For me, any review of "Once Upon a Mattress" is a matter of how it stacks up to previous versions. "Mattress" was the second musical I ever saw performed on stage when I was a kid. In my twenties, I played Sextimus. I saw the 1972 version on TV (and recently acquired a copy; it doesn't age well) and found the 1964 TV version on eBay -- that is the best version, with an unexpected song and dance routine from Elliott Gould, who is light on his feet and sounds like an American Anthony Newley.
This new version, to use my wife's assessment, is too Disneyfied. It's just OK when it could have been fabulous. It's polite when it should be raucous. Too many gags are blown because they toned down the delivery for film. Also, the secondary parts have been reduced to almost nothing. The Jester's role is so slivered that I wonder why he's in the film.
Tracey Ullman: Very good as Winnifred, but held back. Her British accent in the part is fine, since it establishes her as a foreigner in the kingdom. And she IS supposed to come from a marshland swamp in a northern kingdom.
Dennis O'Hare: Good acting as Dauntless, sloppy diction when singing.
Carol Burnett: Here's the main problem -- she's excellent (especially with the new song written for this version), but restrained. Aggravain is written to be bombastic and overpowering.
Tom Smothers: Very good as the King, but again, this is a part that has been played by Buster Keaton. It was written as basically being a medieval Harpo Marx. All of the girl-chasing has been excised. He's very mellow and charming, but mellow doesn't do it for me with this part. He was fine for "Man to Man Talk". Smothers was as wonderful as he was allowed to be by the director.
Matthew Morrison: Again, a cartoon part played too realistically. But Morrison was very good, and sang very well.
Zooey Deschanel: I liked her. Her voice was beautiful (her diction was sloppy.) She acted rings around Bernadette Peters in the 1972 version. But the problem with a more down-to-earth Lady Larken is that what attracts Dauntless to Winnifred is the fact that WINNIFRED is the very first down-to-earth girl he's ever met.
Michael Boatman: As the Jester - probably a good actor, but who knows from this? The part was cut to a point where he was a glorified extra.
Edward Hibbert: Disneyfied in a politically correct way -- instead of obviously being the Queen's lover-on-the-side, here the Wizard is an old drag queen -- LITERALLY, when he's playing the Nightingale.
The director blew the end of the curse. It's a standard comedy Rule of Three: Jester: Look... the Queen can't talk! King: (struggling) I... (court is breathless) King: (struggling harder) I... (court is breathless) King: (smiling) I can! (court cheers!) Here, the director had Tom Smothers IN THE BACKGROUND saying (very quietly), "I... I can talk. I can talk." Completely killed the bit.
The pantomime with Winnifred trying to get to sleep was rushed into, then screwed up with bad camera cuts.
"The Spanish Panic" is a choreographer's Mount Everest. This choreographer fell off the mountain halfway up.
Much of the material holds up (when the director has the faith to let the cast deliver it properly) and the songs are still charming.
The nice thing will be if kids like it enough to seek out other, better movies of musicals, or to audition for this one when their local theater does it, just because they remember liking this one.
This new version, to use my wife's assessment, is too Disneyfied. It's just OK when it could have been fabulous. It's polite when it should be raucous. Too many gags are blown because they toned down the delivery for film. Also, the secondary parts have been reduced to almost nothing. The Jester's role is so slivered that I wonder why he's in the film.
Tracey Ullman: Very good as Winnifred, but held back. Her British accent in the part is fine, since it establishes her as a foreigner in the kingdom. And she IS supposed to come from a marshland swamp in a northern kingdom.
Dennis O'Hare: Good acting as Dauntless, sloppy diction when singing.
Carol Burnett: Here's the main problem -- she's excellent (especially with the new song written for this version), but restrained. Aggravain is written to be bombastic and overpowering.
Tom Smothers: Very good as the King, but again, this is a part that has been played by Buster Keaton. It was written as basically being a medieval Harpo Marx. All of the girl-chasing has been excised. He's very mellow and charming, but mellow doesn't do it for me with this part. He was fine for "Man to Man Talk". Smothers was as wonderful as he was allowed to be by the director.
Matthew Morrison: Again, a cartoon part played too realistically. But Morrison was very good, and sang very well.
Zooey Deschanel: I liked her. Her voice was beautiful (her diction was sloppy.) She acted rings around Bernadette Peters in the 1972 version. But the problem with a more down-to-earth Lady Larken is that what attracts Dauntless to Winnifred is the fact that WINNIFRED is the very first down-to-earth girl he's ever met.
Michael Boatman: As the Jester - probably a good actor, but who knows from this? The part was cut to a point where he was a glorified extra.
Edward Hibbert: Disneyfied in a politically correct way -- instead of obviously being the Queen's lover-on-the-side, here the Wizard is an old drag queen -- LITERALLY, when he's playing the Nightingale.
The director blew the end of the curse. It's a standard comedy Rule of Three: Jester: Look... the Queen can't talk! King: (struggling) I... (court is breathless) King: (struggling harder) I... (court is breathless) King: (smiling) I can! (court cheers!) Here, the director had Tom Smothers IN THE BACKGROUND saying (very quietly), "I... I can talk. I can talk." Completely killed the bit.
The pantomime with Winnifred trying to get to sleep was rushed into, then screwed up with bad camera cuts.
"The Spanish Panic" is a choreographer's Mount Everest. This choreographer fell off the mountain halfway up.
Much of the material holds up (when the director has the faith to let the cast deliver it properly) and the songs are still charming.
The nice thing will be if kids like it enough to seek out other, better movies of musicals, or to audition for this one when their local theater does it, just because they remember liking this one.