A Little Night Music
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Movie Reviews of A Little Night Music
Movie Review: What a disappointment...
Summary: 2 Stars
Like others here have already stated, this DVD is a major disappointment. I've been waiting forever to get this film on DVD so when I started watching it and saw the poor quality and sound of this release, I was very upset. I feel so ripped off! The DVD version doesn't look any better than the old VHS copy I've had for years. If you already have this on VHS, save your money and avoid this DVD.Movie Review: An unfortunate mess
Summary: 2 Stars
When the camera tracks for a full minute just to get to the double doors for Taylor's entrance, you know you're in for a slow. plodding time. Prince proved he may be a genius on the stage but is pretty clueless when it comes to movies; he took what was essentially bullet-proof material and made it dull. Poor Sondheim -- this is almost as appalling as the film version of FORUM.Movie Review: Too Little Elizabeth Taylor
Summary: 2 Stars
I always loved the play/movie. Still, it seemed a little long watching it at home. Guests fell asleep.Movie Review: ONE OF THE WORST MOVIE MUSICALS EVER MADE!
Summary: 1 Stars
Based on Ingmar Bergman's great sex comedy, Smiles of a Summer Night, the stage version of A Little Night Music remains one of the greatest musicals ever written by the genius Stephen Sondheim. The production broadcast live from Lincoln Center in the 80s starring Sally Ann Howes was lovely, if somewhat overwrought. What everyone seems to forget about this, due largely to its beautifully lilting operetta score, is that the story is really about sex under the birch trees.On film, the story is a complete disaster. To begin with, the setting has been moved from Sweden, the land of the Midnight Sun, to Vienna to coincide with its operetta styling.
The whole theme, similar to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, is negated. The screenplay further cuts the role of the Grandmother, an aged coutesan wise in the ways of love, played so deliciously by Hermoine Gingold, to almost nothing, and takes away the card game which sets up so much of the background material.
A lot of talent is wasted in this film, and as lovely as Elizabeth Taylor is as Desiree Armfeldt, she should have been dubbed, because she positively ruins "Send in the Clowns." (Listen to Barbara Cook sing it on her Carnegie Hall album). Because Harold Prince is so dreadful a filmmaker (in spite of his theatre and opera success) he destroys the final scene, in which the summer night smiles three times, the third time on Gingold as the old who knows too much. A long shot takes away the visual sequence in which we learn that she's died.
What a pity that such a beautiful show should make so dreadful a movie musical. Do yourself a favor: get the delightful Ingmar Bergman comedy instead!
Movie Review: Collectors, Beware!
Summary: 1 Stars
This DVD is a major disappointment. Like so many other Sondheim fans, I'd been looking forward to this release because the 1978 film is--for better or worse--a rare record of one of my favorite Broadway shows. But, the film itself aside, this DVD is a problem. It is not professionally done. It's supposed to be a new, widescreen print in Dolby stereo, but it isn't. It's a terrible, scratchy old print, and the "widescreen" is apparently stretched out from a fullscreen TV print. The framing is so bad that the opening titles are all cut off, like on an old TV print. And the soundtrack is mono--not even very clear mono. There are more glitches and scratches and sudden jumps (indicating reel changes on old movie theater equipment) than you can count.
I swear, this looks and sounds like it was taken from a TV broadcast with second-rate equipment. Try pausing the picture, and you'll see the horizontal lines that indicate a broadcast on an obsolete TV. And there's a vertical slash down the entire center of the picture for much of the running time, projector damage from long ago. They didn't use the laser disc or VHF recordings, both of which are in much better shape, to make this DVD. Is this legal? Who is "Hen's Tooth Video," anyway?
I don't know what we can do about this, but you really want to think twice before ordering this title. I'm furious, and you will be, too. What a rip-off!