Anniversary delivers an admirably biting “Dog Eats Dog”, but apart from that he might be a little too clownish for the role, and he gets a little grating at times. Still, he’s better than Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie, who is as miscast and off in tone as his screen vis-a-vis Helena Bonham Carter.

The role of Enjolras, the leader of the student rebels, simply belongs to Michael McGuire, who played the role on Broadway and reprises it in the Tenth Anniversary. Aaron Tveit (in the movie) and Ramin Karimloo (in the 25th Anniversary) are much more famous names within the Broadway sphere, and each is pretty electrifying in the role in their own right, but nothing can compete with McGuire’s spine-tingling rendition of “Do You Hear the People Sing?”.

Most of the decisions regarding the 2012 film’s production were correct, and certainly it could have turned out much worse, but if you really want to experience the show on screen, the home videos of either of the two anniversary concerts present the show’s strengths to much better advantage. The truth is that the concerts, despite their lack of full-scale staging, feel much more like an actual stage performance of Les Mis than the film, and the more complete version of the material and more vocally expansive performing style do a better job of capturing the full musical and dramatic impact the show has on stage than the film does.

The Tenth Anniversary version certainly has the best cast (there’s a reason it’s popularly called the ‘Dream Cast’). It really only has one flaw…because it leaves out several plot-relevant portions of sung dialogue, it can leave holes in the narrative if you don’t already know the show’s story. The 25th Anniversary video is more complete, and leaves out virtually nothing that’s essential to the overall plot, but the cast isn’t as consistent as the other two versions. If you want the best means of experiencing the show on video, I’d definitely say the Tenth Anniversary version, but it would be wise to learn a little about the show first, so you’re not confused by the missing plot points. Still, it’s worth doing some research if you’re not already familiar with the show, because the Tenth Anniversary concert is definitely the best video version of this show available.

In preparation for the upcoming Broadway revival of this musical, I thought I’d offer a review of its often misunderstood film version. Now, this film was not a financial success at the time (indeed, it nearly bankrupted the studio), but that was more because big movie musicals were falling out of fashion at the time (and because the film’s gargantuan production would have demanded a phenomenal level of success to turn a profit anyway), not because of anything wrong with the film itself.

Certainly its source, often underrated because of its overexposure, was one of Broadway’s greatest musical comedies, with a hilarious and endlessly quotable libretto, a fantastic score featuring some of the biggest showstoppers in Broadway history, and the warm heart of its Thorton Wilder source material underneath the farce. The role of Dolly Levi is one of the most coveted star parts in Broadway history, surpassed only by Rose in Gypsy, and has been played by every great Broadway diva from Mary Martin to Pearl Bailey.

And the movie is quite faithful to its source, with all of the show’s famous comic quotes intact in the script and only two songs added, both penned by the stage show’s composer Jerry Herman. The first, a new opening number called “Just Leave Everything To Me”, shares its subject matter and intro verse with the stage version’s “I Put My Hand In”, but is generally brassier and serves as more of a vocal showcase. The second is a ravishing ballad called “Love Is Only Love” that was originally a cut number from Mame. Presumably these changes were made to offer some more vocal opportunity to the film’s star, Barbra Streisand, than the stage show, which was after all written for Carol Channing, offered its star. Apart from “I Put My Hand In”, the only number cut from the film was the embarrassing Bob Merrill interpolation “Motherhood”, which seems like more of a blessing than anything else.

And there’s no denying the cast was luminous, one of the best this show has ever seen. Walter Matthau is note-perfect as Horace Vandergelder, grouchy and misanthropic but so irresistible in his grumpiness that you can honestly understand why Dolly goes to such lengths to snare him. Michael Crawford, in the role of Cornelius Hackl, is called on to play the gangly comic, convey quiet emotional sincerity under the surface, and sing the show’s most beautiful ballad. Charles Nelson Reilly, who played the part on Broadway, did the first two superbly, but when it came to “It Only Takes a Moment”, he just didn’t have the voice to do it justice. Future Phantom star Crawford, on the other hand, has in addition to his comic chops one of theater’s greatest voices, and he unfurls it gloriously here, providing arguably the definitive rendition of one of Broadway’s loveliest ballads.

