You are not alone in your misgivings. Having read through all the comments below, it seems to me that one's reaction to the movie depends on whether or not you knew anything about the stage production before you saw the movie. If not, you loved the movie; if so, you hated it.
Like some of the nostalgics below, I too saw the movie when I was 13 (in 1963 when it first came out) at the Hermosa Theater in Hermosa Beach, California. And even then I thought it was a mess. Some of the comments below reminded me of some of the reasons why, which I'd actually managed to forget (or repress) in the intervening decades. Albert's a chemist??? And there's a subplot involving turtles??? Oy. (Bring on Don Knotts.) But even without any of that, I had enough to dislike in all the other changes they'd made in the casting and in throwing out half the score, which I already knew at that time from the OBC. Of course, I understood even then why they'd cast Janet Leigh--"name" value--but her casting reduced the whole Spanish Rose business (which for some reason the movie did not alter) to nonsense. I also understood why they'd cast Ann-Margret--and loved her. She was always a great talent, and she is in this movie too. But a convincing teenager she was not, even at 21, when she made the movie. I've always thought of her Kim MacAfee as being "15 going on 36-24-36." |
