Could they make Bugsy Malone nowadays?

[kalowski]

Just watched it with my kids, and it's still daft, great fun. You can tell Jodie Foster is a million times more talented than everyone else.
But does it creep into mini pops peadogeddon territory nowadays? Or is it good clean fun?
The 14 year old me certainly had his interest piqued by Tallulah when I first saw it. My son is 10 so I don't know what he thought of it all. He loved the splurge guns though.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I watched it vaguely recently and described it as "A paedophile's wet dream", so no, no, I don't think it could be made these days, not without a major rewrite at least.

[kalowski]

Tallulah is written as quite sexually knowing it seems. Funnily enough, Foster was in Taxi Driver the same year. I wonder which one she made first.

[Emma Raducanu]

I would love to re watch it. But it's one of those. If I did, I'd probably hate it and regret doing so

[Abnormal Palm]

Music is fucking amazing still. Cinematography often amazing. Characters unreal. Some shit CITV tier shit. Great cameos. Sets and atmosphere incredible. Gauzy as fuck.

You goofed, Doodle. You dropped the gun.

[Puce Moment]

No, couldn't be made, but what a film. One of the small handful of musicals I can enjoy because the songs are fucking great!

[bgmnts]

They could just get adults to do it but use state of the art Digitial Kid Technology and make them look young.

Like they did with Cats, but less appalling on the retinas.

[Blumf]

They could just get adults to do it but use state of the art Digitial Kid Technology and make them look young.

Like they did with Cats, but leaving the anuses in

You sick bastard!

[buzby]

We used to get shown Bugsy Malone every Christmas in junior school as a treat- a bloke (possibly a teacher's husband?) used to come in and set a screen and projector up un the assembly hall. One year he brought the Pete & Dud version Hound Of The Baskervilles in instead, which left a school full of pre-teenage kids mostly nonplussed.

Tallulah is written as quite sexually knowing it seems. Funnily enough, Foster was in Taxi Driver the same year. I wonder which one she made first.

Taxi Driver. It was filmed in the heatwave of summer 1975 and released in February 1976. Parker went into production on Bugsy Malone in 1975 and took most of the year to cast the child actors, going to US Air Force bases in the uK and then going round  schools in America videoing their Christmas shows. Parker has said that if he fell ill Foster could have taken over directing, as she had been acting since she was 3 (she was 13 by then) and had made more films than him.

Unlike the Mini Pops, all the singing was redubbed later by adults

The splurge guns were fake. They originally fired wax capsules that contained synthetic cream, sort of like a large paintball gun. Unfortunately the wax capules hurt whe they hit you, so they had to be abandoned and the guns were modified to fire ping-pong balls. The actors would fire the guns aiming at nothing, and the 'splurge' effect was created by handfuls of synthetic cream thrown by an off-camera stagehand.

[Replies From View]

Yeah it's a weird one this.  There aren't many musicals I like the music from, but Bugsy Malone is definitely an exception.  It saddens me that it's almost impossible to watch now, as there's no way of framing Talulah as anything but a sexualised 14 year old.  Fine for my 10 year old self, but nope.


For the record, the other musicals I can be doing with are (in no particular order):
Sweeney Todd
Wizard of Oz
Grease
West Side Story
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

couple of early 90s Disney cartoons - let's say Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin


Broadly speaking, musicals make my skin creep.  Those of the Andrew Lloyd Webber variety, anyway.  Too much self-satisfied "I am brilliant and I am singing this song" and perpetual dirge.


Fine with tons of operas though.  So it's not singing in theatres that disturbs me.

[Abnormal Palm]

I honestly never thought that Bugsy Malone might be problematic these days but it does confirm my suspicion that all prudes are paedophiles.

Edit: Not directed at RFV, apologies.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Broadly speaking, musicals make my skin creep.  Those of the Andrew Lloyd Webber variety, anyway.  Too much self-satisfied "I am brilliant and I am singing this song" and perpetual dirge.

