Before we get started, we have to pay tribute to probably the greatest character in the whole movie: the fantastic Times Square set, which wisely put forth the idea that this movie is pure fantasy. Had they shot it on location, this would have been a very strange movie.
Not that it's not strange anyway.
Two minutes into the movie, no one has uttered a line yet and we've already decided on our favorite characters - not to mention this year's Halloween costumes. Alas, we never see these fabulous whores again.
We meet the local gambling addicts instead. Wouldn't it be great if shady characters stood around and sang about their shadiness all the time?
We're introduced to saccharine sweet Sarah Brown, the quintessential good girl. She is virginal and pure and has virtually no sexual characteristics and we all know it's only a matter of time before those buttons come undone.
Then we meet Sinatra as Nathan Detroit. Nathan's in charge of the floating crap game that all the other gambling addicts rely on to get their fix. Unfortunately, Nathan's got a bit of a problem. He needs to come up with a thousand bucks to pay off the garage owner so he'll let them hold the crap game there. Boys? Take it away.
Later we meet Nathan's long-time (very long-time) fiancee, Adenoid.
Sorry, that's Adelaide. Honest mistake. Anyway, because she's not too bright, she's been waiting 14 years for her wedding, thinking that Nathan's gonna clean up his act any second now. Oh, honey.
Brando. Scorching hot. He plays Sky Masterson, the highest of the high rollers. Nathan, desperate to come up with the 1000 bucks he needs to host the crap game, entices him into a wager he can't refuse. Sky has to convince a girl to fly to Havana with him for dinner. Nathan gets to pick the girl.
Big shock. But come on! This is Brando! He could charm the panties off Mother Teresa if he had to!
We'll wait for you to scrub that image from your brain.
Sky visits Sarah at the Save-A-Soul Mission, but she keeps her buttons buttoned.
But this is a musical of course, so Sky sings at her for a bit. No dice. Next step?
Force yourself on her. Charming! Romantic!
Okay, maybe we love her a little bit. After slapping him around a bit, she throws him out so she can go masturbate.
That night, Adenoid is working it on stage. We've changed our minds. This is our Halloween costume.
The Regional Director of the Save-A-Soul Army visits the mission and announces that she's closing it because Sarah's done such a shitty job. Sky interjects and promises that by midnight the next night, there will be at least a dozen sinners sitting in those chairs waiting for their donuts and coffee. Sarah, backed against the wall, reluctantly agrees to go to Havana with him.
Nathan doesn't know any of this and expects Sky to show up with his grand any minute. He and the rest of the gambling addicts wait around for the game to start when Lt. Brannigan shows up to harass them. Ah, for a simpler time, when the NYPD could spend their man hours tracking down floating crap games instead of floating bodies.
Nathan tells the cops that they've got it all wrong and they're just having a bachelor party in his honor. Unfortunately for him, Adenoid overhears the whole thing and rushes off to buy a dress and hire a wedding planner.
Meanwhile, in Havana, Sarah remains as buttoned-up as ever. But Sky's got the cure for that.
Alcohol. And lots of it.
As we all know, every good girl throws away her convictions the minute the devil drink touches her lips.
The local drag queen takes a shine to Sky and Sarah doesn't like that.
No, Sarah doesn't like that at all.
Why is it every time she hits someone we like her a little more?
Drunk off her ass and high on adrenaline after beating up a drag queen, Sarah offers to undo a couple more buttons for Sky. He suddenly has a case of ethics and turns her down.
They arrive back in New York just in time to see the gambling addicts run out of the mission. Turns out Nathan found a place to hold the crap game after all.
Lt. Brannigan accuses Sky of masterminding the whole thing. Sky denies it, but Sarah decides not to believe him. Apparently, as she sobers up, her morals come back.
Adenoid has another number and we have yet another choice for our Halloween costumes.
For some reason, Sky meets her backstage and tells her that Nathan's not going to marry her. Apparently, since he fucked things up with his girl, he feels the need to fuck up everyone else's relationships too.
