The best film to musical adaptations

Before they helped revitalize Disney Animation with their classic scores for “The Little Mermaid”, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin”, composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman wrote this off-Broadway smash based on a then little-known 1960 Roger Corman B movie. The buoyant mix of girl group songs and doo-wop ditties was transformed into a hit film by director Frank Oz, bringing such showstoppers as “Skid Row (Downtown”, “Suddenly Seymour” and “Dentist!” to moviegoers all over the world.

Viewers of “Fosse/Verdon” are currently learning all about the behind-the-scenes fireworks set off during the production of this Broadway hit based on Federico Fellini’s hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold classic “Nights of Cabiria”. Despite (or, perhaps, because of) this creative tension, “Sweet Charity” stands startlingly apart from its source material as one of the finest musicals of its era, featuring groundbreaking choreography and unforgettable numbers from Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields like “(Hey,) Big Spender”, “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “The Rhythm of Life”.

Composer Maury Yeston drew on Federico Fellini’s masterpiece “8 ½” for this Tony Award-winning musical about a creatively blocked filmmaker struggling to make his ninth movie. Given the headiness of the source material, “Nine” is less accessible than “Sweet Charity”; it’s a show that relies heavily on performance and imaginative production design (which may be why it’s not a community theater mainstay like most Tony winners). Those who were lucky enough to see it live say the Tommy Tune-directed, Raul Julia-starring 1982 Broadway run was a stunner. There’s no reason to bother with Rob Marshall’s flat-tire of a film adaptation starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Ingmar Bergman’s uproarious (yes, he could do uproarious) bedroom farce, “Smiles of a Summer Night”, gets the Stephen Sondheim treatment, and the result is one of the maestro’s finest. Its adherence to the waltz-y 3/4 time signature and use of counterpoint melodies make this a musical theater nerd’s waking dream, while the climactic number, “Send in the Clowns”, is a bring-down-the-house classic. This is a rare case of a great film being transformed into a transcendent show.

The Elton John-Tim Rice songs written for the film were thoroughly uninspired (save for the pernicious earworm that is “Hakuna Matata”), which made this an unlikely choice for Disney’s first big film-to-theater transfer, but Julie Taymor’s dynamic, magically immersive staging could’ve made a Broadway smash out of “Carrie: The Musical”. It’s an empty-calorie classic! Amusingly, the best number in the show, “Shadowlands”, comes courtesy of Hans Zimmer and Mark Mancina, who were best known at the time for scoring action blockbusters like “The Rock” and “Speed”.

For decades, films that started out as musicals typically didn’t fare well when transferred to the stage. That all changed in 1980 with this David Merrick-produced extravaganza based on 1933 Harry Warren-Al Dubin hit. The show is padded out with numbers from other Dubin/Warren movie musicals (e.g. “Dames”, “Roman Scandals” and the “Gold Diggers” series), and never tries to be anything more than a spectacular night at the theater – which is why the original production ran for close to a decade on Broadway.

John Waters’s camp classic proved to be perfect material for Broadway thanks in large part to the songwriting duo of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. The show revels in the ultra-tacky kitsch of early 1960s Baltimore, while its interracial romance subplot is genuinely moving. It’s a shame the film of the musical was so flatly directed, but that’s what happens when you hire Adam Shankman.

Stephen Sondheim mined Ettore Scola’s middling drama “Passion of Love” for this strikingly cerebral musical about romance. Sondheim conjures up a bewildering assortment of elusive melodies that aren’t transporting the first time through, but take hold when you revisit the show via the original cast recording. Most theatergoers weren’t willing to make that kind of commitment: though the show was a hit with Sondheim devotees, it closed six months after winning the Tony Award for Best Musical.

As opposed to “Billy Elliot: The Soup”! Stephen Daldry’s sleeper hit about a working-class British lad who takes up ballet made a smashingly successful transition to the boards thanks to Elton John and lyricist Lee Hall. Given that John was composing expressly for the stage this time (unlike “The Lion King”), his songs have a more theatrical feel and work quite well within the context of the production. “Electricity” is one of the best things he’s written in the last twenty years.

Mel Brooks’s 1967 film about an atrocious Broadway musical that accidentally becomes a hit became a totally on-purpose Broadway hit in 2001 starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Brooks wrote some fabulous new songs for the show (his funniest new material since “History of the World, Part I”), and earned a few Oscars for the effort. Ironically, the musical became a film in 2005, and, at long last, flopped.

Eric Idle made a theatrical killing with his “ripped off” musical take on “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, and though his fellow Pythons weren’t entirely thrilled with the show, audiences enjoyed the enthusiastically mounted greatest hits package (initially directed for the stage by the late, great Mike Nichols). Idle works in material from the troupe’s other films and sketches (most notably the showstopper “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from “Life of Brian”), and has thus far resisted the urge to make a big-screen version.

