Occam's Aftershave
Posts: 5287 Joined: Feb. 2006
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From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_(musical)
1958 musical film The musical was made into a successful film of 1958, starring Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor in the leading roles, with Juanita Hall in the part of Bloody Mary that she had played in the original stage production. Metropolitan Opera star Giorgio Tozzi provided the voice for the role of Emile de Becque. Kauai, one of the Hawaiian Islands, served as the filming location for the movie. The film is notorious for the use of colored filters during many of the song sequences, which has been a source of criticism for the film. Director Joshua Logan wanted it to be a subtle change, but 20th Century Fox, the company that would distribute the 35mm version, made it an extreme change, and since tickets to the film were pre-sold (it was a roadshow attraction), they had no time to correct it. Criticism of the filtering did not prevent the film from topping the box office that year, and the 65mm Todd-AO cinematography (by Leon Shamroy) was nominated for an Academy Award, as was the music adaptation and the sound, winning the latter. All the songs have been retained, and a song entitled "My Girl Back Home," sung by Lt. Cable and Nellie, which was cut from the Broadway show, was added.
The soundtrack album has spent more weeks at Number 1 in the UK album chart than any other album, clocking up an astonishing 115 weeks at the top in the late 50s and early 60s. It spent 70 consecutive weeks at the top of the chart and was Number 1 for the whole of 1959.
Originally shown in a nearly 3-hour roadshow version and later cut to two-and-a-half hours for general release, the film is currently under restoration by rights holders MGM and Fox. Fox (which currently holds both the video rights and the film's copyright) is scheduled to release a "special edition" DVD in 2006. This would include the restored roadshow version with scenes not shown since its original Todd-AO theatrical release.
Television production South Pacific DVDAn elaborate television production, Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, was directed by Richard Pearce in 2001. A production with Glenn Close, Harry Connick Jr., Rade Serbedzija, Robert Pastorelli, Lori Tan Chinn, Natalie Mendoza, and Jack Thompson, it was filmed primarily in Australia, with some scenes shot in Moorea, an island close to Tahiti). Sixteen songs are featured in the movie. This version omitted the well-known song "Happy Talk", although not for "politically correct" reasons as has been rumored, and cut the even more popular song "Bali Hai" in half. Several new scenes, such as Nellie and Emile's very first meeting at the officer's club, were added, and a new character was created to serve as Nellie's best friend and confidante. The sex scenes between Liat and Lt. Cable were also dealt with more frankly than in the original. The film was harshly criticized by some because the order of the songs was somewhat changed, and because Rade Serbedsija, who played Emile, does not have an operatic singing voice, as have all other "Emile"s before him. Unlike the movie version of "The Sound of Music", the structure of this "South Pacific" was said by some to be damaged because of the change in the order of the songs. In the stage original and in the 1958 film, for instance, the song "Twin Soliloquies" expresses musically what Emile and Nellie do not actually say to each other and leads to Emile's "Some Enchanted Evening", sung only a minute later. In the television version, however, the two songs are sung in two entirely different scenes. A soundtrack from the movie was also released.
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