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I just want to point out a misconception many reviewers here keep expounding: this filmed record of PIPPIN in performance was not done on Broadway. This is either a national tour or a performance of the original show mounted in another city (LA, Chicago, San Francisco, London?). William Katt, Martha Raye, nor Chita Rivera, ever appeared on Broadway during the show's original 5 year run. This could explain the paring down of the script in this video record. Vareen, as pointed out, with his TONY already on his mantle for this role, is an originator. What is most important about this video is that it is the only record of Bob Fosse's work as choreographer and director of a complete show in existence. His dances for PAJAMA GAME and DAMN YANKEES, SWEET CHARITY exist in their Hollywood film versions, but not his conceptual Broadway work. The film of CHICAGO is a homage to him stylistically. However, that's the work of Rob Marshall.

But it still manages to capture the look, feel, and spirit of the original stage production. Great musical numbers and dance numbers compensate, IMO, for the flaws of bringing it to video (and the original "director's cut" unedited version makes up for much of the cited flaws anyway).

Pippin isn't really adapted for video, but is rather simply a taping of a stage production (compare it to Cats - the video version _was_ staged for video). This is a mild flaw. Cats obviously takes advantage of F/X, close-ups, etc., while Pippin's camerawork is pretty much static.

The standout is Ben Vereen, at his peak here carrying the show. Chita Rivera (Fastrada) and Benjamin Rayson (Charlemagne) are the best of the supporting player. Katt and Denniston are kinda weak, and Martha Raye, while adequate, isn't as good as Irene Ryan in the original Broadway production.

Overall, Pippin is an entertaining musical which is competently captured on the (complete) video.

This is one of the finest videos of a musical available anywhere. In addition to being an unbelievable musical, this top notch cast brings PIPPIN to an astounding level.

Particularly amazing is Ben Vereen... his singing, acting, and dancing abilities are on full display. Broadway legend Chita Rivera is also spellbinding in her small but show-stopping performance.

This is a musical not to miss!

I love the musical and I love this cast. Ben Vereen is amazing and William Katt shines. The Fosse choreography is brilliant as always. Orgy aside, Evergreen is my favorite song.

You can also find the broadway reboot of this starring Neil Patrick Harris as the narrator and that's a fantastic show as well.

What a wonderfully filmed Broadway show! The show is wonderfully done and the direction by Bob Fosse is like always wonderful. Ben Vereen was great as the Leading Player; full of life and song. William Katt sings beautifully, my only regret is that he is a stick when he does.

The plot is simple. Pippin is a prince who wants to do something important with his life. First he becomes a warrior, and then he becomes obsessed with women. And so on. Yet he never finds what he wants to do until the end, in the delightful scene, entitled `Pippins Grand Finale'. What a show. What a circus.

A musical not to be missed. Its only flaw is that like all taped live on stage videos is that something is lost. But thankfully, not as much is missing here. We have great entertainment, and the show was incredibly funny. So now it is time for me to stop rambling on and for you to click that little `buy the DVD from Amazon.com' button and purchase this movie from Amazon. You won't regret it!

It got magic to do… Just for you!

MPAA: NR

My Rating: 13 and up for mature themes, language and a brief scene of violence.

My * Rating 8.6

This should have been great, but anyone familiar with the stage production will be disappointed. Great numbers are cut, (esp. most of Fastrada's "Spread a Little Sunshine" and all of Catherine's "I Guess I'll Miss the Man"). So are important lines, such as Pippin's discussion with the severed head after the poorly staged "Glory." When Pippin is king, he and others refer to critical lines that were cut, making the scene incomprehensible. They cut the death of Theo's duck, which is so important to that part of the show, and without which the rest of that that section makes no sense. They would have done better to cut all the ad libs and most of Martha Raye's pathetic (what's with the microphone?) appearance as Berthe. And to cap it all off, William Katt blows the final--and most important--line in the show, destroying the entire point of the production.

I LOVE THIS MUSICAL (and this version in particular). I wish it would come back to Broadway and have Ben Vereen as the Leading Player again. Even though he is older, he would still be amazing. William Katt was great, Martha Raye was brilliant, and Benjamin Rayson was top notch as well.

To the reviewer who said the ending is lacking: They did that on purpose. It is supposed to be anticlimactic. If you paid any attention to the rest of the show you would have realized how brilliant the ending is. They even say at the end that it is a 'musical comedy.' The ending is the funniest joke in the whole show.

10/10

Perhaps there's a worse librettist in the history of musicals than Stephen Schwartz but I don't know one. What the hell does the lyric "morning glow/fill the earth/come and shine/for all you're worth/we'll be present/at the birth/of old faith looking new..." mean? He begins with a vague hopeful image but then the sentence keeps going and going, desperately trying to find it's point; the next twelve words do little to deepen things.