Later, in what must be the most colorful and well-lit sewer in all of Manhattan, the crap game is on.
Sky wants to set things right with Sarah, so he bets every one of the gambling addicts that if he wins the next roll, they all have to show up at the mission to be saved and if he loses, he'll pay each of them 1000 bucks. Then he sings, of course.
Apparently, Luck was a lady that night because everyone shows up at the mission for their donuts.
Darlings, it kills us, but we couldn't find a clip of Stubby singing "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat." It's the song that makes the movie.
Anyway, Sarah is impressed that Sky followed through on his marker and apparently, that's all she needed because, you guessed it:
Double wedding. In Times Square no less. Of course, cynical bitches that we are, we figure each marriage has about 5 years to go before it crashes and burns. Nathan's never going to stop gambling and Sky will always have Cuban drag queens coming after him, forcing Sarah to keep getting into public brawls. All's well that end's well, right?
41 comments:
"Miss Adelaide's Lament ---- A poisin can develop la grippe..." "I got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere...."
I haven't even READ your dissection and you've already made this drenched Monday full of light.
Thank you, T&L!
All the best,
NDC
"The local drag queen"! You guys always make me laugh out loud! Thanks for a fun write-up of a fun movie!
See you on Halloween!
Boys, I just wanted to tell you how much I love you. I was feeling really down and out, having an awful Monday. I was doubting I had the energy to muster a grin at anything, but then I read this post and I'm smiling and giggling like a fool. And I'll probably be doing it for awhile now. Brando and public brawls with trannys and the Salvation Army. teehee
What a cure for the dreadful weather we're having up here today! I love Guys & Dolls. I'm so sorry you weren't able to get "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat" That's such a great song. Here's a personal (well, third person, actually) tidbit about G&D. My DH played Harry the Horse in his high school production. He's a great comic actor, and he can play a tenor saxophone like no one's business. But his singing makes dogs howl and babies cry. The music director told him just to lip synch the words!
Oh and honeys, if you decide to go for Halloween costume # three, I'll make them for you!
Great job as usual, Boys. Love your take on Sarah Brown. I'll echo everyone else and say thanks for brightening up a soaking wet Monday.
Love the Broadway show but was never a huge fan of the movie. Way to stylized for me. And I could never figure out why Brando & Simmons were in this. They seem so miscast to me.
Glad to see Vivian Blaine (Miss Adelaide) and Stubby Kaye (Nicely) preserving on film the classic Broadway roles that they created. That happens so rarely (how many times was my goddess, Chita Rivera, passed over for movies?).
Lt. Brannigan is played by Robert Keith. He's the father of Brian Keith, everyone's favorite TV uncle (Uncle Bill Davis of Family Affair).
Harry the Horse is played by Seldon Leonard, most famous as Nick the Bartender from "It's a Wonderful Life." Leonard also produced and directed a lot of TV (Make Room for Daddy, Lassie, Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy - and created The Andy Griffith Show).
VHT (Vaginal Hat Theory) analysis: Since Sarah wore her simple, practical (but extremely wide-lipped) hat to get married, I'm assuming that Sky isn't getting a whole lot of crazy whoopee on their wedding night. It looks like it's going to be missionary all the way for Mr. Brando.
Oh, the memories of doing this show in high school...I played a member of the mission band whose name was Agatha, I believe. I was so excited to have those two lines...
As for the film, the singing and dancing is amazing, though some of the sappy numbers drag a little. Brando is a hunk, but I've always found Sinatra woefully miscast.
And in the end, I pity Skye, because Sarah is about as cold as it gets...and it'd be too expensive to keep her drunk ALL the time.
Many years ago, I was hired to choreograph G&D for a high school... and as I have never been a dancer or choreographer, we used as much of the original Michael KIdd work as was possible (I called it an homage, when it was just plain stealing). One funny note - when the Times Sq backdrop arrived just before opening, I was horrified to find that when the director said it would be great because it was 'brand new', he wasn't kidding - it contained the marquis for A Chorus Line, Cats, La Cage, and yes, G&D. There was some frantic drop-blocking set-building that day, let me tell you!
