Guys and Dolls

[charliechaplinfan]

I've been so busy lately trying to fit everything in before Christmas and had to face 2 mountains of ironing so I needed an old friend.

I love this musical, I always have, it was the first DVD I treated myself to. I know it has it critics, Runyon's way of speech, the ultra colourful sets, the casting of Brando etc. It's such a happy film, it lifts me up, even when tackling the ironing, the soundtrack just has me singing along for days.

Watching it again made me think about the controversy surrounding it. I'd read somewhere that the film was planned a few years earlier with Gene Kelly in the Sky Masterson role, that would have been interesting and good casting but by 1955 I think Gene was too old for Sky Masterson. In his place Brando's casting was inspired. It doesn't matter to me that he's not the strongest singer in the world, or even that a couple of his tracks seem to be cobbled together, he acts his lyrics and his portrayal of Sky Masterson makes the whole motivation of the film flow. I love him in the part, love his singing, especially Luck be a LAdy, my only criticism might be that he was a little too made up. It's good to see him in a light hearted film. It always strikes me everytime I see him in his fifties movies how handsome he was. How things changed.

Nathan Detriot is my favorite of all Sinatra's musical roles. He was born to play him, I know he wanted the part of Sky but with Nathan he got the best songs, the ones more suited to his voice and he came across as so vulnerable and loveable, even though he was a heel.

Jean Simmons looks like she's having a ball, especially singing with Marlon. Vivian Blaine, magnificent, no one else could play Adelaide and has a film character ever had a better song written about her than Adelaide?

The brightness jarred the first time I watched Guys and Dolls but over the years I've come to love it, the film Broadway in Runyonland is a complete film fantasy. I've read some of his stories but not the one Guys and Dolls was taken from, my take on his stories wasn't as bright and clean as Goldwyn portrayed them, despite this, I love Goldwyn's take on Broadway.

[jdb1]

I like this movie, too. When I was a little girl, my parents had the original cast recording of Guys and Dolls, which was already an old record by the time I heard it, but I loved the score and knew the songs well by the time the movie came around.

I have no problem at all with Brando's performance (the role was created on Broadway by Robert Alda, who of course was a singer). Many people made fun of Brando in this movie, but really -- it's not an opera, it's muscial comedy, so what's the big deal if Brando doesn't sound like the world's greatest singer? He acted the songs properly and he was fairly graceful when he danced.

Sinatra's performance is another story. He acts the role just fine, but the songs his character sings are not Sinatra-type songs, and Sinatra gives them much too much weight. The part was written for a non-singer (Sam Levene on Broadway), and Nathan Detroit's songs are not supposed to sound like award-winning material. Sinatra did not like the idea that Brando had the romantic and dramatic songs. But, too bad, Brando's role is the starring, romantic role, and Sinatra's role is the supporting , comic role. I believe that Sinatra and the show's writer-composer, Frank Loesser, had long and loud arguments about how Nathan Detroit should sing.

Since I was already well acquainted with Sam Levene's performance as Nathan Detroit, Sinatra's singing of Nathan's songs with, and about Adelaide, sounds wrong and self-important to me. Nathan Detroit is hardly a self-important character.

[charliechaplinfan]

Thanks for your insight Judith, I've only ever seen the movie but I do have a recording with Bob Hoskins as Nathan and Ian Charleston as Sky. Bob Hoskin's as Nathan is very different to Sinatra's portrayal because I've seen the film so many times Sinatra is just great for me as Nathan. I think Sinatra could have played Sky well but I don't think he couldn have nailed the romance as well as Brando did. I truly believed in Sarah and Sky's romance, I saw what Sarah saw in Sky. Like you say, it's a musical comedy not high opera. I've also read that Dean Martin was a possibility and much as I love his voice, I still say Brando was the best casting.

Anne I know you'll disagree with me

[jdb1]

I can certainly see Bob Hoskins as a more fitting Nathan Detroit than was Sinatra. I don't know Ian Charleston. Is he the dangerous but romantic type?

In any event, I think the movie is quite entertaining, although I've read over the years many criticisms of Jean Simmons' performance as Sarah. I'm not sure why, only I do know that Isabel Bigley, the actress who played Sarah in the original production, was the one who got the Tony, not Vivian Blaine.

[knitwit45]

When my kids were little, they each had a favorite song to hear each night when they were rocked to sleep. Casey's was "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck". Years later, we went to a road show of Guys and Dolls at the Starlight Theater (outdoors) in Kansas City's Swope Park. Hugh O'Brien was Sky Masterson, don't remember who was with him, but one of the numbers Adelaide and her "girls" did was "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck". Judith, is that song on the recording you have?

[jdb1]

When my kids were little, they each had a favorite song to hear each night when they were rocked to sleep. Casey's was "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck". Years later, we went to a road show of Guys and Dolls at the Starlight Theater (outdoors) in Kansas City's Swope Park. Hugh O'Brien was Sky Masterson, don't remember who was with him, but one of the numbers Adelaide and her "girls" did was "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck". Judith, is that song on the recording you have?

Yes, that is in the original cast recording, and we kids loved to sing it -- what the heck does it mean, we asked? Not much call for bushels and pecks in Brooklyn by the time we came along. The song that replaced that in the movie - "Pet Me Poppa," isn't nearly as good. I wonder what that was all about.

I can't remember now, but I don't think the old uncle's song about wishing Sarah her own true love is in the movie, is it? The original cast featured a quite elderly actor, Pat Rooney, as Uncle Arvide, and he sang the song - an Irish-sounding ballad - in a quavering and very sweet way.

That song was actually my favorite from the show: "Velvet I can wish you for the collar of your coat/And wisdom when you hair has turned to gray./But more I cannot wish you than to wish you find your love/Your own true love this day/With the strong arms to carry you away."

The song reminds me a lot of another Loesser song I love, "Anywhere I Wander" from Hans Christian Andersen. I guess I was born a romantic.

[JackFavell]

I used to sing "A Bushel and a Peck" to my daughter too... funny.

I like Brando as Sky.

I grew up listening to the Broadway cast album and I have to say I prefer Sam Levene's singing to Sinatra's, for that role. And I LOVE the Fugue for Tinhorns on the cast album. It's my favorite song from the show bar none.

One of my favorite versions of the Fugue, sung by Loesser himself with Milton DeLugg and Sue Bennett from a demo he made, is the first song on the album An Evening with Frank Loesser.

You can hear it one time through at Lala.com, or several times at Rhapsody.com. It has the most astounding key changes in it.

[charliechaplinfan]

My version has Ian Charleson from The Chariots of Fire on it, it's quite strange. I've found the film cast recording and the original recording on Amazon, not very expensive either, I'm a sucker for these Italian American singers, I just need something else to put in my basket to qualify for free shipping and I feel like another musical. Joe is mad on the song The Candyman by Sammy Davis jnr and I'm quite fond of Sammy Davis jnr myself, think that's where my money is going then

However I digress, yet again.

I'd not heard that Jean Simmons was criticised by the critics, I think she was one of the best things in the film. Sarah is a difficult character to carry off, seeing as she's got to have a complete change of feelings about Sky during the course of the film. I think she has great chemistry with Marlon, aside from Eve Marie Saint she has the best chemistry of any female partner he had (haven't seen Desiree, so that might one day change my opinion slightly).

[stuart.uk]

Alison

I'm almost certain Jean Simmon's sang in Guys And Dolls, but there seems to be some doubt regarding her doing the vocals in The Way To The Stars. Here's a the only link I could find to one of the great all time war movies, judge for yourself.'Robert Donat's still living wife Renee Astherson is also featured at U.S Airforce dance at an RAF base