The great surprise in Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is not that Tim Burton can handle a darkly, gothic tale — we've seen that already in Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow. Nor is it that Stephen Sondheim's musical is sublimely witty — he has garnered enough awards to prove it. The great surprise is that Johnny Depp can sing.
Who knew? Not only does he sing, but his voice harmonizes nicely with Helen Bonham Carter's. As fellow muses to Burton, they bring a great gothic classic to film.
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street isn't the first musical by Stephen Sondheim to be filmed but it certainly took a long time to get to the silver screen. West Side Story, which made its Broadway debut in 1957, was the first of Sondheim's works to be made into a movie.
Sondheim worked as a lyricist to Leonard Bernstein's music (book by Arthur Laurents) on the Romeo and Juliet story that was eventually made into a 1961 movie starring Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, and George Chakiris. That movie went on to win best picture, with supporting actor awards for Chakiris and Moreno and a directing award for Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise. Sondheim himself would go on to be the winner of a 1990 Academy Award for "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" from Dick Tracy, a 1985 Pulitzer Prize in drama for Sunday in the Park with George, and six Tony awards for best score (1971, 1972, 1973, 1979, 1988, and 1994).
He would, as in the case of Sweeney Todd, also write his own music. Sweeney Todd debuted on Broadway in 1979 with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett and Len Cariou as the murderous barber, winning Tony awards for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, Best Actor in a Musical for Cariou, Best Actress in a Musical for Lansbury, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Scene Design, and Best Costume Design.
With all those awards, it's a wonder it didn't hit the silver screen sooner. Yet perhaps people weren't ready to tackle the gory story itself. In long ago London, a young barber, Benjamin Barker (Depp) with a beautiful wife, Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly), is framed by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his toady, Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall), and deported to Australia. He has now returned, under an assumed name, looking for his wife and daughter, only to be informed by his former friend and neighbor, Mrs. Lovett (Bonham Carter), that the judge raped his wife, who then committed suicide. The judge then adopted the daughter, Johanna (Jayne Wisener), raising her as his ward and future wife. When a former associate (Sacha Baron Cohen) recognizes Todd and threatens him with blackmail, Todd murders the man. But what to do with the body? The resourceful and economical Mrs. Lovett suggests that it would be such a waste to not use fresh meat, when it is so expensive in Victorian England.
Bus'ness needs a lift,
Debts to be erased...
Think of it as thrift,
As a gift,
If you get my drift!
Article comments