Word: shows
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...decent singing voice, to boot. Thomas Baldridge plays the young-exec-on-the-make a bit too cloyingly--there are times when you want to rough him up a little for being too smarmy, and not nearly charming enough--but still manages a strong performance. And honors for a show-stopping effort go to Jim O'Brien, who brings to the part of Bud Frump--the boss's maddeningly wimpish nephew--not only an impressive comic flair, but also the best singing voice in the cast. O'Brien's clear, powerful solos in "Coffee Break" and "Gotta Stop That...
...music that carries the show, How to Succeed's plot, after all, stretches the credulity of even the most avid musical-goer, and some of the dialogue should be footnoted for its sheer cloying idiocy. But it doesn't seem to matter. Listen to O'Brien do justice to "Coffee Break," hear Frank Coates, as the stuffily philandering boss, join Baldridge in a rousing rendition of "Old Ivy," and sit back and enjoy as Baldridge and Sargent charm their way through "Rosemary" and "I Believe in You," and you have an evening's entertainment. So what, you say, if this...
...this Hampton is trying to ask the old "Who are the real savages?" question. A noble enough endeavor, no doubt, but the mere juxtaposition of primitive (pure) natives with westernized fellow Indians or vicious white men cannot answer any of the questions Hampton raises in this show...
...Turkish characters, the unreal prison conditions, and the imaginary arbitrariness of the Turkish judicial system, not to mention Billy Hayes' unbelievably easy escape? Not one technique is spared to impress on the audience the repulsiveness of Turkey. Violent scenes are accompanied by Turkish folk music as if to show the necessary relationship between the two. Even the normally beautiful Istanbul skyline is transformed by the camera into somber and gloomy scenery--a feat in itself...
...smuggle hashish out of the country. If Billy Hayes got a "raw deal" from the Turkish government, this was due not to any wickedness on the part of the Turks, but to the constant American pressure on Turkey which led to the government's decision to show once and for all how serious it indeed was in its enforcement of drug laws...