Rating: 
Summary: Memories of old New York
Review: Adding to what others have already said, this record of producing a record of a Broadway show is remarkable. It blew me away, as they say. There's no people like show people - and here they are. Fabulous, nervy, talented beyond belief. Stritch doing and re-doing "Ladies Who Lunch" is very good, but the moment for me was Dean Jones singing "Being Alive". He sings with such heart felt emotion. It moved me to tears. This show is all about New Yorkers, and this song brought back to me the memory of so many New York friends, from that time in the 1970's who are no longer with us. This was their world, a city of strangers, and Sondheim captured it so magnificently. A masterpiece if ever there was one.
Rating: 
Summary: Singing is wonderful ....camera work is insane
Review: As a record of musical theatre, this DVD is invaluable. As the main review notes it shows the intensity of the performances during this marathon recording and filming session. It is unfortunate that the (then new) technique of 'cinema verite' using hand-held cameras was used to record this session. The result is terrible. The camera operaters seem as if they have just learned to use their cameras: they overuse the zoom effect to the extent that it becomes distracting; a great deal of footage is painfully out of focus; at times they film apparently unrelated action. The transfer to DVD is not great. There is a lot of 'dirt' apparent for most of the film. However, the music lives, as do the performances of the cast, especially that of Elaine Stritch. Interesting to see the pre-computerized methods of recording music. Definitely a DVD to own if you are an afficionado of Musical Theatre. It's like having a piece of history in your DVD player. Note: interesting how many people smoked back then. It seems like everyone 'lights-up' while on the job. One singer even has a cigarette in his hand while he is performing.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling Document Of A Great Cast Album
Review: Company is, to say the least, an unusual show. What is it, really? Certainly a brilliant musical, by Stephen Sondheim. But it's taken a very special place in Broadway Lore, thanks in great part to the Cast Album that was recorded in front of D.A. Pennebaker's cameras.
If you're an aficionado of Broadway, you already know a lot about Sondheim. So, it's fascinating to see the young composer coaching his singers and consulting with the recording engineers during this marathon session from 1971.
It's a truly exciting and vibrant look at the process, shot entirely hand-held, with raw focusing and close ups on the vocalists. The performances are for the microphones, not the lenses, so you see quite a few candid moments throughout the evening, and this gives the film a heightened intensity, and even moreso because the whole thing runs just under an hour.
Still, if you have played and played the cast album, it's very refreshing to see the alternate takes shown here. Dean Jones emoting on "Being Alive" is as incredible a performance as you'll ever view, and Elaine Stritch's "Ladies Who Lunch" recording is the lynchpin on which this whole film is hung.
My only complaint about this DVD is the "commentary" track. Granted, this commentary track was done particularly well. Some statements were clearly scripted, like the ones that filmmaker Pennebaker makes at the opening. Also commenting are Hal Prince, Broadway Director extraordinaire, who has some interesting insights and Elaine, the superstar diva, just being her gabby self. They carefully drop comments in where it doesn't take away from the original interview moments in the film, and there's a minimum of rambling, which is all too typical of such tracks on other DVDs.
But the fact is, this commentary track should have been a complete and separate interview section, perhaps gathering a few more of the participants, and sitting them down in a room for a chat. It would have been another chance for Pennebaker to roll more film in revisiting this alchemical moment in time. Ah well, there's very little to complain about here!
If you're even mildly interested in documentary filmmaking, Broadway shows, Cast Albums or Sondheim, you know what you must do: Get this disc!
Highly Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A Moment in Time
Review: For anyone who is a fan of musical theater or Sondheim in particular, this is a stunningly brilliant slice of that world, and a must-buy. Seeing a young Sondheim interact with and coach the singers during the recording session is worth the price by itself. But you'll also enjoy the wonderful Elaine Stritch peform and struggle with 'Ladies who Lunch', along with Dean Jones, Donna McKechnie in her prime, and the rest of the brilliant cast. I saw 'Company' four times, and this brought those experiences all back.
Rating:
Summary: STRITCH, SONDHEIM, STRITCH .....
Review: GAWD!
Just watch her do take after take .... and then that MAGNIFICENT EXIT ... only to return later to complete the session and BLAST 'EM AWAY!
SO? Name an Award after her, a Thetare ...? A Lane next to a Theatre?
ENOUGH GUSHING ... a brilliant DVD ... the rest ? Incomparable..
With this DVD youget exactly what's expected - professionals - over the course of a gruelling sesssion [schedules ya know] creating perfection under the auspices of masters!
One for all the ages.
