The Beggar's Opera (film)
| The Beggar's Opera | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Peter Brook |
| Produced by |
Laurence Olivier Herbert Wilcox |
| Written by |
Christopher Fry Denis Cannan John Gay |
| Starring |
Laurence Olivier Dorothy Tutin |
| Music by | Arthur Bliss |
| Cinematography | Guy Green |
| Edited by | Reginald Beck |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
|
Release date
|
1953 |
|
Running time
|
94 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Beggar's Opera is a 1953 Technicolor film version of John Gay's 1728 ballad opera directed by Peter Brook and starring Laurence Olivier, Dorothy Tutin, Stanley Holloway and others. Olivier and Holloway do their own singing in this film, but Dorothy Tutin and several others were dubbed. This was Laurence Olivier's only film musical.
With additional dialogue and lyrics by Christopher Fry, the film expands on some elements in the opera, notably giving Mrs Trapes (Athene Seyler) a larger role and adding dramatic action sequences to Macheath's escape.
The framing device is also changed: the Beggar (Hugh Griffith) is himself a prisoner in Newgate with the real Macheath, who escapes at the end under cover of the confusion created when the Beggar decides that his fictional Macheath should be reprieved.
The film also includes one of the first film performances of the comic actor Kenneth Williams.
In the 1700s, a beggar is tossed into London's Newgate jail, along with a pile of papers upon which his unfinished opera is scribbled. The beggar boasts to the other prisoners that his opera, unlike others of the day, is about a real person, the dashing highwayman Captain Macheath, who, dressed in a red coat, holds off the world with a pistol in each hand, seduces women with five notes of a tune, and generally leaps from misfortune. To the beggar's disappointment, the other prisoners point out that his hero Macheath is among them, in irons and behind bars, and Macheath, who is scheduled to be executed the next morning, admits that there is "no arguing with reality." Taking the first page of the opera, Macheath begins singing, and the beggar, encouraged by Macheath's good voice, urges him to continue, until the following story, the beggar's opera, is sung for the prison inmates:
While riding to London, feeling merry and free, Macheath robs a carriage, and steals a kiss and a locket from a maiden. Later, in London, Macheath's wife, Polly Peachum, pines for him. Polly's parents, shopkeepers Mr. Peachum and his wife, are scandalized to learn from their employee Filch that Polly has secretly married the highwayman. To make the best of the situation, as they are always eager to make money, they urge her to lure Macheath into a trap and collect the reward for his capture.
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