| I think that when Reilly and Eileen Brennan were cast as Cornelius and Irene Molloy in the original Broadway cast, they were cast as more over-than-top to match up more with Carol Channing's big, outlandish style in her starring role. Brennan at that point had recently done the title role in the musical spoof "Little Mary Sunshine" off-Broadway, so she wasn't quite a typical ingenue, nor was Reilly a typical juvenile. Then again, Gene Kelly either directed, encouraged or allowed Michael Crawford to be over the top in his own way, which really contrasted to the more grounded and delightful performance of Danny Lockin as Barnaby. Reilly sounds relatively subtle on the OCR compared to Crawford in the film. |
