ANNIE 1982 lecinemadreams.blogspot.com /2014/11/annie-1982.html
After seeing so many billboards, bus shelters, and mega-posters around town heralding the forthcoming release of the latest (2014) screen incarnation of Annie – that pint-sized, ginger juggernaut of Broadway 1977 (and for those keeping score, this marks adaptation # 3)—I figure I’d better get around to covering John Huston’s 1982 megabudget, mega-hyped, mega-merchandised movie version before public reaction to the remake (pro or con) influence my memories. Motivated as they are (more often than not) by income rather than ideas, remakes are an irksome Hollywood inevitability I'm prone to dismiss on principle alone. The remaking of iconic films like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Brian De Palma’s Carrie is an obvious fool’s errand; the inevitably substandard results forgotten before they even get a DVD release. But I can't say I feel the same about remaking flawed films. In fact, affording as it does a genuine creative opportunity for a filmmaker to "get it right" the second time around, it's the only kind of remake that does make sense to me.
The 1982 movie version of Annie took a while to grow on people. Regarded as a beloved classic by many today, Annie on its release was greeted with a mixed critical reception (nominated for 5 Razzie awards, winning one for Aileen Quinn as Worst Supporting Actress); was trashed in the press by the show's lyricist, Martin Charnin ("Terrible, terrible, it distorted everything."); and though it emerged one of the top ten moneymakers of the year, its steep budget ($40 to $50 million), hefty marketing campaign ($10 million) and the record $9.5 million spent on acquiring the rights, meant it wouldn't come anywhere near breaking even or showing a profit for many years. While I wouldn't go so far as to call Annie a classic, neither would I label it the out and out flop its detractors make it out to be. Sure, at times the script is uneven to the point of feeling erratic (Hannigan's 11th hour character redemption will give you whiplash), but I still find its changes to be a marked improvement over the theatrical production. And, thanks to its bouncy score, boundless—if unharnessed—energy, and capable, hardworking cast; Annie manages to be entertaining in spite of never really gelling into the kind of touchstone movie musical event its Broadway success (and producer Ray Stark's investment) augured. As every living human must by now know, Annie is the significantly retooled movie version of the Tony Award1/11
winning musical phenomenon based on Harold Gray’s “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip. Set in the Depression-era New York of 1933, Annie is the story of a spunky, unflaggingly optimistic little orphan who, while dreaming of finding her parents, manages to rescue and adopt a bullied, stray mutt; win the heart of a billionaire industrialist; play cupid for his devoted secretary; thwart a bilko scheme cooked up by the villainous orphanage matron, Miss Hannigan and her partners in crime, Rooster and Lily; and by fade-out, appears poised, with the help of FDR, to take on the Great Depression itself. The estrogen answer to 1962s Oliver (what DID little girls do in dance recitals before this Aileen Quinn as Annie show?) Annie is notable—before “Tomorrow” took on a life of its own as one of the most overexposed (and in turn, annoying) songs ever written—for representing something of a '70s pop cultural turning point. In a social climate reeling from inflation, the oil crisis, post-Watergate disillusionment, Vietnam fallout, and the hedonism-as-religion retreat into sex & drugs which typified the disco era (it opened mere months before the release of the bleak Looking for Mr. Albert Finney as Oliver Warbucks Goodbar): Annie was among the first nonironic, unapologetically hopeful entertainments to emerge from a decade noted for its cynical self-criticism. Annie’s assertively retro “corny is cool” aesthetic rode a nostalgia zeitgeist that embraced the intentional camp of TVs Wonder Woman, Star Wars' updating of the 1930s movie serial, and fueled the comic book-mania behind 1978s Superman and Robert Altman’s musicalized take on Popeye (1980). Carol Burnett as Miss Agatha Hannigan
While Annie’s overwhelming success guaranteed it a movie sale (then the highest price ever paid for a theatrical property), media over-saturation in the intervening years made it a prime target for parody. When producer Ray Stark (Funny Girl) made known his plans to mount a big screen version, industry naysayers wondered how 1982 audiences would respond to what many saw as the show's machine-driven sentimentality. Questions arose as to the Ann Reinking as Grace Farrell issue of overexposure (Annie was still running on Broadway, and would until 1983) and wondering if the public was up to weathering yet another shrill rendition of “Tomorrow” sung by a red-tressed, 2/11
brass-lunged moppet. As a West Coaster with access to only those Broadway shows successful enough to have touring companies, I’m one of those guys who’d rather have a poor movie adaptation of a Broadway musical than none at all (see: A Little Night Music ); so I was on board for a movie version of Annie from the get-go. But what really made it a must-see film for me was the unusually high caliber of talent Stark engaged both in front of and behind the camera. What he assembled was a dream cast for Annie; actors who not only visually fit their roles to a T, but bravely bucked then-current Hollywood musical tradition by actually being
Bernadette Peters as Lily St. Regis, Tim Curry as Rooster Hannigan
Instead of turning Annie's most well-known song into a potentially wince-inducing showstopper, director John Huston (or Ray Stark, depending on the source) wisely gets the song out of the way by having Quinn sing a traditional version over the opening credits. Later she performs a subdued, a cappella rendition when she meets FDR. As Eleanor & Franklin join in (Lois De Banzie& Edward Herrmann), Warbucks' comic, schmaltz-resistant reluctance works to effectively diffuse similar audience reaction.