Rating:
Summary: A must for Sondheim fans
Review: I'd heard of this documentary and was thrilled to be able to finally see it. A real "behind the scenes" documentary. While there's no continuous narrative, it's interesting to see the process and to later hear the commentary of Pennebaker, Prince and Stritch. You can see the joy the performers had singing these songs and you cheer when you hear Elaine Stritch sing a successful take of "Ladies Who Lunch." Recommended for those who loved Company, Sondheim completists and those who care about musical theatre.
Rating:
Summary: A must for Sondheim fans
Review: I'd heard of this documentary and was thrilled to be able to finally see it. A real "behind the scenes" documentary. While there's no continuous narrative, it's interesting to see the process and to later hear the commentary of Pennebaker, Prince and Stritch. You can see the joy the performers had singing these songs and you cheer when you hear Elaine Stritch sing a successful take of "Ladies Who Lunch." Recommended for those who loved Company, Sondheim completists and those who care about musical theatre.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating documentary!
Review: If you care about musical theatre, then you will want to see this 1-hour condesation of the 18 1/2 hour recording session that yielded the original cast album of COMPANY.This documentary will give you an idea of how much sweat goes into making these albums... usually done in one long day in a cramped recording studio. Once you see this documentary, you'll listen to the album in a totally different way. Watch Sondheim coach the singers: correct their pronunciations, or even correct notes they have changed over the weeks of performances. Best of all watch Elaine Stritch struggle to record "The Ladies Who Lunch" until exhaustion gets the better of her and she starts screaming back at her own playback. And yet ... and yet the final result is worth it! No other cast album documentary captures as much as this one. A must for those who know that cast albums are NOT "soundtracks!"
Rating:
Summary: In Good "Company"
Review: If you have a collection of original cast albums and have ever wondered what goes on the day the show is recorded this fascinating documentary tells it all.
D A Pennebaker spent 18 hours with the cast, musicians and recording crew commiting the recording of the show to film.
On May 3, 1970 they all convened on Columbia Records 30th Street Studios in New York. Elaine Stritch's recording "The Ladies Who Lunch" is a fascinating and frightening event. It truly captures what a great talent Stritch is.
There is commentary on the DVD that is quite interesting. Additional footage is included along with the problems Dean Jones, the shows star, was having in his life. Elaine Stritch has also supplied her recollections on that day 30 years ago.
I highly recommend this.
Rating:
Summary: If You Like Broadway Musicals, You'll Probably Like This
Review: If you like Broadway, if you like Stephen Sondheim (or even if you don't), if you like behind-the-scenes looks at show business, you'll probaby like this DVD. It's a documentary of how the original cast recording of Company was put together a few days after the show opened in New York.
All one Sunday and through 4 a.m. Monday the tracks were rehearsed, changed, critiqued, redone until with one exception the record was finished. The exception was Elaine Stritch's recording of the big song from the show, "The Ladies Who Lunch." It's a dramatic show stopper, and Stritch just couldn't nail it. All the other cast members had been dismissed, so it was just Stritch, the orchestra, and the recording and creative teams. The more takes they took, the more flaccid her performance became and more tired her voice sounded. This section alone on the DVD is high drama. (They finally recorded the orchestra track and had her come back two days later--when she did nail it, to everyone's relief.)
The program takes less than an hour and there's no voice over (unless you access a fairly interesting interview made 30 years later by Stritch, Harold Prince, the show's Broadway director, and Pennebaker). You move from song to song seeing how adjustments were made, how help was given, how nuances became highly important. Interspersed are snippets of discussion by Sondheim and Prince of how the show came about.
Everyone was acutely aware that they were making the permanent recording of the show's score. The stress, no matter how professional the actors were, had to have been incredible. There's Dean Jones with a fairly brittle voice who was probably chosen for the lead because of his movie name recognition. He clearly looks uncomfortable throughout. At one point the recording supervisor, Thomas Z. Shephard, says to him, "You're very good and I don't want to spoil something that's potentially marvelous..." Uh oh. Pamela Meyers was a young singer in her first Broadway show with a big song to perform, "Another Hundred People." She looks a bit like Brigitte Jones. Sondheim works with her to get a single note where it should be. She is so serious listening to him and he takes the time to be gentle with her. And there's Stritch, an actress who seems unable to turn it off. She draws the center of attention to her just enough to be noticeable. Most things tend to be dramatic with her, and her struggle with "Ladies" is as much self-involved as it is her aiming for excellence.
I'm not one of those who thinks a great deal of Company as a show. I've seen it on Broadway and two or three times in rep. It's a musical about marriage and relationships and the inability to commit...or rather, it's a story about relationships and marriage amongst rather superficial upper-East Side New Yorkers. Those are easy targets and the point of view gets, for me, a little tiresome. But the songs are great, and the show was exciting and different when it opened.
As I said, if you like Broadway musicals, Steven Sondheim, and behind-the-scenes looks, you'll probably get a kick out of this.
|