Marianne McAndrew is a far more appealing and bewitching ingenue than Eileen Brennan was in the stage version (Brennan was a veteran of operetta spoofs like Little Mary Sunshine, and she played Irene Malloy in the same deliberately stiff manner, which did not suit the part at all). Granted, all of the movie leads except perhaps Matthau are giving wildly outsized, over-the-top performances (particularly the hyperactive E.J. Peaker as Irene’s sidekick Minnie Fay), but that’s exactly what this extravagant cartoon of a show calls for. Subtlety has its place in some shows, but in Hello, Dolly it would be missing the point.

And most outsized of all, in the center of it, was Barbra Streisand, the primary bone of contention some people have with the movie. She has exactly the right personality for the part, and she certainly sings the score better than anyone else ever did, but she is miscast for exactly one reason: she was in her twenties at the time and looks it, making Dolly’s entire character and backstory seem completely illogical. But as Harold Prince once famously pointed out to David Merrick, the whole show makes absolutely no sense to begin with, so how much is one more layer of absurdity going to hurt? In any case, Streisand is ideal in every other respect, and gives probably her greatest film performance outside of Funny Girl here, so it’s surprisingly hard to generate a plausible complaint about her.

Granted, Streisand and Matthau famously hated one another, but that doesn’t hurt their screen chemistry nearly as much as you might think. It does detract a little from the very last scene, particularly in the moment when he serenades her with the reprise of the title-song that leads into the finale…you can kind of tell he’s forcing the tenderness there. But since most of their scenes consist of her gleefully tormenting him and him being intensely annoyed with her, their contentious onscreen dynamic does more to make their scenes crackle than it does to undercut them.

The director, the legendary Gene Kelly himself, reportedly hated working with Streisand too, but he did some of the best work of his directing career here. He managed to find a screen equivalent for the stage show’s mega-showstoppers, creating four of Hollywood’s best production numbers in “Put On Your Sunday Clothes”, “Dancing”, “Before the Parade Passes By”, and the restaurant sequence that builds up to the title number (and features a thrilling cameo by Louis Armstrong himself, which makes no sense with the setting and period, but as I observed, why start now?).

As I stated, this movie was a failure at the time, but it has won a large following ever since it became available on home video, and while it still has its holdouts who carp about Streisand’s casting, most musical-theater enthusiasts would probably now regard it as a classic. And while its reception when it came out still causes it to show a misleadingly low score on most critic aggregate websites, I’d say it has been effectively vindicated by history. In any case, if you need your stories to make sense or consider excess and bombast to be ipso facto bad things, then neither the stage show nor the movie are for you. For the rest of you, this is one of the most glorious musicals films of the Sixties, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Well, the good news is that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella finally got a Broadway production. The bad news is that it didn’t survive the process of getting there totally unscathed. One of the problems that every subsequent production of this show has faced was having to compete with a nigh-perfect original that none of them could possibly have lived up to. Granted, the original television film of this show was unavailable to the public for many decades after its release and even now is only preserved on a very primitive kinescope recording, but it had perfect casting, a flawlessly charming and witty script, and the purest delivery of the show’s message that would ever be achieved.

Unfortunately, the later productions used to fill in for its long absence have been mixed at best. The 1965 version was an abomination, with stilted, faux-operetta dialogue, a dull cast, amateurish production values, and R&H’s unique take on the story deleted altogether in favor of something more akin to the Disney version. The 1997 version was a distinct improvement, but still far from perfect. At least the cast had sparkle, and the dialogue was often amusing. But the overall feel was more Disney than R&H, and the film offered a somewhat heavy-handed and belabored delivery of the show’s empowerment message (though to be fair, that’s still better than deleting it altogether like the previous version had).

