Broadway sniffs 'Sweet Smell of Success'

NEW YORK, March 27 (UPI) -- It used to be that Broadway shows often were made into movies, but now movies are increasingly the inspiration of Broadway shows, particularly musicals.

"The Producers," based on a 1968 Hollywood comedy, was the hit musical of the 2000-2001 Broadway season. The current season, now nearing its end, is offering a musical version of a 1957 film noir, "Sweet Smell of Success," with John Lithgow and Brian d'Arcy James in the roles Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis played in the movie.

Getting to Broadway wasn't a breeze for this $12 million show despite the powerhouse production team of composer Marvin Hamlisch, lyricist Craig Carnelia, and librettist John Guare. It has been in the works for five years and when a tryout in Chicago got a mixed reception, it went through a number of revisions before opening at Broadway's Martin Beck Theater.

Although Hamlisch's jazz-samba musical score lacks the hit tunes expected from a Broadway composer of his repute ("A Chorus Line," "They're Playing Our Song") and Broadway newcomer Christopher Wheeldon's choreography mirroring period dance styles is less interesting than his work for the New York City Ballet, "Sweet Smell of Success" has the look, the feel, and all the entertainment values of a solid Broadway success.

This is attributable in no small way to Lithgow's subtle, bull's eye characterization of the despicably vicious gossip columnist, J.J. Hunsecker, a barely disguised portrait of Walter Winchell, an ex-vaudeville hoofer turned powerful journalist. Lithgow has returned to Broadway for the first time since he starred in "M. Butterfly" 13 years ago, giving his busy film and TV career ("3rd Rock from the Sun") a respite to prove to his fans that he can sing, too.

Just as impressive is the less-than-subtle performance of James as Sidney Falco, the success-driven Broadway press agent who becomes Winchell's hatchet man. Here's an actor who really put his heart into it! He has the necessary stage presence to make the second lead role a starring one and a strong singing voice to back it up.

The year is 1952, when Winchell was king of the heap, with a syndicated New York newspaper column read by 20 million Americans and a Sunday night red-baiting radio broadcast with an even larger audience. Sen. Joseph McCarthy was flying high, and so was Winchell's close friend J. Edgar Hoover.

Scenic and costume designer Bob Crowley has brought the era to life with smashing sets, ranging from the glamorous panorama of neon-lit Manhattan skyscrapers to dark, mean streets lined with tenement houses, and slightly sleazy costumes reflecting the so-called chic of the 1950s. Visually, the production is a smash and puts Crowley in line for a Tony Award.

Tony-winning playwright Guare has stuck close to the Clifford Odets screenplay in writing the book of "Sweet Smell of Success," but at two-and-a-half hours long it seems a tad inflated. It would be a stronger production edited down by 15 minutes by taking out an incredibly Faustian scene in St. Patrick's Cathedral where Hunsecker forces Sidney to take an oath of loyalty to him before a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Its main story line is Hunsecker's use of Sidney to break up a secret romance that has developed between the columnist's almost incestuously adored sister, Susan, and an unsuitable bar pianist named Dallas. The payoff is letting Sidney write the column while Hunsecker is in London covering the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

When Hunsecker learns Sidney has betrayed him by abetting Susan's affair with Dallas, there is hell to pay and even a murder at the hands of corrupt cop and his goons. It may not sound like the stuff of a musical comedy, but it is effective theater just as it was an effective, but not financially successful movie.

Kelli O'Hara, who has a lovely soaring voice that reflects operatic training, make a beautiful and totally sympathetic Susan, and Jack Noseworthy brings total conviction to his role as Dallas, the keyboard artist determined to make it on his own without help from Hunsecker, whom he despises on moral grounds.

Also making a strong contribution is Stacey Logan as a nightclub cigarette girl, Rita, who is Sidney's girlfriend. One of the most abhorrent scenes in the show is when Sidney betrays her by setting her up as bait for a raunchy has-been columnist, Otis Elwell (cynically played by Eric Michael Gillett), who in return promises to print a made-up item that will cost Dallas his job - and Susan.

The show has been imaginatively directed by Nicholas Hytner, the distinguished British director of plays, operas, and movies best known on Broadway for "Miss Saigon" and a revival of "Carousel." He has made the show's chorus into a traditional Greek chorus that surrounds the principals at moments of crisis to comment on plot developments and warn of their tragic outcome.

Hytner may not have much time in the future to direct on Broadway. He has just been named director of the Royal National Theater in London.