This is what annoys people about musicals. You can get away with perky, poorly written sentiment tossed away as dialogue (I've just named every drama that won an Oscar in the last 70 years) but as songs, the schlock is transparent. It's called padding; it appears most often on college exams and in poor creative efforts from the 60s and 70s. It was all Fosse could do to undermine this amorphous treacle with his more acid take on things. Schwartz could make a decent melody but his lyrics...ugh. Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself.

Pippin is absolutely trite, and in it's current form it barely resembles Fosse's work.

I first saw this movie while I was acting in a production of the show...just to get a feel for the songs and the choreography, not really paying much attention to the quality of the performances or the show as a whole. On repeated viewings since, however, I can say that...well, frankly, it doesn't make a very strong impression on me. I suppose there are several reasons for this; first of all, there's a lot of the script missing. But which script? There were actually two different "Pippin" scripts, which shared most of the songs and basic structure, but very little else. This production seems to be a mishmash of elements form both versions.

There are certain things I liked... Ben Vereen, of course, whose Leading Player was nearly flawless. William Katt did not sing as prettily as John Rubenstein, the original Pippin, but he seems to have a level of guts and passion that was missing earlier, as well, so that's okay, too. The nauseating "I Guess I'll Miss the Man" was cut (thank God). All good things.

But outweighed, unfortunately, by some negative aspects. First, casting...Chita Rivera has no place in the show. She doesn't sing it well, and the dance break seemed to be so that the producers could say, "Hey, look! We've got Chita Rivera!" The editing left a lot to be desired as well...there were whole expository scenes missing, and some really unnecessary ones left in. And most of all, it was just so FAST! Everyone spoke as if they would be penalized if the show ran over two hours...Ben Rayson as Charlemagne is most indictable for this, but all of the cast (even the incomparable Vereen) are guilty of it from time to time. I also felt that the ending was WAAAY too abrupt...there's so much more to be done with one of the most powerful final scenes in musical history, and they took the easiest possible exit.

All in all, I own it and watch it simply because there are way too few filmed stage versions of musicals available (the only others I can think of are Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Jeckyll and Hyde, Putting It Together, and Sweeny Todd).

I like movie musicals, but I like seeing them done on stage more than anything. I just wish there was a better reason than that for owning this one.

I wasn't at all familiar with this musical. I had no idea what it was about. I knew Ben Vereen won a Tony Award for his performance in the 1970s production, and that there have been endless numbers of high schools and colleges of it. That's it. I stumbled upon this production on TV with no intention of watching it - and watched the whole thing, mesmerized and delighted. It's not so much the music, which is dated, and certainly not the Bob Fosse choreography, which is always *really* dated (jazz hands!!!). Rather, it is the amazingly layered story and themes, which are much more complex and timely than I ever expected, that drew me in. I suspect these very risqué, biting themes are completely glossed over/ignored in high school or college productions. And the performances by Ben Vereen, William Katt (he can sing?!? who knew!), Benjamin Rayson, and the amazing Chita Rivera are wonderful - I realize other reviewers did not like them, because they had seen other people in the role, but looking at them from a clean slate, I thought they were all perfectly cast and quite compelling. I really loved the simplicity of the production. Sure, I wish the camera work had been better, but given how rare it was (and still it) to film live theatrical productions, I thought the videographers did quite well.

I had no idea what to expect when I watched this a few months ago. Irene Ryan lead me to "Pippin" (it's a shame her performance wasn't taped). This was my first "Fosse" experience - and I must say every performer was captivating.

The first version of this 1981 filmed production of "Pippin" that I watched was a leaked unedited workprint on YouTube. This offers you EVERY scene and EVERY song, with different camera angles than the released print. Once I watched the DVD, I truly question if the editor even paid attention to storyline (particularly the segment after "Morning Glow"). Perhaps the most butchered part was "The Hearth" portion of the show (as titled in the original Playbill). I wonder how Leslie Denniston felt when they cut out most of her narration and her song "I Guess I'll Miss The Man". Many many things were cut, including a stanza of my personal favorite song, "No Time At All". I can never watch this edited version so I have opted with a homemade edit combining both versions.

The production itself is truly amazing. Ben Vereen reprises his role as the Leading Player and Christopher Chadman reprises his role as Lewis. William Katt is wonderful as Pippin. Actually every actor does wonderful in this; there is not one person who I think was miscast. This production preserves the original sets and choreography of the original 1972 production - which is a big plus. One interesting note is that the lyrics for "War Is A Science" and "With You" differ from the Original Broadway Cast Album, the latter being changed the most. I don't necessarily prefer one over the other; it's nice to hear different versions of it.

