Pippin
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Canada
Movie Reviews of Pippin
Movie Review: Dance, Song and History
Summary: 4 Stars
The DVD of Pippin makes available to a new audience one of the great musicals. The staging is wonderfuland Ben Vereen is at his best. The numbers move well and the story line is easy to follow. It is nice to have something from ones past that is enjoyab;e today.Movie Review: Pippin dvd
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved Ben Vereen in the show. Wanted the music for my ipod, too. Very satisfiedMovie Review: Great show, mediocre adaptation
Summary: 3 Stars
My school is currently doing the production of the show "Pippin" as our 2008/09 season play this year. Now I am fortunate enough to have seen a video of a professional production floating around on the internet somewhere, and it was really well done. Then I saw this movie... I'll break down this version of the movie.
THE GOOD: We have a version of Pippin out on DVD finally. Ben Vereen is in it and gives a very good performance, after all he IS the Leading Player, nobody else can hold a candle to him. The set is FANTASTIC, Most of the cast are really good (William Katt ESPECIALLY), and not to mention this video was shot in Canada!
THE BAD: Several songs are cut down here. For example, half of Spread A Little Sunshine is cut out, therefore making it confusing to anyone who has not seen the show on stage already or have had any experience with Pippin whatsoever. The second (and most essential) verse of "War Is A Science" is out, "Glory" is extremely missed opportunity. The slow-mo battle scene is cut out! This isn't no G-rated happy-go-lucky play. And What happened to I Guess I'll Miss The Man??? Pacing problems also ensue; some fast songs are too slow, some slow songs are too fast (Simple Joys is ruined by this), and the cast seems to be rushing it at times, as if they have somewhere to be after the show. EVerybody, even the incomparable Ben Vereen is guilty of this (Glory is a sign of this). And the final line (cutting out "But Happy") is a total WTF moment.
THE UNFORGIVABLE: THe social Commentary/political overtones of the show are missing, and elements like Pippin not being used to life are gone and replaced with happy-go-lucky family version themes. This is a show that kids shouldn't watch. And the band of players didn't really come off to me as creepy, not to mention as much as Ben Vereen is an amazing actor and singer, he seems to be a tad psycho in the last 20 minutes. I felt like I was watching a demented lunatic serial killer have a freakout. Martha Raye's performance was PATHETIC (what's with the microphone????), and the guy who plays Charlamagne YELLS a lot, which did get on my nerves after a while. At times I wondered if Fosse even saw a production of the original production. Lastly, the camerawork is not the best- the audience shots on "No Time at All" make me cringe. THe blame for this falls squarely at the feet of Bob Fosse, who apparently had the wrong ideas.
In short, I give this 3 stars for Ben Vereen and William Katt, and the sets. I'd say purchase it, despite its flaws, because this is the best version we'll currently get on DVD.
Movie Review: unfortunate adaptation but better than nothing...
Summary: 3 Stars
Like others in here, I saw Pippin on Broadway in 1973 (while Irene Ryan was still in the cast); it was my first *real* Broadway show and I was completely blown away.Then, some years later, the video came out, and I got to see it while on a cross-country flight. Unfortunately, the sound was messed up on the tape, and the crew cut the tape short, but even with that, there was something missing to the production.
It wasn't until I got a copy of the tape some years after that that I realized what was wrong: scenes deleted, dance numbers abridged... sure, it was Pippin, but at the same time it really wasn't. It was like this bad photocopy of a truly great original.
Still, it's better than nothing. I broke down and bought the DVD because (1) the quality was better than the tape, and (2) it ain't much, but it's a record of a show I hold very, very dear.
(BTW: Pippin trivia -- when Florence Klotz was on her way to show the original costume designs to Fosse, she got up too late that morning to put any colour into the chorus designs and decided to leave them white and beige washes -- she told herself en route that she would talk Fosse through the colour work and everything would be fine. So she arrives and shows them to him, and she's just getting ready to tell him what's in what colour when he goes wild over the "white" look. Being a wise businessperson, she kept her mouth shut, and the costumes stayed white.)
Movie Review: No better on DVD
Summary: 3 Stars
PIPPIN is a model show of its time period, a theatre piece of delightful contrasts: traditional AND unique, colorful AND dark, pastoral AND risque, cynical AND optimistic. I've listened to the cast album LP for years, always finding the songs fascinating. Now here's a professional production of the play "to have and to hold" on DVD. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to its expectations. The performances are wonderful, as other reviewers have pointed out. (With the exception of otherwise adorable William Katt's voice breaking quite a bit.) However, the maddening cuts have NOT been restored for the DVD, and the sound quality is very poor for a DVD. It doesn't sound like the actors were individually miked, making the vocals very flat when amplified by the DVD medium. Having watched the DVD a couple of times, I decided to sell it and to invest in a copy of the original cast recording on CD :-)