Some things that escaped your comment:
-'Pet Me, Poppa' - possibly the tackiest double-entendre number in a musical. They cut the hit song 'Bushel and a Peck' for THIS?
-the irony of craps in the sewer
-and the line most quoted by theater queens - "yeah... chemistry!"
Six decades of gay starting in 1912 on Turner Classic Movies, Mondays and Wednesdays in June.
Joe's got a post all about it. Can you imagine such fabulousness?
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2007/06/queersighted-on-gay-cinema.html
i think you guys need to jump right on this. it could be soooooo much fun.
I love you Boys!
Every Monday I get to astound (and impress!) my husband by singing (and acting! and dancing!) these songs. Poor man led a deprived childhood with no Broadway soundtrack albums. Can you imagine?
-- desertwind
PS - This is one of your favorites, isn't it?
thank god for musical mondays. always makes it that much easier to get through the day.
love you boys!
Anybody besides me give a pinky finger to see Sinatra singing "Luck Be a Lady" instead of Brando?
Miss Adenoid that is perfect. I love her.
Brando, I was so in love with him. Sniff, I am developing a cold just thinking about him.
I like those hooker outfits.
You two are the best!
my favorite musical!, i cant belive that they didnt have sit down your rocking the boat, me and my sister sing that to each other all the time. one of the only times our musical tastes overlap is musicals and the disney movies. you should have had adelaides lament, the other best song in the movie. thanks for not lambasting guys and dolls becasue that would have ruined my day.
Nahncee - Yes, I much prefer Sinatra's version of Luck Be a Lady. It's on Sinatra Reprise, the Very Good Years CD, which I now have to play immediately.
Oh, I wish I hadn't listened to Brando sing. Great to look at but I can't stand his speaking voice (he either mumbles or lisps), and his singing voice is the same but worse. He's the weirdest combination of brutish (Stella!) and effeminate of any man I've ever seen, gay or straight.
And boys, you may have intended 'Apparently, as she sobers up, her morals come back' as a comment on the inanity of the plot, but all this straight girl could think was 'Yeah. Been there, done that.'
No comment on G&D specifically but I have to say...You guys have ruined watching musicals for me!! I was watching "Pal Joey" with a patient today and she was all into it and all I could think was snarky comments and wonder "Hmmm...would T&L have said that??"
Guys and Dolls is my favorite musical ever! And this version of "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat" rocks, although Don Henley did a very interesting remake of it a few years ago.
Brando is so hot in this movie. It helps not to think ahead to what he looked like in his later years....
Like the New Years Parade scene with the drag queens in Flower Drum Song, I love watching the street activity more than the players in this movie. How many times does the same person walk by and what is everyone wearing. The sets themselves are great!
I have to say that Brando wasn't half bad dancing with the drag queen! He should have done that more often!
Stubby Kaye has such a wonderful voice in this and Lil Abner.
Wow Bill, I had no idea that Robert Keith was Brian Keith's father! He had so many good moments over the years.
Personally, my favorite Vivian Blaine role is in the 1945 version of State Fair with Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews. Maybe when the Gayboys have nothing better to do they could do a Double Feature Musical Monday and rate this version against the 1962 one with Ann Margret and Pat Boone! Pitting the corny against the cheesy!
BrianB
Gayboys,
I have been reading your blog for a very long time, but i never had the courage to leave a comment. Musical mondays make me so amazingly happy, because i'm a huge drama nerd, and i always hope that you guys will be reviewing a musical i know. so when i clicked on the link and saw "Guys and Dolls" i screamed a little. We just did that musical at my high school, and it was so much fun! (i was a hotbox girl, but i understudied for sarah and adelaide, have to say it :P) I just wanted to let you guys know that you made a day that wasn't going so well a million times better. you guys are amazing :)
Hi, I'm sorry; how could you not have noticed...the local Cuban drag queen is JASLENE from ANTM!