As CaB's No.1 musical obsessive I obviously disagree with that, I mean sure, you're right when it comes to Lloyd Webber (bar Jesus Christ, Superstar, which is oddly fantastic fun) but the majority of musicals are nothing like his work.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yeah it's a weird one this.  There aren't many musicals I like the music from, but Bugsy Malone is definitely an exception.  It saddens me that it's almost impossible to watch now, as there's no way of framing Talulah as anything but a sexualised 14 year old.  Fine for my 10 year old self, but nope.

Likewise, I detest the genre, but the kids-as-adults thing is a fun twist when you watch it as a kid and I like Bugsy Malone even now for the nostalgia and melancholy. There's something about children playing world-weary characters that crosses the generations, which is good.

However, I disagree with the comments in the thread about Tallulah. Watching as an adult it's difficult to understand how people can say stuff like the above, which seems to deliberately ignore the all-important context.

The character is designed to mirror a commonly recognised stereotype of the gangster genre, while her interactions in it are with other children, also performing adult roles. The performance stays within the confines of the walls of the film, there aren't any nods and winks which imply she is putting on a bit extra for the adults, nor anything gratuitous in the direction beyond what can comfortably be expected within the conventions and tropes of the genre, in fact the treatment of the genre is heavily diluted as you'd expect, just to the point where it still retains a necessary flair and dynamism. And even then it's perfectly obvious, in fact essential to the whole thing, that you're watching a person playing at being a person which they are not, while not being invited by the director to pass judgement on their appearance or sexuality beyond recognition of the conventions of the genre - ie - "hey, there's the sassy jaded femme fatale one!". This effectively aborts all its potentially sexualised content to the average adult.

That Tallulah perhaps can be watched by an individual who had that in mind and be taken in that way is irrelevant in my view, I expect lots of child roles in films can be taken that way, especially teenage ones, it doesn't mean they should be censurable.

Can they make Bugsy Malone nowadays? Perhaps not if the level of illiberal bad faith interpretation it is treated to here is anything to go by. You know, if there wasn't a near 100% disaster rate for remaking classics, then that would be a shame.

[Brundle-Fly]

I loved Bugsy Malone as a kid. I went to see it at the cinema around the time of release. The 'My Name Is Tallulah' setpiece stirred sensations in this ten-year-old "girls smell' little lad he'd never experienced before. It wasn't even a sexy feeling, just a lovely but unsettling gooeness.

It's a kids' movie and should have the appropriate age restriction. Nobody over eleven and a half years old should be allowed to see it.

It was also great to see the multi-racial aspect of it.

[Abnormal Palm]

Shoulders, that was a fantastic post, man. Nice one.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I watched it vaguely recently and described it as "A paedophile's wet dream"

I watched Leon recently and had some similar feelings about how Portman (13) is presented, particularly in the extended version.

I haven't watched Bugsy Malone since I was a kid but might have to check it out again.

[Abnormal Palm]

I think Leon is quite a different thing, though, given the original script. If Cagey Joe was originally down to fuck Dandy Dan, yeah, maybe.

[George White]

We used to get shown Bugsy Malone every Christmas in junior school as a treat- a bloke (possibly a teacher's husband?) used to come in and set a screen and projector up un the assembly hall. One year he brought the Pete & Dud version Hound Of The Baskervilles in instead, which left a school full of pre-teenage kids mostly nonplussed.
Taxi Driver. It was filmed in the heatwave of summer 1975 and released in February 1976. Parker went into production on Bugsy Malone in 1975 and took most of the year to cast the child actors, going to US Air Force bases in the uK and then going round  schools in America videoing their Christmas shows. Parker has said that if he fell ill Foster could have taken over directing, as she had been acting since she was 3 (she was 13 by then) and had made more films than him.

Unlike the Mini Pops, all the singing was redubbed later by adults

Except Bonnie Langford's song, because that was improvised.

Didn't Archie Hahn from Whose Line do the singing voice of Bugsy? Because he'dworked with Paul Williams on Phantom of Paradise.