I will warn you that this musical is very unlike most musicals out there as it bounces all over the place. It goes from war to sex to romance to suicide (but hey - it is a story about a man trying to find himself in the world). When I first watched this, the only song that stood out to me was "No Time At All", only because I previously listened to it before watching it. Then I found myself liking "Magic to Do" and "Simple Joys"....then practically every other song in this. This musical really grows on you. Great messages are scattered throughout; "Glory" is amazingly true (and haunting), as well as"No Time At All".

So be sure to watch the workprint on YouTube - you'll get some surprises out of it too; Martha Raye flubs lines in "No Time At All" which are dubbed over in the released print and at the end of "Morning Glow" the tape briefly cuts to a soap opera. Very amusing! But this is the only way to achieve the full experience of "Pippin".

Those people lucky enough to see this show in it's original Broadway run saw a brilliant cast performing a brilliant show with an equally brilliant director. The original cast, Ben Vereen, Irene Ryan (of Beverly Hillbillies fame) Leland Palmer, Jill Clayburgh, John Rubinstein, and others easily outshine William Katt (of Greatest American Hero fame) Martha Raye (of denture fame) and the rest. Still, it's a very good production, and nice to see that a Broadway show can, in fact, be filmed and appreciated without paying $100 to see it! The choreography is splendid. Katt's voice isn't horrible, in fact, he sings the difficult Stephen Schwartz music with apparent ease (not to same effect that John Rubinstein had, mind you) All in all, it's a good production, but more on par with what one would expect from a regional theater or really good community theater.

here in the summary you have all of the elements for why i give this stage play an 8. probably it does not get a higher rating because i fail to understand why the author uses Charlemagne,his first born, Pippen to get where the go. maybe you have to read the book for that.Sometimes I think this play didn't know where it wanted to go. It appeared to be historical course with Chita Rivera, Pippin's mom pushing the second son to the king's attention. Then it appeared to address the futility, foolhardiness and carnage of war . Then we have the sex orgy. I wonder if this was a controversial play when it first appeared (60's ?} Even today, the anti-church line would be sure to attract the wrath of some section in the religious right And yet, this play "magically" (you'll See why I use quote if you watch) succeeds as a coming-of- age tale. Incidentally, I saw "Bonnie And Clyde" first; and believe it or nor - the both relate ! Pippin, however, realizes what is truly important.

David Sheehan needs to be drawn and quartered for his handling of this classic musical (ugh - the cross-fades during the Manson trio dance, the poor framing, etc).

I love Chita Rivera but she is bit miscast as Fastrada.

William Katt might sound better if he was miked to the camera.

On the other hand, this is the only record we have this amazing musical circus. Obviously, even in pristine state, it would still lose something because it really is a live theater piece.

I simply have newbies watch it, explain the mistakes/edits, and have them listen to the original cast album.

I'm in a production of Pippin (Player, Girl, Beggar, Courtier), and one day, my director sat us down and screened this movie for us. Well, Ben Vereen is fantastic!!! And Chita Rivera IS Fastrada. I don't think that anyone else can pull off being sexy in the same way that she does. The only one who blew it in my book was William Katt. He was a HORRIBLE Pippin. And what the heck was he doing bouncing around the stage like that yelling the line "GLORY'S IN THE AIR!" And the only thing that didn't tickle me like the rest of the movie did (the bedroom scene was HILARIOUS)was the cuts. They cut out Theo's duck dying and most of the lines when Pippin was made King. Some of the adlibs, I admit, were pretty funny, i.e. when the leading player yells at Catherine about flubbing the line ("But he touched my hand, they don't normally do that!" "I don't care WHERE he put his hands!"), but others were just really dumb. And the orgy scene made me blush furiously. Now, I admit, my production is cutting the bed scene and the duck dying, but it would've been better if we hadn't. The same applies for this. But other than that, this is a great movie.

I read this on the Hollywood Reporter website: June 26, 2003 Miramax sets stage for 'Pippin' redo NEW YORK -- In the wake of the success of "Chicago," Miramax Films has danced its way to another Bob Fosse project by acquiring feature film rights to the Broadway musical "Pippin." The musical -- which debuted on Broadway in 1972 and ran for five years -- follows the story of Pippin, the son of Charlemagne, ruler of the ninth century Holy Roman Empire. After experimenting with sex and politics and experiencing the lessons of war, Pippin learns that the meaning of life lies in true love. "This is a passion project for me, just like 'Chicago,' " Miramax co-topper Harvey Weinstein said. "I saw this approximately 30 years ago with the original cast and have always wanted to make it into a movie."