Personally, I love Jean Simmons in this movie; I think it's a great underrated performance. She's weird and human despite the cartoonish nature of the film.
Whatever happened to the threatened Vin Diesel/Nicole Kidman remake of a few years back?
OMG...I love you guys!
You are the Guardian Angels of Sarcasm I've been wishing for! I love musical Mondays just for the sheer bitchery! You shredded "Guys and Dolls" to a tee!
When I first found Project Rungay, who knew how addicting you would become to me! Thank you for your efforts!
Mwahhhh...keep up the fabulous work!
- Lily
I've never seen all the way through this movie, but I worked set crew for the play in college a few years back. I have to say, I'm disappointed there's no dancing in "Luck be a Lady." That was our favorite number in our production because our choreographer actually managed to take our cast of (mostly) engineering majors and actually get a pretty impressive dance number out of them.
Also, Brando looks funny when he sings. :-)
Manda C
sigh. you never fail us with your picks, that was just what i needed. tom, you even worked through the pain, you darling. hope your back is better!
One of my favorite musicals. Great job, Boys!
Thank you for the Musical Mondays posts, Boys! Now my mother is hooked too.
"Miss Adelaide's Lament" was originally about the hazards of being a stripper (I remember reading that somewhere) but they changed her career. "Take Back your Mink" seems to be referencing that earlier career
Sometimes life is unfair-God gives a cad like Sinatra a voice of pure molten gold.
But sometimes life is very fair-my two favorite bloggers dissect my favorite musical.
"Sue me, sue me, I love you..."
There are good bitches, and bad bitches...but you are the best bitches! MISS ADENOID!!BWAHAHAHA!!!
"We're introduced to saccharine sweet Sarah Brown, the quintessential good girl. She is virginal and pure and has virtually no sexual characteristics and we all know it's only a matter of time before those buttons come undone."
LOL. You boys crack me up. I've been very busy and hadn't had a chance to read the post. Hilarious, as usual.
I don't understand why people like this movie so much. I thought it was boring. I also never liked Brando as an actor, his delivery of lines, which sounds to me like a speech impediment, is distracting. But honeys, that second screen capture is fabulous!
Love you boys!
This is absolutely one of my all time favorite musicals and movie musicals! (The other is Damn Yankees with Gwen Verdon, Tab Hunter and Ray Walston) As we all know, sometimes the luster (not to mention the songs) of a show are lost in its transition from stage to screen. This is, for the most part, DEFINITELY not the case here.
The sets are divine, bright and colorful, the characters are bigger than life and you can't help but love them, and Michael Kidd's choreography is absolutely stunning. (So glad to know they used the original Broadway choreographer)
All of the actors "bounce the ball" (that is, have unbeatable chemistry) to perfection in this film. Frank and Marlon are absolutely believable as the proprietor of the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York, and the most notorious gambler who bets on even the most minute things-- such as his fever going up to 104 if he doesn't take penicillin. Sweet, fresh faced Jean Simmons is perfect for the role of Sarah (although it is true, her singing pipes are not as outstanding as that of Isabel Bigley or Josie de Guzman)-- the mission doll with a heart of gold and a drive to heal all. And last but certainly not least (on my list anyway) is Miss Vivian Blaine, reprising her Broadway role as Miss Adelaide-- the Hot Box lead singer and dancer who would like to finally end her 14 year engagement to Nathan with marriage, and rid herself of the psychosomatic cold he's given her.
First off, kudos to Stubby Kaye and B.S. Pulley as they reprise their Broadway roles as Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Benny Southstreet. There were never two more loveable gamblers than these guys.
Brando is superb, as usual, and though he's not got the voice of Robert Alda or Peter Gallagher, you forget it-- as he has this sense of determination to bring all he can to his role as Sky Masterson. "Luck Be A Lady" gives me chills every time I see him perform the number. Especially enjoyable is hearing him say "Daddy... I got cider in my ear."
