Try to Remember
The release of a new movie musical is almost as rare
as an appearance of Hailey's Comet. The genre would
be extinct, were it not for Disney's animated
features; non-musical-musicals like Woody Allen's
Everybody Says I Love You (featuring the non-musical
voices of non-singers like Allen and Julia Roberts);
and music video-style musicals like Evita featuring
MTV-born stars like Madonna. As the musical comes
closer to gasping its last breath, we have the
long-awaited screen version of the longest running
musical of all time, The Fantasticks. While the
film, which is in limited release, will not
single-handedly resurrect the movie musical, it will
hopefully make the few open-minded studio executives
in Hollywood realize there is indeed some life left in
the genre.
The Fantasticks opened on May 3, 1960 at the
Sullivan Street Theatre in New York, where it still
continues its forty-plus year run. The film, with
score by composer Harvey Schmidt, features such
memorable songs as "Try to Remember" and "Soon It's
Gonna Rain" by lyricist Tom Jones. The show is a
small-scale, intimate musical, self-consciously
presented as a theatrical piece on a nearly bare
stage. Fortunately, the film version, directed by
Michael Ritchie, never loses its sense of
theatricality like other theatre-to-film misfires such
as the Sir Richard Attenborough's horrendous screen
version of A Chorus Line. Instead, Ritchie has
crafted an old-fashioned musical that retains the
show's most vital elements — its terrific score and
romantic book, inspired by Edmund Rostand's play, Les
Romanesques.
Like an old musical from the 1940s and '50s, The Fantasticks transports you back to a time and place
when life (and movies) were so much simpler. Although
some musical numbers were cut ("Plant A Radish"),
retooled ("It Depends on What You Pay"), and trimmed
("I Can See It"), the simple plot remains intact. Two
fathers — Bellamy (Joel Grey) and Hucklebee (Brad
Sullivan) — scheme to get their respective children,
Luisa (Jean Louisa Kelly) and Matt (Joe McIntyre), to
fall love. Knowing their kids will resist an arranged
marriage, they use reverse psychology and pretend to
be feuding, build a wall between their two houses, and
forbid their children to speak to each other. When
their plan works, they enlist the help of the
proprietor of a traveling carnival, the mysterious El
Gallo (Jonathon Morris), to end their faux feud. El
Gallo pretends to kidnap Luisa with the help of his
traveling troupe, which includes an elderly
Shakespearean actor (Barnard Hughes) and his silent
sidekick Mortimer (Teller), and arranges for Matt to
rescue her. And so, it seems as if everybody is going
to live happily ever after.
In the second act, the romantic moonlight is replaced
by the burning sun, prompting Matt and Luisa each to
venture out on their own to see the world, only to
witness its harsh realities, compliments of El Gallo
and company. In the process, their youthful
romanticism is replaced by a more realistic
understanding of love. As the wise El Gallo reminds
us in the show's signature song, "Try to Remember,"
"Without a hurt, the heart is hollow." In trying to
capture the feel of an old movie musical, Ritchie
recorded many of the musical numbers live (the actors
reportedly listened to Jonathan Tunick's terrific
orchestrations through an ear piece). The songs,
particularly "Soon It's Gonna Rain" and "They Were
You" are nicely delivered by McIntyre and Kelly.
McIntyre, a former member of the original boy band,
New Kids on the Block, physically suits the role of
wide-eye farm boy Matt, though he is a better singer
than actor. Although she is too old for the role,
Kelly carries the film musically with her beautiful
soprano voice. In a role originated on the stage by
Law and Order's Jerry Orbach, British actor Jonathon
Morris, who is best known for portraying a vampire in
cheapie horror flicks like Vampire Journals and
Subspecies: Bloodstorm, adds just the right touch of
roguishness to the role of El Gallo. As the film's
comic relief contingent, Grey, Hughes, Sullivan, and
Teller, are more polished performers who appear to be
having the time of their lives. With a relatively low
budget (around $10 million), The Fantasticks is a
handsome production, thanks to Fred Murphy's
cinematography, which nicely captures the film's
remote Arizona location — the same area used 45 years
ago for the screen version of Rodgers and
Hammerstein's Oklahoma. Douglas W. Schmidt's
production design and Luke Reichle's colorful costumes
give El Gallo's traveling carnival a surreal,
Fellini-esque quality.
The Fantasticks almost never saw the light of day.
Shot in 1995, the film's Thanksgiving release was
postponed indefinitely by MGM/United Artist, who lost
faith in the project (a little ironic, considering MGM
was once Hollywood's premiere musical studio!). A
contractual obligation to Schmidt and Jones to release
the film theatrically forced MGM to put some time and
money back into the project. Francis Ford Coppola, who
sits on the MGM Board of Directors, was enlisted to
re-edit the film. He trimmed 25 minutes, bringing the
film's running time down to 86 minutes.
His efforts paid off. And although a few of his
editorial choices are questionable (Luisa's opening
ballad, "Much More," seems a bit choppy and a stagy
dance sequence in "Around and Around" could have been
deleted), Coppola skillfully keeps the action moving
and also maintains the intimacy that has made The Fantasticks such a memorable piece of theatre
history. So when El Gallo sings "Try to Remember" at
the end of the film, he is perhaps not only lamenting
the days "when life was slow, but oh so mellow," but
also the lost innocence of the musical genre itself.
And hopefully, like Luisa and Matt, the movie musical
will one day finds its way home to Hollywood.