Albert and David Maysles’s classic documentary about a mother-daughter pair of New York socialites living in a dilapidated mansion hardly seemed like grist for a successful Broadway musical, but playwright Doug Wright and the songwriting duo of Scott Frankel and Michael Korie pulled it off with the help of sensational performances from Mary Louise Wilson and Christine Ebersole. Now where’s our musical rendition of “Salesman”?

Burt Bacharach, Hal David and Neil Simon adapted Billy Wilder’s classic comedy “The Apartment” for stage in 1968, and the result was surprisingly terrific. Though Bacharach was at the height of his songwriting powers when the show premiered, the only breakout hit was “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”. When the show was revived in 2010 with Sean Hayes and Anne Hathaway, they added “I Say a Little Prayer” and “A House Is Not a Home” into the mix.

Edmund Goulding’s pre-code, all-star smash featuring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore and Joan Crawford became a perfectly serviceable, if clearly cobbled-together musical via the team of Chet Forrest, Bob Wright, Maury Yeston and Luther Davis. If you didn’t see the original production directed by Tommy Tune, there’s not much reason to bother with this one.

One of the most notorious box-office bombs of the 1980s became a not-terribly-successful jukebox musical built around the tuneful output of Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra. While it was nice to see roller skating on stage for the first time since “Starlight Express”, the show should’ve leaned more heavily into the deep oeuvre of ELO. 

The ABBA-centric jukebox musical lifted its threadbare plot from a perfectly average romantic comedy in which Gina Lollobrigida seeks to determine the paternity of her daughter via the three U.S. servicemen she slept with during the period of conception (including a never-sexier Phil Silvers). It works better with ABBA songs. On stage or in the shockingly enjoyable big-screen sequel. Avoid the 2008 movie at all costs.

Andrew Lloyd Webber rebounded from the wholly undeserved commercial failure of “Aspects of Love” with this garish reproduction of Billy Wilder’s arsenic-laced showbiz satire. For those fortunate enough to see Patty LuPone as mad starlet Norma Desmond in the West End rendition, the effort was probably worth it. Glenn Close won a practically uncontested Best Actress Tony in 1995, and her performance was nothing more than a stunt. 

There’s nothing more daunting for a Broadway star than to step into the four-octave range of Julie Andrews (who originated the title role in 1967), but if there’s a theatrical superstar alive who can almost measure up to the Muhammad Ali of vocal gymnastics, it’s Kristin Chenoweth. Oh, you didn’t get to see that workshop? Well, Sutton Foster, who won a Best Actress Tony in 2002, was pretty great, too. 

The 1988 Frank Oz-directed remake of 1964’s “Bedtime Story” became a hit Broadway musical in 2005 starring Norbert Leo Butz, John Lithgow and Sherie Ren Scott. Butz won a Best Actor Tony in the flashy Marlon Brando/Steve Martin role, but if you get a bum cast the show’s tuneless limitations are alarmingly apparent. The antics are far more memorable than David Yazbek’s songs.

Julian Jarrold’s enjoyable film built around an unlikely partnership between a shoe factory operator and a drag queen took flight as a musical thanks to the songwriting brilliance of Cyndi Lauper. The show won six Tonys in 2013, and transcended its Oscar-bait origins with a top-tier cast of Billy Porter, Stark Sands and Annaleigh Ashford.

For some reason, producer David Merrick was hot to musicalize Charles Walters’s film about a young woman who falls for a caddish puppeteer, and his puzzling ambition earned Anna Maria Alberghetti a Best Actress Tony. The show produced one memorable song (“Love Makes the World Go ‘Round”), but has yet to get a major Broadway revival despite attempted creative partnerships with The Jim Henson Company.

Movie musicals were box office poison in 1992, but Disney nevertheless pushed forward with this Christian Bale-led tuner about the Newsboys Strike of 1899. It bombed. Twenty years later, the Alan Menken-Jack Feldman musical made its way to Broadway where it was warmly received. Given the show’s cult stature, a second go at big-screen success sounds like a solid financial investment.

Vincente Minnelli’s 1951 masterpiece got a late-in-the-day stage adaptation via playwright Craig Lucas and director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. The George and Ira Gershwin tunes are as splendid as ever, and Robert Fairchild dazzled audiences in the Gene Kelly role. Now that the film has been structured for the stage by a world-class dramatist, this show should live forever in community theater. 

The “Spaceballs” of musicals. If your idea of a great Mel Brooks production is warmed-over gags and wholly forgettable songs, have at. It’s the perfect show for out-of-towners who like the idea of going to the theater without actually engaging with the theater. They might also remember lines from the Brooks’s original film, which is fun.

John Carney’s critically acclaimed film based on the now dissolved romance between songwriters Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová was predictably turned into a Broadway musical, and it’s pretty good if you can handle repeat performances of “Falling Slowly”. The show won eight Tony Awards in 2012 (including Best Musical), and is remarkably easy to produce. Then again, the same is true of “Aspects of Love”, and it has better songs!