able to sing and dance. Albert Finney, while acquitting himself very nicely in the 1970 musical, Scrooge, would be the first to admit he’s neither a singer or dancer, but Carol Burnett, Ann Reinking, Bernadette Peters, Tim Curry, Geoffrey Holder (Punjab), and Roger Minami (the Asp) all had their start in musical theater. By 1982, Andrea McArdle, Broadway’s original Annie, was roughly the right age to play Lily St. Regis, so a massive, year-long, publicity-baiting global search was launched to find the perfect little orphan. Cute 9-year-old Aileen Quinn beat out 9,000 crestfallen (if not scarred for life) Annie applicants, winning the title role in what was then the most expensive musical ever made. Now, this is where things started getting weird. Broadway veteran Joe Layton (Thoroughly Modern Millie) was on hand to create the musical numbers (which makes sense), but the choreographic chores for this 1930s period musical—an innocent, if not naive, family entertainment swarming with children—fell to She & Sandy Make a Pair, They Never Seem to Have a Care. Cute Little She...it's Little Orphan Annie Arlene Phillips (which makes no Aileen Quinn was paid the exact same salary as Bingo (one of three dogs portraying Sandy) sense at all). Certainly not if you're even remotely familiar with Phillips' hypersexual choreography for the Eurosleaze dance troupe Hot Gossip, 3/11
or if you've ever seen her patented brand of disco/aerobic writhing in the films The Fan and Can’t Stop the Music. I'm personally a huge fan of Phillips' work, but even I had to scratch my head on this one. However, nothing raised eyebrows higher than the news that Annie, now known as Ray Stark’s baby ( “This is the film I want on my tombstone”), was to be directed by Oscar-winner John Huston: a Hollywood veteran of forty years, making his first musical at age 75.
If "Easy Street" falls short of what one would expect for a rollicking number featuring the likes of Bernadette Peters (who looks absolutely gorgeous), Carol Burnett, and Tim Curry--and it does--it's because it was shot two months after the film was completed (and by the looks of it, in a hurry) when it was decided to scrap the full-scale, already in-the-can version which is rumored to resemble the "Consider Yourself" number from Oliver.
Theories abounded as to the soundness of such a decision (Mike Nichols, Herb Ross, and Grease's Randal Kleiser had all been attached to the project at various times), but insiders likened Stark's handing over a lavish musical to a veteran director best known for gritty dramas (Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, The Misfits) to a similar situation back in 1960 when uber-serious director Robert Wise ( I Want to Live! , The Haunting) surprised everyone by directing two major blockbusters on his very first stabs at the musical genre: West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965).
Radio personality Bert Healy ( Hollywood Squares host, Peter Marshall) is joined by the lovely Boylen Sisters in a rendition of "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile"
After months of the kind of strenuous prerelease hype that turns critics against a film before it even opens, Annie premiered here in Los Angeles at Mann’s Chinese Theater in May of 1982. I was in line opening night (fewer kids at evening shows), having by now fairly whipped myself into a veritable frenzy of enthusiastic anticipation. With that cast, director, choreographer, and score, I was certain Annie was going to be every bit “The Movie of Tomorrow” its ads promised.