As for the long-awaited Broadway mounting, it would probably have been much more effective as a one-act. After all, the original version was only 76 minutes long, and it was already about 70% padding (charming, witty, entertaining padding, but padding nonetheless), since you can tell the plot of the original fairy tale in about ten minutes. To reach the length of a typical two-and-a-half hour Broadway show, this version had to waste time with a ridiculous plot about kid-friendly versions of Les Mis-style revolutionaries and an evil Prime Minister manipulating the Prince, which is all ultimately beside the point of the material. The Broadway production was more interesting than the 1965 version and less homogenized than the 1997 version, but it turned the show into a gigantic, over-the-top cartoon version of the material, with frantic tempos and the songs blown up into big production numbers (not to mention Laura Osnes’ frighteningly perky performance in the title role).

The only thing that saves these later versions is the strength of the original material. Rodgers and Hammerstein had a very unique concept for their Cinderella, a retelling that was about empowerment as opposed to wish-fulfillment, a world where, as Ethan Mordden put it “You don’t just deserve happiness…you have to work for it.” Applying this idea to the Cinderella mythos would become very popular in later years (for example, the Drew Barrymore film vehicle Ever After), but R&H were, to my knowledge, the first ones to do it, and all of those later iterations owe something to their original vision.

And the original ten songs the team wrote for the production are easily the best of their efforts outside of their five big hits. Granted, the extremely unique, perfect fairy-tale sound they capture has become as much a curse for producers as a blessing, since it makes padding the score out with interpolations (which is necessary in any longer version, given the short length of the original score) difficult and awkward; the interpolations, even when drawn from the team’s other work, never quite match the original sound. Still, even in the 1965 film’s stodgy operetta-lite performances or the stage version’s hyperactive renditions, songs like the achingly lovely “In My Own Little Corner”, the ecstatic love-at-first-sight duet “Ten Minutes Ago”, the wryly hilarious “Stepsister’s Lament”, and of the course the show’s all-important message song “Impossible” are almost impossible to destroy.

If you preserve both the Rodgers and Hammerstein message and the Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, then however much you muddle them up with overcomplicated plotting or oversell them in performance, the thing you create will have too much merit based on those elements alone to be easily dismissed. This is why the musical as an entity has endured so well even though the only completely successful version of it was utterly unavailable for almost sixty years, and it’s why almost any adaptation (with the possible exception of the 1965 Lesley Ann Warren film) is going to be at least worth your time…this is one of those properties that are essentially indestructible.

In the wake of Gene Wilder’s tragic passing, I thought I would pay tribute to this great artist by reviewing one of his most beloved films…the immortal family classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. This film may have been something of a sleeper classic, but it has gradually come to be regarded as one of the all-time classics of the film musical genre. In a way, even the continual attempts to reinvent the wheel by remaking this film in one form or another just stand as a compliment to its achievement.

These attempts to remake it are often based on the attempted justification than Roald Dahl himself hated this movie, but those who tell that narrative nearly always leave out a key detail—Dahl never actually saw this movie. He just somehow got the idea that it had kiddified his book (apparently by reading an early draft of the script) and refused to ever watch it to find out if that was actually true.  (This was not at all out of character for Dahl: he was a crabby old control freak who never really liked any of the film adaptations of his work…although to be fair, apart from this one and the James and the Giant Peach movie, most of them did merit some disappointment).

In reality, the film sticks very close to Dahl’s plot apart from a few key changes, and nearly all of the darker content of the book made it into the film completely intact. It’s been pointed out that Dahl was essentially a children’s horror author, somewhat in the same vein as R.L. Stine, albeit infinitely more talented. And the film retains that feel, combining whimsical charm with some of the most nightmarish scenes ever seen in a kid’s movie. True, because of the film’s surprisingly low budget, some of the special effects are a little cheap by modern standards, but the film’s atmosphere and sense of imagination help create the effects that the movie can’t always show.

