Chorus Line

Why all the bad reviews? Is it dated? Yes. But the music, the dancing, the really skimpy costumes all makes it magical.

I recently saw the documentary following the Broadway revival and felt the tug of nostalgia pulling to watch the original. I was watching mainly for the music and the dancing. They did not disappoint.

Of course THEATRE is best live and in person - that goes without saying. But I enjoyed my viewing of A Chorus Line.

Having seen, studied, read, and researched ACL and Michael Bennett, I have to say that the show does not translate well to the screen. The movie is 'good' at best, but completely loses much of what made ACL so successful on Broadway. The constant swipes to Cassie (taking a cab into the city; talking with Larry; etc) were completely unnecessary, and many of the great songs and monologues were shortened or (worse) cut altogether! Whereas I like Michael Douglas, I feel that he was a poor choice for Zach. Michael Douglas should not have been cast as Zach for the exact same reason Kevin Kline was not cast as Zach in the original production: he couldn't dance.

I often wonder if Michael Bennett would have approved of this film.

For those who never saw A CHORUS LINE onstage and their only exposure to the story was this film, this film is OK as movie musicals, nothing special, just OK. I have seen the show on Broadway 4 times and even auditioned for a touring company of the show once and for someone who pretty much memorized the original production, the 1985 film version is so dreadful on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. First of all, for those who have never auditioned for a theatrical production, let me assure you that IRL when you audition for a play, the director, producer, and choreographer never ask personal questions and don't give a crap about why you wanted to become a performer. A real theatrical audition, whether it be for a play or a musical, rarely takes more than five minutes. If you're auditioning as a dancer, you get shown a 64-bar dance combination once, you do it, and then they decide immediately whether you're in or out. Michael Bennett's original concept of the show was to flesh out the lives of dancers and introduce to the uninitiated the passion for performing and why so many sacrifice so much for so little. The play is about these dancers. First of all, director Richard Attenborough took so much focus off the dancers by beefing up the Cassie/Zach relationship and by casting Michael Douglas as Zach. In the play, you NEVER see Zach...he is just a voice in the back of the theater and his relationship with Cassie is barely touched upon. Cassie shown in the cab in traffic trying to get to the audition and upstairs talking to Larry (a character who is not even in the play)was all added for the movie and took so much focus off what the story is about. Major musical numbers were cut or rethought. The opening number in the play "I Hope I Get It" shows all of the dancers doing a jazz and ballet combination and then people get eliminated. In the movie they jam three hundred dancers onstage together and show them in closeup to disguise the fact that they have cast people in the film who can't dance (can you say "Audrey Landers"). "Goodbye 12, Goodbye 13, Hello Love", a brilliant vocal exploration of these dancers' childhood's jaundiced memories was reworked as "Surprise, Surprise" mainly a vehicle for the late Gregg Burge as Richie. The show's most famous song, "What I Did for Love" which in the show was a touching allegory sung by the entire cast about what they give up to dance, becomes just another standard love song in the film, performed tiredly by a miscast Allyson Reed as Cassie. Jeffrey Hornaday's choreography for the film is dull and unimaginative and doesn't hold a candle to Michael Bennett' original staging and when you're making a movie about dancers, the choreography has to be special. There are a couple of good dancers in the film, the previously mentioned Gregg Burge as Richie, Michelle Johnston as Bebe, and Janet Jones as Judy, but they are hardly given the opportunity to show what they can do, yet Audrey Landers, who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, is given one of the show's best numbers, "Dance 10, Looks 3." I will admit that the finale, "One" is dazzling, but you have to wait almost two hours for that. I would say that if you never saw A CHORUS LINE onstage, this film might be worth a look, but if you are a devotee of the original Broadway musical...be afraid...be very afraid.

A strange picture, as it peels the outer rims of human feelings and aims straight for the raw. Auditioning for a Broadway stage musical are hundreds of youngsters who dream with a place in the limelight. The plot, you can imagine, is basically an audition, with all its highs and lows. And when I say it has raw feelings, i'm talking about the cold process of selection, which is encarnated by the obscure character of Michael Douglas, who, in the obscurity of the audience, with only a little light next to him, says who stays and who goes, even if he has to be brutal sometimes ("Then don't dance!!!", he says shouting to a girl who didn't have any dance classes). The result is a film sustained by the different phases of selection and the suspense of who is going to be a star and who has to leave, which, altogether, will charm only dance-addicts and everyone who would like to be in one of these shows one day.

If you've never seen a stage production of "A Chorus Line" (no small feat, since it was not only once the longest running show on Broadway but has had extensive touring and regional exposure), then the movie version is perhaps better than nothing. However, an acquaintance with the source material makes one realize how much the film falls short of the power of the original.

Michael Bennett's magnum opus was conceived as a tribute to "gypsies"--Broadway chorus dancers--and in a way, to the every bodies and nobodies from all walks of life. The characters in "Chorus Line" are not rich or famous, nor are they likely to be, and over the course of the story they bare legs, heart and soul just for the chance to be one body in a unified, faceless corps. Bennett brought out each dancer's individuality, making each a loving, well-defined portrait of a human being with all the hopes and dreams, problems and shames that everyone has but nobody ever sees. But director Richard Attenborough undermines this essential concept in two very distinct ways.

First, there is the presence of Michael Douglas as Zach, the choreographer who puts the auditioning dancers through the paces. Granted, if one must have a "name" actor in "A Chorus Line" then this is the place for it--Zach neither sings nor dances, and exists mostly as a God-like voice issuing from the dark of the auditorium. But Douglas' very presence overshadows the dancers, who should be the heart and soul of the show. True, his name is listed in the credits alphabetically with everyone else's, but every time the camera's on him we go "Hey, that's Michael Douglas," pulling our focus from where it should be.

Also pulling focus is the undue emphasis Attenborough puts on Cassie, the veteran dancer who was once Zach's lover. Although Zach and Cassie's relationship is a part of the stage show, it is but once facet among the many stories told over the evening. Attenborough makes Cassie the central part of the film, shortchanging several other characters in order to provide flashbacks of her life with Zach and her former glory days as a featured dancer. She's even given the eleven o'clock number "What I Did For Love," a song that originally was written as the dancers' anthem to pursuing the dream of Broadway without regret but is here employed as just another torch ballad. (Composer Marvin Hamlish and lyricist Edward Kleban have expressed dissatisfaction with this song, claiming the lyrics were too generalized; its misuse here unfortunately proves their point.) Near the end of the film, when Cassie tells Zach that all the dancers on stage are special, the words ring hollow, not only because of all the screen time she's gotten but because (unlike the stage version) she's been backstage and away from the audition for the majority of the proceedings.

Now and then, one gets a glimpse of what "A Chorus Line" should be. The dancing is good and photographed well, and the music (though over synthesized for the film and sung by mostly mediocre voices) still has impact. But this landmark musical deserved a far more memorable and worthy screen incarnation than it has been given.