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A photo I took of the Burbank lot which Warner Bros. and Columbia Studios shared since the mid-'70s. Behind this wall stood Annie's $1 million New York outdoor street set
Maybe… I love that I get excited by movies (seriously, I gave myself a nosebleed at the SF premiere of Thank God It’s Friday), but I had double reason to be worked up over Annie. First, as one of the biggest movie musicals to be released since my Xanadu epiphany (read here), Annie represented the first musical I’d be seeing since taking up dance as a profession. Second, I knew a couple of the dancers in the film who were hired for reshoots of the Radio City Musical Hall sequence and the since-jettisoned, grand-scale “Easy Street” number; and both assured me that Annie was going to be a bigger hit than Grease.
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Primed for Annie to be more of an event than a movie (it was one of the first films to charge a then-record $6 admission price), my first viewing was so ruled by my desire (need?) to like it, I can't attest to really having seen the actual film at all. As I recall, my first look at Annie was an exhausting evening of willful self-deception and near-constant internal cheerleading. I laughed too loud and hard at bits of business that barely warranted a grin, Annie's Orphan Pals Captured in one of the rare moments one of them isn't staring directly into the lens and I gasped in delight at predictable plot or glancing distractedly at something off camera developments which must have seemed ancient back in the day of Baby Peggy. My only reactions that weren't artificial and inappropriately oversize were for the showy musical numbers which were indeed, pretty spiffy. Still, I’d literally worked up a sweat trying to stave off disappointment...all in an effort to convince myself that I was having a good time. And the weird thing is, I really did have a good time. I just didn't have a great time, which is what I expected of a $40 million film that took two years to make. Which leads me to ponder the double-edge sword of hype. When it comes to movie marketing, there’s sell and there’s oversell: the former being when you give the public information, the latter is when you give them ammunition. Seeing Annie a second time convinced me that the film's problem wasn't that it failed to live up to expectations; it's that it failed to live up to its own potential. WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS MOVIE As I’m fond of saying, a movie doesn't have to be perfect in order for it to be either enjoyable or someone's all-time favorite. Annie's a glowing example of this principle in that it's a movie I never recommend to people, yet one I revisit often when I need my occasional overproduced movie musical fix. Straight dramas and comedies require cohesion in order to work. Not so Make a Wish A victim of its own success, Annie was torn between the simple charm of its storyline with musicals. Musicals (happily) are byand the Hollywood dictate that it be a larger-than-life musical extravaganza design, broken into singing and non-singing interludes which, if need be, can be appreciated table d'hôte or à la carte. Annie is arguably at its best when experienced as separate scenes and isolated dance numbers. This way, the effectiveness of certain scenes (such as when the confounded Warbucks watches Grace put Annie tenderly to bed) aren't handicapped by clumsy adjoining sequences; and the musical numbers that click ("We Got Annie") get to stand alone and apart from those that fizzle ("Easy Street," to my shock and amazement).
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I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here When Annie gets something right, it does so spectacularly. Annie's first look at the Warbucks household ( "Is this a train station? Are we going on a train?") is one of my favorite sequences. The member of the staff upon whose shoulder Annie is riding is dancer Don Correia (ex Mr. Sandy Duncan) one of several A Chorus Line alumni in the dance chorus
PERFORMANCES One of the more fascinating things about those old Our Gang comedies of the 30s is how natural all those kids were. No matter how often they were called upon to mimic grown-up behavior, the charm was in their essential, unaffected childishness shining through. In Annie, the little girls cast as orphans are all experienced troupers culled from Annie productions all over the world, and it shows. While the film is desperately in need of an Annie with the kind of screen magnetism of a young Patty Duke, Hayley Mills, or Jodie Foster—something to set her apart from the other orphans and justify an audience's concern for her welfare—Aileen Quinn is a perfectly swell Annie (to use the vernacular). While not over-blessed with talent, she has an earnest, winning quality, a pleasant voice, and best of all for an old grouch like me, fails to grate on my nerves. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the orphans who are literally children working like Trojans to act like children… and they don’t succeed! Annie was my first exposure to this kind of Disney Channel, plastic child-actor aesthetic that seems to have become the norm these days: old-before-their-years showbiz kids who can only impersonate (badly) the behavior of real children. I’ve no real quarrel with the performances of Annie’s grown-up cast. Finney is amusingly broad and cartoonish as Warbucks, Reinking is at her most eloquent when she lets her lithe body do the acting, and, the always-fabulous Carol Burnett is left to do all the comedy heavy-lifting as the perpetually pickled Miss —a role she’s ideally suited for. Perhaps too much so. Burnett is a lot of over-the-top fun and "You step on my cues Molly, and you'll find your close-ups on the cutting-room floor." Had Quinn been a star, no one would fault her had she pulled a Helen Lawson never less than fascinating and spot-on. in regard to her scene-stealingly cute co-star, Toni Ann Gisondi. But watching her I can’t help thinking, as I often do watching Maggie Smith on Downton Abbey, she could do this kind of role in her sleep. THE STUFF OF FANTASY Annie’s musical numbers always put a smile on my face. Sometimes because they’re so good, sometimes because the lip-syncing is so poor or the execution is so unpolished, I have a hard time believing they made it into the completed film. Six songs from the Broadway show failed to make it into the film and I honestly can’t say I miss them. And of the four songs written expressly for the film, the only two I could have done without are “Dumb Dog/Sandy” (in which the lyricist commits the Sondheim-wouldn't-do-this crime of putting the word "residing" into the mouth of a little girl we'd previously heard say "piana" for piano); and the entire Rockettes section of “Let’s Go to the Movies.”