The truth is that this film is actually a significant improvement over Dahl’s novel. Dahl saw morality in very negative terms….good as the absence of bad…and in his book, Charlie earns his happy ending simply by being the only child in the story without any odious bad habits. The movie created a scenario by which Charlie could actually prove his moral worth by action, rather than by default. The result is an ending that is far more moving and rewarding, and a main character who is a fully realized and realistic person, rather than the blank cipher of the novel. Apart from those indisputable improvements, the only major change is replacing the squirrels in the Veruca segment with geese because ‘bad egg’ is the American equivalent of the British expression ‘bad nut’.

The music, of course, is a large part of what made the film so iconic…it really is a musical through and through, and Broadway veterans Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse gave it a more sophisticated sound than the Sherman brothers were giving other live action kid’s movies of the time such as Mary Poppins. The most recognizable numbers are the smash Pop hit “The Candyman”, the exquisitely beautiful ballad “Pure Imagination”, and the repeating, eerily whimsical numbers for the Oompa-Loompas, which become more ominous-sounding with each repetition. But all the film’s songs are classics…even the oft-dismissed “(I’ve Got a) Golden Ticket” is a thrillingly jubilant delight.

It’s worth noting that Sammy Davis, jr., who had an enormous hit with his rendition of “The Candy Man”, wanted to sing the song in the actual film. And while at first glance this seems like a criminal case of missed opportunity, I have to say that I understand why they decided against it. The character who sings this song is essentially a walk-on, appearing in that one scene and then essentially disappearing apart from one later scene where he has only about five lines. This would have meant that the biggest name in the film would have come on for the opening scene and then vanished for the rest of the film, which would have unbalanced an otherwise perfectly balanced film. True, it would have made that one scene immeasurably better, but it would also have given the film as a whole its only real flaw, so I understand their decision regarding the matter.

Of course, the real star turn in the film turned out to be Gene Wilder’s genius-level turn as Willy Wonka. His take on the character is much subtler and more nuanced than the hyperactive Wonka of Dahl’s book, but he preserved the character’s defining trait…his utter unpredictability. Depending on what is called for in each scene, he can be paternal and loving, quietly creepy, or outright terrifying, but regardless, you never really know what he’s thinking or what exactly he really means by the cryptic comments he makes. And Wilder’s rendition of the ballad “Pure Imagination” is one of the most rapturous deliveries of a song in any musical of any kind.

Peter Ostrum leaves something to be desired as Charlie, but because he had an actual character to play, he’s actually much more effective than the more talented Freddie Highmore was in the same part in the Tim Burton remake. The rest of the cast is generally excellent, with Jack Albertson’s crusty but lovable Grandpa Joe and the young actors playing the bratty kids scoring particularly strongly, but Wilder unquestionably steals the show…more, he is the show, defining the artistic style for the entire movie.

Amazingly, this film was not really a success when it was first released…it made a small profit because of its low budget, and the music got an Oscar nomination, but as hard as it is to imagine now, it was considered at the time to be a severe critical and commercial disappointment. Like a lot of classic kids’ movies from that era, it really gained its full popularity from being shown on television, which is somewhat ironic, considering that Dahl’s hatred of that medium is built into both the book and the movie.

In any case, the film has become popular enough to inspire at least two high-profiles remakes (the appalling Tim Burton film version and the current disappointing stage adaptation), but the fact is that no-one will ever surpass this version of the material, and they would be wiser to stop trying. This film still stands as perhaps the finest live-action kids’ movie of all time (its only real competition comes from a few of the Muppet movies), and even if it were the only legacy of greatness Wilder had left behind (which it is emphatically not, as the man’s work with Mel Brooks alone would make him a legend), it would still be enough to guarantee him immortality.