[chveik]

I watched Leon recently and had some similar feelings about how Portman (13) is presented, particularly in the extended version.

well Luc Besson is notoriously an ephebophile so the context is quite different imo

[Rizla]

Unlike the Mini Pops, all the singing was redubbed later by adults

I'm pretty sure that the songs were recorded before and during filming, in whatever studio time Williams could cram in whilst on tour (or in a Vegas residency, forget which) and the tapes flown over to the UK for the kids to mime to.

George is right, it is Archie Hahn doing Bugsy's voice. Hahn of course also worked with Paul Williams on De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise, singing and acting as one of the Juicy Fruits/Beach Bums/Undead. Fucking amazing film, that.

Anyone seen the earlier film Alan Parker wrote, Melody? All sounds a bit fuckin Love is... if you ask me.

Edit: Just to agree and say that was a very good post, Shoulders.

[Jake Thingray]

As CaB's No.1 musical obsessive I obviously disagree with that, I mean sure, you're right when it comes to Lloyd Webber (bar Jesus Christ, Superstar, which is oddly fantastic fun) but the majority of musicals are nothing like his work.

Agreed.

[Keebleman]

"There's a politician/Sittin' by the kitchen/Said he caught his fingers in the well he was wishin' in!"  Love that!

Paul Williams and team recorded the vocals only as a guide for the kids.  He said he had no idea before he saw the movie that the originals would be used.

Even more bizarrely, the same technique was used when the stage version was first performed in the West End.

[kittens]

"There's a politician/Sittin' by the kitchen/Said he caught his fingers in the well he was wishin' in!"  Love that!

this line has baffled me since we did bugsy malone in school. lots of it confuses me. very complex movie.

[kittens]

googled it now and still no idea

[kalowski]

I think Shoulders isn't totally right. Jodie Foster is an archetype, but there are bits that are sexualised within it. During the Tallulah song she leans back against a wall and raises her arms up in a way that is sexualised and not something a child would do. 12 year old me didn't notice. Old me did.
I don't want to have sex with a 14 year old, before anyone asks.

[El Unicornio, mang]

During the Tallulah song she leans back against a wall and raises her arms up in a way that is sexualised and not something a child would do.

Isn't that kind of the point though? They're children playing adults (like children often do when they play make believe), as Shoulders says in the confines of the genre, classic gangster films which themselves don't have anything in them which would be inappropriate for children to watch (although obviously the people being killed aspect is changed for being hit with cream). Children like to dress up and imitate adults doing things they don't always fully understand, which is what Tallulah is doing.

I just watched it and particularly liked the kid who played Fat Sam, who Alan Parker apparently chose by walking into a Brooklyn school and asking a class for "the most annoying kid", and Jodie Foster is always great. The director and songwriter hated that they used adult voices for the kids singing but I think it kind of works. The songs are really good and it's a genuinely nice ending. I think it has a lot of nostalgic value for British people in particular, and of a certain age range, apparently it was only given limited release in America and made barely any money but I seem to remember it being shown a lot on TV in the UK when I was younger.

[kalowski]

this line has baffled me since we did bugsy malone in school. lots of it confuses me. very complex movie.

Wishing wells contain money. The politician "caught his hand in one" most likely trying to steal some of the money.

[kalowski]

Isn't that kind of the point though? They're children playing adults (like children often do when they play make believe), as Shoulders says in the confines of the genre, classic gangster films which themselves don't have anything in them which would be inappropriate for children to watch (although obviously the people being killed aspect is changed for being hit with cream). Children like to dress up and imitate adults doing things they don't always fully understand, which is what Tallulah is doing.

I get that. For me it's just a touch too accurate at times. Kids do imitate adults when playing, a simulacrum of adulthood. Here's, and it's just one or two moments, it's a touch too real.

[wooders1978]

All the kids would be really old now and I am pretty sure some of them have passed away, so it would look a bit silly all old people with custard pie guns

[greenman]

I watched Leon recently and had some similar feelings about how Portman (13) is presented, particularly in the extended version.

I thought the US version actually ends up worse as the character is sexualised without ever addressing it, you can question the motives given his background I spose but the longer cut did at least look to play it up as her fantasy of maturity.