LogFAQs > #933472410

17. Guys and Dolls

JONA: 7
Johnbobb: 9
Inviso: 11
Scarlet: 19
Genny: 20
Karo: 24
KBM: 30

JONA - The opening to the movie has some great gags. Marlon Brando and Gene Simmons have great chemistry. Their date is a really fun scene and actually has a bad but charming fight scene. There are also some funny shenanigans with the gangsters and their gambling. Its just all-around engaging with its comedy and romance with no parts that really dragged for me.
Favorite Song: Luck Be a Lady

Johnbobb - I really fucking hated that cat thing. This is one of the first musicals I can remember seeing live, performed by people in my grade in high school. I can't remember much from it, aside from being surprised the fairly conservative school approved the outfits for the cabaret performance and being particularly impressed by the "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" sequence (which was enjoyable here too, if a little briefer than I recall). Marlon Brando is a fantastic actor. While this isn't exactly The Godfather or On the Waterfront, he still stands out here, commanding every scene he's in. Ultimately though, my biggest takeaway here is how little I have to complain about. The whole movie is just constant moments of "ha, that's pretty neat" or "I like this scene" or "hey, this song is catchy." It's the kind of movie that makes me get why showtunes are popular, even if they've never really been my thing.
Favorite song: Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat

Inviso - This is another film thats on the longer side, in large part because of an absurd amount of padding involved in the run time. All of Adelaides musical numbers at the Hot Box were superfluous, and the entire Take Sarah to Cuba subplot took a lot of time that could have easily been trimmed down into something more manageable. The plot is fun enough though. Its not that much unlike your standard romcom plot of guy makes a bet to get with a girl, falls in love with her, and things go awry from there. The gangster setting makes for some fun background action, what with the gambling, the hidden craps games, and the league of morality trying to convert sinners to their cause. Again though, I feel like its the musical aspect of this musical that drags it down, by padding out the run time far more than is necessary.

Scarlet - Brando. Sinatra. Despite the music aging poorly and the story being a little forgettable, you cannot ignore the powerhouses at play here. Theres something special about this film.
Best Song: Sit Down, Youre Rocking the Boat

Genny - I was completely ready to dump all over this movie based off the title and opening number alone, but it really ended up surprising me. Guys and Dolls was enjoyable almost the whole way through. The anti-gambling propaganda is a little heavy-handed, particularly in that opening number, but it's all in good fun. Why is everyone in this society so focused on getting rich quick anyway?

Karo - A bunch of gangsters looking for a place to gamble causes a series of events that leads to one of them dating a missionary in a plot that goes just about everywhere except someplace significant.
Basically what happens is one of the guys bets that his dick is so big that he can make any girl fall for him, leading to him being paired up with a frosty religious broad in an odd couple romance that is as unfunny as it is unbelievable.
There's also a secondary plot with a guy and his exotic dancer fiancee, which seems nothing more than a prop to spawn impromptu stage numbers.
The songs are dull, the story boring, none of the guys or dolls are very likable, and ends up being not much more than a lot of crap, and I am not talking about the dice games.

Score: 47/100

Best Song: 'Pet Me Poppa'

KBM - Why I Chose It: The original 1950 stage musical Guys and Dolls has proven an enduring classic, having become a staple of schools and community theaters worldwide, and continuing to receive major revivals in every decade since the '70s. Its original Broadway run won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and shortly after it closed in 1953, the highly-anticipated film adaptation went into production, helmed by celebrated director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (best known for 1950's Oscar darling All About Eve and 1953's Julius Caesar), and starring two of the biggest names of the day in Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. Production was troubled, with Mankiewicz opposing many of the studio-mandated casting decisions, and Sinatra and Brando not getting along. The finished product polarized critics, who were particularly split on the casting.

My Thoughts: I have been involved in three different productions of the stage show Guys and Dolls I played Arvide Abernathy twelve years ago in my junior year of high school, I was rehearsal accompanist and played keyboards in the pit of another production two years ago, and I am music directing yet another high school production this year. As someone who knows the source material very well, I can't say I'm particularly fond of the movie. The biggest problem, as many critics noted both when the movie came out and in the years since its release, is the casting. Brando should have been cast as Nathan Detroit, while Sinatra should have played Sky Masterson, as the former is more of an actor's role, and the latter is a role that requires a strong singer. Brando's singing voice is very weak, and his duets with Jean Simmons as Sister Sarah are particularly painful as neither of them is capable of staying in tune for very long. Meanwhile, Sinatra just doesn't have the right persona for the role of Nathan Detroit, playing the role in a very wink-wink fashion that would have been far more appropriate for Sky.

In terms of adaptation, well, this movie drags like hell. The Havana sequence in particular, one of the few parts of the movie that goes significantly off-book from the source material, is WAY too long and lacks all the energy that the sequence has on stage. There are other times, however, where the movie sticks to the source material far too literally, such as the opening dance sequence, the crap game dance number in the sewers, or the Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat musical number, which all feel like they just set up a camera in front of the original stage production and did nothing to make it more visually appealing for film. It all just ends up kinda bland, and it's not a movie I can really recommend, as it just doesn't capture any of the magic of the stage show (which, if I'm being honest, is not one of my favorite shows, but having done it so many times I've at