Godspell *** (1973, Victor Garber, David Haskell, Jerry Sroka, Lynne Thigpen, Katie Hanley, Robin Lamont) – Classic Movie Review 8313

Director David Greene’s 1973 film of the deliberately naïve hit musical Godspell (a stage hit for David Essex in Britain) by Stephen Schwartz (music) and John Michael Tebelak (lyrics) turns the story of Christ into a hippy end-of-the-pier show, obviously influenced by Hair (1979) in a song-and-dance recreation of the Gospel According to St Matthew.

Unusually, the whole original Broadway cast is here, led by Victor Garber as Jesus and David Haskell as Judas. Everyone performs with New York pizzazz under the jazzy direction of unexpected choice director Greene, who uses startlingly photographed Manhattan sights to bright effect.

The pleasant rather than outstanding Stephen Schwartz score includes the showstoppers ‘Day by Day’ and ‘All for the Best’. It is perhaps the admirable Garber’s finest hour on film – at least till his impersonation of Liberace in the TV movie Liberace: Behind the Music (1988).

Also in the cast are Jerry Sroka, Lynne Thigpen, Katie Hanley, Robin Lamont, Gilmer McCormick, Joanne Jonas, Merrell Jackson and Jeffrey Mylett.

However, Godspell originally premiered off Broadway and then moved to Broadway’s Broadhurst Theater on 22 June 1976 and ran for 527 performances. And Robin Lamont is the only performer in the original off-Broadway cast, the Broadway cast and the movie cast.

 © Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8313

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com