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THE STUFF OF DREAMS Mimicking the fate of many beloved children's movies which were not exactly hits when first released (The Wizard of Oz and the aforementioned Willy Wonka being the most famous examples), Annie may have had to take her lumps back in 1982, but, true to her optimistic credo, she's weathered a great many more "Tomorrows" than her more critically-revered peers. Meanwhile, my own feelings about Annie have remained roughly the same, with time adding (in equal measure) a degree of nostalgia and cheesy camp to my revisits to it, making for a win-win situation whatever mood I'm in. So, whether it's to laugh at the baffling amateurism of some scenes (what must the outtakes of the orphan's rendition of
Carol Burnett made her Broadway musical debut in Once Upon a Mattress in 1959. Annie marks her very first movie musical appearance
"You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" look like if this one, with its poor lip-synching and self-conscious "fun" was chosen?); ponder the possibility that perhaps all those up-the skirt-shots and peeks at women's underwear are part of a visual motif; or merely marvel at how impossibly young everybody looks... Annie may no longer be the movie of Tomorrow, but it offers a pretty pleasant look at yesterday.
We Got Annie In one of my favorite numbers, Roger Minami, Ann Reinking, and the late great Geoffrey Holder dance together all-too briefly, but its pure magic.
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"I guess I'll never know the feeling of running fingers through your hair..." Burnett's delivery of this witty lyric from the duet, "Sign" got one of the film's biggest, most spontaneous laughs
It's The Hard Knock Life Can we please pause a second and appreciate Annie's amazing horizontal split jump?
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I Don't Need Anything But You Annie gets it right in the charming finale, which gives Quinn the closest thing to a Shirley Temple moment
I wish the 2014 remake of Annie all the best. We have yet to have our quintessential big screen Annie. BONUS MATERIAL Want to watch a grown woman (Arlene Phillip) yelling at a bunch of overworked kids? Want to catch a glimpse of the deleted "Easy Street" number? Check out Lights! Camera! Annie! a 1982 PBS "making of" documentary on YouTube. Tony Award-winner Andrea Martin portrays a grown-up Annie in this classic SCTV parody. Life After Tomorrow , a fascinating 2006 documentary about the lives of former Annie orphans is available for viewing on Hulu. 10/11
IMDB notes in its Trivia section that the sound effects man during the Iodent radio broadcast is actor Ray Bolger in an unbilled cameo. As you can see from the photo above, the actor in question does indeed bear a resemblance to the Wizard of Oz star, but is NOT Ray Bolger. A call out to film buffs to identify this character actor.
Disco touched everything in the late '70s, and sunshiny anthems by mop-topped orphans were no exception. In 1977 disco diva Grace Jones performed what can best be described as a confrontational version of "Tomorrow" HERE. Speaking of disco, did you know Aileen Quinn released a solo album? Me neither. Her album, Bobby's Girl, was released in 1982 to take full advantage of the Annie media blitz. Although disco was fairly dead by this time, that didn't stop Quinn from driving at least one child-sized nail into its coffin by performing an ill-advised cover of Leo Sayers' 1976 boogie anthem, "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing." "Arf!" goes Sandy. "I love you, Daddy Warbucks"
Copyright Š Ken Anderson
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