Saturday, October 28, 2017

The Fan


Lauren Bacall started a new chapter of her career by starring in the musical Applause. She followed this up with two less successful musical projects. The Fan opened a few months after the opening of Lauren's next musical, Woman of the Year. Unfortunately it also opened after the murder of John Lennon. The grim ending was quickly re-written and re-filmed. A happy ending and an award bait song weren't enough. The film was a box office bomb.

Lauren Bacall's musicals cast her as fairly passive figures. Margo Channing, Tess Harding and Sally Ross start off with thriving careers. The active supporting characters harm that success and leave them reeling. We watch them cope with the loss rather than strive to recover.

A similar plot would have more success in the 1992 film The Bodyguard... which has just been made into another terrible musical.

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