Gypsy **** (1993, Bette Midler, Peter Riegert, Cynthia Gibb, Ed Asner) – Classic Movie Review 3556

The ideally cast Bette Midler, caught at about the right age of 47, is brilliantly vibrant and vivacious as the ultimate showbiz mother Mama Rose Hovick in producer-director Emile Ardolino’s 1993 welcome remake of all-time great Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim musical, first filmed in 1962 as Gypsy.

In a role she was surely born to play, Midler is immaculate in both the acting and vocal departments, giving a thrilling and magnetic performance of extraordinary power that slightly blurs the memory of those famous stage Roses Ethel Merman and Angela Lansbury. She certainly knocks spots off Rosalind Russell’s movie performance in the 1962 film. Midler deservedly won the 1994 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television.

Unforgettable show tunes like Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Small World, Let Me Entertain You and Together, Wherever We Go (which was cut from the 1962 film Gypsy) light up this funny and touching story of a mother’s obsession with her kids’ stardom and of her daughter Louise who grows up to be the world’s most famous stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee.

Cynthia Gibb is very satisfying as Gypsy Rose Lee, Louise Hovick, turning from mouse to voice or reason to tough but happy survivor with economic ease. Peter Riegert injects charisma into the unforgiving task of playing Herbie, the warm-hearted theatre veteran in love with Rose, who tries to keep her in check and holds the family together.

Also in the cast are Jennifer Rae Beck as Rose’s other daughter, Baby June [Havoc], Edward Asner as Pop, Christine Ebersole as Tessie Tura, Tony Shalhoub as Uncle Jocko, Linda Hart as Miss Mazeppa and Michael Jeter as Mr Goldstone, Andrea Martin as Miss Cratchitt, Linda Hart as Miss Mazeppa, Anna McNeely as Miss Electra, Jennifer Rae Beck as June Hovick (adult), Jeffrey Broadhurst as Tulsa, and Rachel Sweet as Agnes. 

The dying Ardolino, to whose memory the movie is dedicated, directs discreetly but intensely, and, though there is little special cinematic imagination in the stage-to-screen transfer, he moves a long show along with pace and bounce. As it should be, it is great old-fashioned entertainment, with no attempt to modernise or improve. It’s hard to imagine a better film of this musical. It just trusts the material and presents it in the best way possible.

It was made for TV in the States, where it achieved huge ratings, and was given a deserved cinema outing in GB.

Midler won a Golden Globe and there were two other nominations: Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television (Cynthia Gibb). It won one Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction (Michael Rafter, music director) and was nominated for a total of 12 Emmys.

In 2016 it was announced that Barbra Streisand is making a remake, directed by Barry Levinson.

Ardolino is the director of Dirty Dancing (1987), Sister Act (1992) and Three Men and a Little Lady (1990). He died of AIDS on 20 November 1993, aged 50.

Emmy award winning make-up artist Hallie D’Amore was the makeup supervisor. She won the Emmy award for the HBO made-for-TV movie Normal in 2003 and was nominated for 1995’s Buffalo Girls and for Gypsy. She and her photographer husband Richard were found dead at their home in Venice, California, on December 14, 2006. Hallie D’Amore, aged 64, who was Oscar nominated in 1995 for Forrest Gump, shot her husband Richard, 66, multiple times before turning the gun on herself.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3556

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