Applause

I always wondered what this show was like.The musical version of "ALL ABOUT EVE" I have heard the Original Broadway cast album and was excited to see on the IMDB that there was a video version taped in 1973. I recently found a copy of it. I can now understand why this is never seen. The quality of the sets is like a cheap soap opera, the actors project as if they are acting to the last row of a huge arena. Lauren Bacall has never seemed so insincere. The "choreography" is sloppy, the Greenwich Village gay bar number is a blast, men throwing Lauren around while she sings, and trying to make it look like she is a dancer. At times I am reminded of Mae West in "SEXTETTE" The lip-syncing is obvious. But I love this show I wish they would put this on DVD with DTS sound and hours of extras. But this will most likely be shown no-where and never released on home video. The production was probably taped in a few days and it shows. I am sure the stage production was a lot better. But this is the only version of this musical around. It is a great record of the show if you can imagine the better production it must have been. The songs are stuck in my head. The dramatic lovers quarrels with Lauren and Larry Hagman are unbelievable. The ending is very strange with Margo (Lauren) giving up her career as an actress so she can be a real woman for her man. But that is all part of the fun. The "APPLAUSE" number is a real hoot with the cutesy "gypsies" doing parodies of "Cabaret," "Fiddler," West Side Story," "Hello Dolly," "Oklahoma-Oh Calcutta." among others. Highly recommended!

Applause was a fun, sharp, sophisticated & very successful Broadway musical. What we are reviewing here is the tv version which is less successful. Some shows don't translate well to television. Applause is one of them. To have seen it in person & felt the joy of a live performance & then have to compare it to this version is slightly sad. It's still a tight show & Bacall is magnificent. (in spite of the nasty queen's insulting review here. He apparently has no taste. Just a viscous tongue & poor eyesight) But it's all we have & if we can stretch our imagination, we can still see how thrilling it must have been on Broadway. It won several Tony awards including Best Musical & Best actress for Bacall which it deserved. We have no other version left for us other than a cast album and so I am grateful for this flawed time capsule video version. Flawed? Yes but still, I love it.

I wanted to see this movie for years and finally found a copy this year. Well, the actual production left something to be desired. The sets seemed cramped, and the whole thing has kind of a thrown-together feeling to it, but that's easy enough to overlook. The musical was obviously a lot of fun to make and all of the actors seem to really be enjoying themselves.

Lauren Bacall shows her usual dramatic star-power, but (Tony Award or no Tony Award) the woman really can't sing. Fortunately, for her part at least, it really doesn't matter. She's a strong enough actress that she can put emotion behind the lyrics and it doesn't really matter if it matches the melody or not. Larry Hagman plays Bill - but he seems almost wasted, having very little to do until the end. Penny Fuller was a fairly good Eve, but she was definitely no Anne Baxter. Still, I doubt Anne Baxter could have sung as well as Fuller did. Her last number was very impressive.

The real surprise to me was English actress Debbie Bowen completely stopping the show with the title song "Applause." She nailed it. I never even knew she could sing, and she nearly steals the entire show with just that one number. Very impressive talent, too bad she seems to have disappeared from the entertainment world. She was the one to watch in this movie.

The rest of the supporting cast is mostly forgettable. The plot line is pretty faithful to "All About Eve" although the script does seem to nicey it up a little too much. Why did they get rid of one of the best characters in the movie - Addison DeWitt? George Sanders won the Oscar for that role, it was probably the most intelligent character in the whole story. For a long time the audience is kept sympathizing with Eve and hating Margo, which is not the way the story is supposed to go at all. The end is rather abrupt and doesn't really come across as satisfying. But the music alone is a great, great asset to this. It's worth watching if you can find it.

Why Broadway, and Hollywood and Tv Fight to keep some of these American Gems off DVD or Tape bewilders me. This is all but forgotten by even the best memoried Baby Boomers. Well, digging through old tapes, I found this "APPLAUSE" STARRING: Lauren Bacall, Larry Hagman, et al.

Now WHO would not pay to see "APPLAUSE" with it's ORIGINAL LEADING STAR? "APPLAUSE" is great, even after 30 years tucked away on a shelf. This find made my day. From the brilliant writing adaptation of "All About Eve", to the effervescent score. This Musical retelling of the Bette Davis classic is overpoweringly Superb. Lauren Bacall at her best! The production was done true to the original. That alone is worth seeing it again. Even on tv. But, in a theatre, on a big screen would be even better.

"What is it that we're working for?, Applause, Applause..." Love those classic Musicals, or hate them, I think you'd all LOVE APPLAUSE! Now, let's get it released on DVD. I'd sell my soul to see the ORIGINAL "HELLO,DOLLY!" with Carol Channing on DVD. Perhaps if Hollywood stayed true to the original work, Musicals would have lasted as an art medium. If you ever get a chance to see this GEM, DON'T Pass it up!

This may not be really good, but it is fascinating to see if only for a 'legendary' performance, that being of Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing. I never found Bacall the least bit sexy in film, and although she came along some in the late 1940s and 1950s, I always thought she was a near-A star with a B- talent. I recall the discerning but often nasty critic John Simon once stating that there were certain stars, Bacall being one of them, who were simply naturally 'big' personalities and were able to demonstrate that much better on the stage than on the screen. Well, she does that here, and in spades. You cannot watch Bacall in KEY LARGO or TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT and get any idea that she has a personality and 'largeness' of aspect so totally on exhibit in this film. That being said, several reviewers here have somewhat denigrated this TV performance of hers, but they should remember that it is a THEATER performance basically filmed for the small screen. (Bette Davis, in ALL ABOUT EVE, gave a THEATER performance on the screen and got away with it, but she always gave THEATER performances on the screen, somewhat in the manner that Eleanor Parker and Faye Dunaway also did, and they all got away with it, sometimes gloriously well.) As for the rest of the TV show, it is quite updated to include not only some language that would have been verboten on the screen in 1950, but also in changing the Thelma Ritter role to that of a gay man, having an entire scene take place in a gay club, and changing the critic played by George Sanders to a show producer played by Robert Mandan. The producer isn't nearly as nasty and caustic (and funny) as is the Sanders character, but he is in the same position as is the critic to help Eve's upcoming career, and in the end, he gets that particular girl (poor guy), while Margo goes off to the domestic life with a good, but not grainy enough (in comparison to Gary Merrill) Larry Hagman. The songs for this show were so-so at best, but quite effective in putting over why people dedicate their lives to the theater (actually, this is done better than in the movie) and also why Margo has done so. And as iconic as Davis may have been in the movie, she is a big part of a great ensemble, whereas in the musical, Margo is 80% of the show. Whatever the outcome, and it is pretty good, this viewing just moved me to think of all the great stage performances that have not been preserved - like Andrews in MY FAIR LADY, Merman in GYPSY, Alfred Drake in just about everything he did, March and Eldridge in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, etc., etc. Anyway, even as only a historical curiosity, this is well worth viewing.