As a child on the cusp of adolescence, I remember being riveted to the film. The two girls' autonomy and unusual independence. The NYC locales. The odd adult world they penetrated. The musical created from the novel and film was an oddity, an attempt to pull a more traditional coming of age tale from a story that has much darker nooks and crannies. It's about adultery and children's boundaries. The film doesn't sustain a tone, other than via the haunting Elmer Bernstein score. Peter Sellers is in another movie, mostly, a farce, though his one scene with Lansbury (apparently a lot of improv, according to TCM) is stand alone for the responses he pulls from the steely, inscrutable Angela.
The Bob Merrill musical, the score for which I have on CD, is one that has a cult following. I've never warmed to it, but I remain in the middle. I can listen. Of course, it's now legendary, the focus issue: Alice Playten, in a role not even in the film, walked away with the whole show.
Today I thought: this might make a really powerful show, honoring those dangerous places the film touches upon and leaves rather quickly.
If anyone saw the B'way production (I only saw the act one tag on Ed Sullivan), weigh in. The movie is unique, period but ahead of its time in many ways, despite its cloying ending. |
