Word: lithgow
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...decidedly uneven show to which Lithgow lends his gifts is The Sweet Smell of Success, a musical adapted from the cult favorite film of the same title. Its protagonist, Sidney Falco (assayed by Tony Curtis on film and the up-and-coming Brian D’arcy James onstage) is a youngster consumed with a lust for power. Much like Leo Bloom in The Producers, he wants everything he’s ever seen in the movies. His key to the bright lights is the most powerful gossip columnist in the country, a vicious, preening Walter Winchel-like monster named...
...John Lithgow ’67 can’t sing. This, at first, might seem to be a problem for a man starring in a multimillion-dollar new Broadway musical. But when that man possesses the megawatt persona, effortless timing and sheer star power of the immensely talented Lithgow, the only problem is suffering through the moments when he’s offstage...
...Lithgow who not only handles the material, but elevates it. Oozing confidence to spare, his J.J. is a mammoth creation, capable of expressing incredible charm and wreaking unspeakable evil in consecutive breaths. He is a creature of the city and, as much as he enjoys manipulating its underbelly, he is also a product of that environment and ultimately must answer...
...Lithgow's J.J. is a plausible bad guy, though less potent than Lancaster's. Lithgow, his soft lankiness worlds removed from Lancaster's coiled muscularity, puts surface charm on the scoundrel. He smiles, he effuses, he sings. This J.J. enjoys his venality, his sacred-monstrosity (it's good to be the king of the night); Lancaster's J.J. is rigid, watchful, a calculating machine, a new species - the prototype post-human. Something in Lithgow's J.J. wants to be loved, whereas Lancaster's J.J. simply is what he does. (Motivation? That's for infomercial spielers.) The difference...
...Clifford Odets, was made into a film directed by Alexander Mackendrick and starring Curtis as Sidney and Lancaster as the Winchellesque columnist J.J. Hunsecker - another fabulous name, for an Attila who sucks the honey out of his minions and spits it into print. Last week, transformed into a John Lithgow musical, "Sweet Smell" opened on Broadway, that tatty, irresistible tenderloin where, more than a half century ago, Lehman spawned J.J. and Sidney...