Simmons is charming and pleasant in a role well suited to her looks, voice and the way she carries herself. You long so dearly for her not only to win Sky (or, toward the end, believe him), but to help people overcome their gambling, drinking and other sins, and live a life with God. Her rendition of "If I Were A Bell" is splendid, to say the least!
Sinatra is the man. He is so perfect for the role of Nathan Detroit-- and here he sings parts that Sam Levene from the Broadway cast never could (terrific actor, but the chap was tone deaf... go figure). I really enjoyed the addition of the song "Adelaide"... wish some guy would sing like that to ME. Frankie's cool, slick demeanor transcends the boundaries of this movie. But most importantly, you want him to marry Adelaide.
And speaking of Adelaide, Vivian Blaine is just sheer perfection in this role. From the accent to her belting out "Adelaide's Lament", she's just terrific. And she's also my favorite part of the entire movie. She really makes you feel for Adelaide... especially when she cries right before and then again during "Sue Me". I still haven't decided whether I like "Pet Me Poppa" better than "Bushel and a Peck"... maybe I like them equally. Either way, she does fantastic with those as well as "Take Back Your Mink." (I'm sad that they left out "hollanderize" from the film...) She's absolutely MARVELOUS, not to mention hilarious, and my favorite part of the entire film.
One of the best things about this movie is their lingo. It's a mixture of high class and street slang. Never do they use "It's", "I'll" or "That's." It's always "It is", "I will" and "That is." Overall, Guys & Dolls is one of my favorite all time movies and musicals, and it's one that you should take time to watch every time it comes on. My only complaint? No "Marry The Man Today." Now THAT'S a good song.
I really do live for Musical Mondays.
I have been waiting and PRAYING for you two to do this, and it hurts me inside to say that I'm dsisappointed. Not with you two - never! =) - but with Brando. Can't argue that the man is gorgeous, but he really doesn't have the voice for the point. Kind of wanted to hear him sing "I'll Know" or "I've Never Been In Love Before," but I guess I'll just have to go out and rent it. The only soundtrack to this that I know is the revival soundtrack with Peter Gallagher, whose voice just gives me goosebumps. LOVE IT! But, you guys did a wonderful job and I'm so glad I had time to check it out today!
*doesn't have the voice for the part.
No idea where "point" came from, heh.
Never do they use "It's", "I'll" or "That's." It's always "It is", "I will" and "That is."
Credit where credit is due: Damon Runyon, who wrote the short stories.
"After slapping him around a bit, she throws him out so she can go masturbate."
Oh. My. God. I lovelovelove you boys and Musical Mondays. LOVE!
I have seen Guys & Dolls hundreds of times.
I have seen It's a Wonderful Life hundreds of times.
Never ever did I put Harry the Horse & Nick the bartender together.
*Hangs head in shame*
*Turns in self-given medal for Most Obsessed with Secondary/Bit Part Character Actors*
My favorite musical of all time. oh, the things I would do to Marlon Brando.
I played Sarah Brown in my fifth grade production of Guys and Dolls and have loved this movie ever since. It's a shame they left out "A Bushel and a Peck" and "I've Never Been In Love Before," though.
This is my all-time favorite musical, maybe because it's a REAL musical-COMEDY. It's hilarious!
I saw this at a dinner theater with a cast of college students (top theater program) and it was fantastic! I still remember their rendition of "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat." But Stubby's is great, too. It was interesting to see younger people playing the parts, and very effective in the case of Sara Brown. That girl just exploded down in Havana!
It's too bad they cut some great songs from the movie. "Marry the Man Today" and "Bushel and a Peck" were both highlights.
Sinatra was adorable and what a voice! Vivian Blaine was iconic. Stubby Kaye--just great. The others at least didn't completely ruin it for me.
Love the main page. Will it always be like this?
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