Color me surprised.
Everything I read about this film emphasized that it’s a weird, mishandled, borderline creepy-in-a-pervy-way experience that was not appreciated anywhere but in Great Britain. I was prepared for a weird-ass experiment of 'What-The-Fuck’ proportions.
What I got was a really fun musical with some great Paul Williams songs that could be read as a criticism of the glamorization of the gang lifestyle.
Yeah, sure, it is strange seeing this crime melodrama being enacted solely by kids 16 and under for the first twenty or so minutes or so....but then I found my brain adjusting to this world to the point where it seemed natural. It help that director Alan Parker establishes the rules of this story early on and sticks to it (except for that strange scene where a Chinese Laundry seems to be populated by more adult actors) so we’re never brought out of the movie by inconsistencies. It also helps that Parker’s script is not only genuinely funny but features dialogue that rings true to the 30's gangster movie genre without sounding parodic; there’s no 'winking’ at the camera, and the cast seem invested on creating a veracity to this story. There were a couple of moments where I was laughing at loud at the banter.
...and there were more than a few moments when I was watching the musical numbers and speculating on the alternate Earth where Paul Williams’ career took him to Broadway rather than Hollywood. These are not just pop songs; they’re legit show tunes that move the story along and illuminate characters. Even the song I’m not all that keen on (and the one that I suspect gives it its ‘pervy’ reputation among people who don’t pay attention), ‘Tallulah,’ has a secondary purpose. It is good dramaturge as well as songwriting, and I shudder to think of the awesomeness we could have had if Williams had pursued this career path.
(As a sidebar: I looked for the soundtrack on Amazon Music for it immediately after watching the film, only to find it’s out of print. That’s two movie soundtracks on my Holy Grail list now, along with the magnificent power pop orgy that is 2002‘s
Josie and The Pussycats!)
The acting, given that it’s an all kid cast, many of them not professional actors, varies but is generally okay. There are some standouts, and I’m not just talking about Jodie Foster, who Mae Wests the Femme Fatale out of her role. I particularly liked John Cassissi’s Fat Sam, who is hilarious and is responsible for one of the very few fourth-wall breaking gags. But as a whole, the cast has the bantery style that marked 30‘s gangster epics down cold. There are some sequences where Florence Garland, playing the ingenue Blousey Brown, thoroughly captures the spirit of quippy flipness that made Thelma Todd so delightful in those RKO Marx Brothers films. It’s a pity that Cassissi and Garland didn’t pursue acting (Cassissi especially so, since he ended up in prison for money laundering).
Even though Parker never lost sight of this being a family film, I kept thinking that he was making a point about how Hollywood trivialized and glamorized crime, equating our perception of what ‘classic’ gangsterism was with kids’ playtime. I think it works on both levels and it’s very effective no matter how you take it. I heartily recommend it!
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Some things have to be addressed head-on, no matter how painful the experience may be...and for this episode, it takes not one, not two but three co-hosts to help Des navigate these dark water. Can Adam, Jeff and Scott keep our Master of Scarimonies when he visits the 2006 Neil LaBute monstrosity, The Wicker Man. We’ll see if four minds can figure out how one of the greatest films of all time (there, I said it--but of Ron Hardy’s 1973 original) was reworked into one of the most notoriously bad pieces of film that ever existed. Then I come by to pay tribute to the late Rutger Hauer by covering the 1989 American Action Version of Zatoichi, Blind Fury!
