Let’s get it straight: I hate most musicals after 1950. They’re disgusting and horrid, and have ruined music and good taste overall. Enough said.
However, I guess there are a few exceptions. I can enjoy “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (Jim Sharman, USA, 1975) without any problems at all. “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (Mel Stuart, USA, 1971) is a great one too, as is its direct spawn: Tim Burton (and his musical partner in crime: Danny Elfman). Random bits and pieces from basically any Bollywood film can also be fun, because of the pleasant and colorful exotic hysteria, and (perhaps) assuming some kind of Busby Berkeley legacy. And then there’s also the truly odd one out: “Bugsy Malone” (Alan Parker, UK/US, 1976) But… so few films in basically 70 years of moviemaking… those are abysmal numbers.
I recently re-watched “Bugsy Malone.” This weird musical with a cast of kids only was a film I watched four times in the cinema when it came out, and I was only ten or eleven years old! Obviously it must have appealed to me. Revisiting it made me see why, partly. It’s charming, innocent, fun, with great tunes and musical performances. But it’s also flimsy, evanescent and downright silly – definitely appealing to a young audience.
Bugsy Malone is a sweet-talking small time gangster connected to Fat Sam and his “Fat Sam’s Grand Slam Speakeasy.” The joint’s rocking, with chorus girls, a great band, people enjoying themselves and drinking Sarsaparilla cocktails, while Fat Sam is raking it in.
But there’s trouble up ahead. A competing gang butts in on Fat Sam’s turf, armed with a brand new weapon: the splurge gun – basically a machine gun shooting whipped cream. If you get splashed or splurged, you’re out for good!
Amidst this sticky gang war, Bugsy (Scott Baio) courts the starlet Blousy (Florrie Dugger), while femme fatale Tallulah (Jodie Foster) pines for Bugsy. Micro-intrigues basically move the film forward, interrupted by song and dance numbers from gangsters, boxers and chorus girls.
The musical score (by Paul Williams) sounds like Beatles outtakes, slightly pushed back in time to give it some Zeitgeist oomph, and it’s really not bad at all. In a film that today is so wonderfully not-politically-correct, these songs help amplify its anomalous “fluke” position. Hearing a 13 year old and heavily dolled/made up Jodie Foster sing “No-one south of heaven is ever going to treat you finer – Tallulah had a training in North Carolina,” is like a breath of fresh air in an era when monstrosities like the TV series “Glee” actually exist in reality and not only in nauseating nightmares.
Kids only? It’s not a bad idea. There should be more movies with kids only. Not as ironical attributes or statements, or as a novelty act (like in “Bugsy Malone”). Just let them act all the parts… Empathy! Energy! Enthusiasm! It could be a whole new genre. Why not remake the films of Lynch, Wenders, von Trier, Herzog, Fassbinder, Bela Tarr, Bergman, Tarkovskij, et al, etc – with kids? I foresee a grand success.
Just like in the midget masterpiece “The Terror of Tiny Town” (Sam Newfield, USA, 1938) and Werner Herzog’s sadistic gem “Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen” (Germany, 1970), the aggressive appropriation of consensus normality from “adults” could become a real dramatic game changer, and a much needed Hollywood boom. There are simply too many boring normal adult actors and too many boring normal films around – bring in the small people with the big visions instead. (They would probably cost a whole lot less, too.)
