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2008 |
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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 9, No. 6 |
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SWEENEY TODD THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
At left, the TV version that starred Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley as Sweeney Todd; at center, Johnny Depp glowers in his 2007 Oscar-nominated version; at right, English scenery-chewer Tod Slaughter in the 1936 version. |
Even Johnny Depp failed
to make 'Sweeney' fun
of TheColumnists.com
If Johnny Depp fails again to win the Best Actor Oscar Sunday night, he has nobody to blame but Sweeney Todd, the most unsavory character to ever elbow his way into Oscar territory--and that even includes Hannibal Lecter, the well-known cannibal, and that awful air-gun killer Javier Bardem plays in "No Country For Old Men."
Do not misinterpret what I'm saying: Depp, who plays the notorious demon barber of Fleet Street in "Sweeney Todd," plays him better than anybody else who ever took on the role. And that includes even Ben Kingsley, who won an Oscar in 1982 playing the exact opposite sort of character in the title role of "Gandhi."
Depp, who long ago convinced me he can do anything on screen better than anybody else, even sings well, although the songs he sings are probably the worst., most unmelodic and dreary songs ever jammed into a musical movie.
The current "Sweeney Todd" is, of course, the one based on the Stephen Sondheim musical show that has been kicking around for a quarter century. I HATE that show. It represents to me all that is wrong with Stephen Sondheim and the Broadway-style musical. If anyone ever came strolling out of a production of this musical humming even one of the tunes in it, then I'd say that person probably also comes out of funerals humming dirges.
My wife and I saw the 2007 "Sweeney Todd" in a big theater in Seattle where the picture was clear and the sound perfect. I'm pleased to report we were the only people in the place. Yes, there were two other people in the theater when the show started, but they got up and walked out within the first half hour. If "Chicago" resurrected the movie musical earlier in this decade, "Sweeney Todd" has re-buried it.
"Sweeney Todd" is a character who really walked dark corridors. He may or may not have been a real person, but the rumors about such a person began circa 1800 in either France or England. In short, he is remembered as a 19th century barber who suddenly began to shave his customers a bit close. In fact, he slit their throats.
His story might have amounted to nothing more than a strange police blotter item, but legend has it he was in cahoots with a tawdry woman who ran a meat pie shop next door. He would turn the corpses of his victims over to her and she would grind them up and make meat pies out of them. Supposedly, her business thrived.
This would be the modern equivalent of Hannibal Lecter not only indulging his own craving for what the south sea cannibals called "long pork," but opening an all-you-can eat buffet restaurant featuring human flesh with fava beans on the side.
How do you make a couple of creeps like that into storybook heroes? Well, you can try, but I don't think you ever succeed. In the 2007 movie musical, Sweeney is a nice young barber who's framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent away to prison just so the judge can seduce Sweeney's wife and make her his own mistress.
In the real world, Sweeney might get out of prison, learn what the judge has done and go into a "Rambo" act trying to track the judge down and murder him. But i;n this world, Sweeney just starts luring anybody connected with the law into his barber chair, slits their throats, then rotates the chair via a trapdoor and dumps the stiff into the cellar meat market.
Don't you think suspicion might eventually focus on the barber all those guys were going to visit just before they disappeared? Not in this story. You see, this Sweeney doesn't take appointments. He just cajoles his victims into pausing for a shave--and that's all she wrote. I never see him cleaning up his barber chair either. I would imagine it got a little sticky after awhile.
If you enjoy musicals in which throats are slit in mid-song and large gouts of blood spurt this way and that, then "Sweeney Todd" is, if you'll pardon the expression, your meat.
I have seen, I believe, four different versions of "Sweeney Todd" in my lifetime. The first was the 1936 movie with the aptly-named Tod Slaughter. Mr. Slaughter was never accused of subtlety in his acting. In fact, he was over the top so often that it's a wonder he could keep his balance. His Sweeney was pure horror movie stuff, but with a sort of macabre sense of humor.
I also saw Ben Kingsley's version on Showtime in the 1980s. His Sweeney wasn't quite as bloody as either the Slaughter or Depp versions, but I wouldn't say it was real colorful either. In between, I saw the TV version of the original stage musical, which put its focus much more on the meat shop lady played by Angela Lansbury. To be honest, I have no memory of the fellow who played Mr. Todd, so I guess one can assume it wasn't a noteworthy interpretation.
But Johnny Depp's Sweeney is fresh in my mind. Depp seems anxious to make us at least understand the unlikeable character he plays. He looks longingly at his wife and, eventually, at his grown daughter. We're supposed to think, "The poor sod! No wonder he wants to carve people up!" It doesn't work.
Depp's Sweeney has a flamboyant streak of white hair in the middle of his dark locks, no doubt caused by his original shock at being sent off to prison an innocent man. He does not seem as out of place as Sting did as Dr. Frankenstein in "The Bride," but he does look as if he'd be much happier back on the pirate ship he's been piloting for Disney Studios for much of the 21st century.
Helena Bonham Carter, who plays his meat pie-baking sidekick, also sings for the first time in my memory in any movie. It's not that her voice is bad, but I didn't enjoy her songs because I could never figure out what words she was mouthing. Since the Sondheim songs are uniformly unmelodic, the cleverness of his words are all there is to savor. In short, her work in the movie was savor-free for me.
I wish somebody had talked Sondheim out of trying to see the Sweeney Todd legend as a musical. But then I guess some people told him he was a fool to see a musical in the story of "The Phantom of the Opera," too. That. at least, had grandeur and an opera background. "Sweeney Todd" is a gutter musical full of Cockney whining and visuals best confined to autopsy rooms.
But Johnny Depp is long overdue for an
Oscar. If he gets one for "Sweeney Todd," will I break
down and cry? Probably not, but I'll consider it an award for
his cumulative work to date and not for his reasonably decent
performance in this execrable movie.
©2008 by Ron Miller. This column first posted Feb. 18, 2008.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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