TITTW I express my love for the film "Bugsy Malone"

I think this film warped me as a child

grown-up Fat Sam = primo Sopranos casting material

still have never seen, and missed Freaky Friday last night too dammit

I'm kinda surprised I have seen anything that you haven't! Apart from the ouevre of Judd Apatow, of course

I do kinda wish more children's films were as smart and engaging and devoid of preachy messages/moralizing as this one is

i watched this with a girl not too long ago cos she had it in a bin of videos someone gave her, and i remembered it from when i was a kid but had never seen it.

we got about 1/2 hour in before being thoroughly creeped out.

what's creepy about it?

the basic conceit of kids standing-in for adults, I'm guessing...?

cuz as a kid that really appealled to me, the idea of a whole world without adults... As an adult I just find it endearing.

yeah i think it was during one of the cabaret numbers where the dancers all suspiciously climb in age toward 14

xp o yeah as a kid i was deadly fascinated with this film but my parents never let me see it for some reason, or didn't know i cared.

film definitely toes the line with the risque material. Especially Jodie Foster.

jesus christ this is the same year as taxi driver. that's impossible

I've never figured out which came first or whether her casting in one led to the other or what

Jodie had worked for Scorsese before TD.

WTF there is no US version DVD of this in print

scott baio = amazing looking for his age (in that clip above).

I've just found this thread. That Youtube video and its cohorts will keep me going through lunch. I love this film so much.

kid's performances are astonishing.

also, dexter fucking fletcher people

Dexter Fletcher!!! <3 for all time

The one thing that bugged me was Paul Williams' dubbing his singing voice onto the kids performances.

Most obviously, when Bugsy yells, "I wanna tell you" in his real high-pitched voice, then continues in PW's deeper tones...

yeah the singing voice is also pretty shitty imo, aside from dubbing issues

To be honest, any enjoyment I might have garnered was kinda spoiled by:

1) being of an age where I could have done this movie when it came out, and it having been made not far from where I live,
2) that my mum and sister thought the movie was **WONDERFUL GOSH FANTASTIC ISN'T IT MARK!! GO-ON SAY IT;S FANTASTIC IT IS ISN;T IT? OH GRUMPY SOD YOU ARE!!

I love this film but "My Name is Tallulah" is majorly o_O and it gets worse if you see a kids Am Dram production.

has anyone aside form scorsese that one time ever seen jodie foster, at any age, as a sex object? she's got splinters.

It's not whether Jodie Foster is "sexay" or not so much as the fact that she's a kid singing a song which is more or less about getting it on.

Don't make me bust out the Minipops youtubes.

or Lena Zav's version of "Help me make it through the night" off her 1st album.

(fwiw, never heard it, don't want to)

lyrics:

My name is Tallulah
My first rule of thumb
I don't say where I'm going
Or where I'm coming from
I try to leave a little reputation behind me
So if you really need to
You'll know how to find me

My name is Tallulah
I live till I die
I'll take what you give me
And I won't ask why
I've a lot of friends
In some exotic places
I don't remember names
But I remember faces

Lonely
You don't have to be lonely
Come and see Tallulah
We can chase your troubles away, oh
If you're lonely
You don't have to be lonely
When they talk about Tallulah
You know what they say
No one south of Heaven's
Gonna treat you finer

Tallulah had her training
In North Carolina

My name is Tallulah
And soon I'll be gone
An open invitation
Is the road I'll travel on
I'll never say goodbye
Because the words upset me
You may forgive my going
But you won't forget me

Lonely
You don't have to be lonely
Come and see Tallulah
We can chase your troubles away
If you're lonely
You don't have to be lonely
When they talk about Tallulah
You know what they say
No one south of Heaven's
Gonna treat you finer

Tallulah had her training
In North Carolina
Tallulah

this is pretty tame. the "training in North Carolina" line is really the only overt eyebrow-raiser

The one thing that bugged me was Paul Williams' dubbing his singing voice onto the kids performances.

I see this absolutely of a piece with Pennies from Heaven/Lipstick on Your Collar any number of other Dennis Potter musicals which use basically the exact same technique. doesn't bother me a bit. seems to be a staple of the British approach to musical film homages

Yeah, but this was before those.

bugsy malone is classic for all-time if you see it when you're a kid, dud if you see it as an adult

every kid's fantasy is to do all the stuff grown-ups do, and bugsy malone is total wish fulfillment

my kids love it

"my name is tallulah" is creepy not just because of the double entendre stuff in the lyrics, it's also in the vocal delivery (dubbed) and foster's performance. it walks the line so it's not totally inappropriate but it's still pretty suggestive for kid stuff. not that I think kids would pick up on it, but it's why, when viewed as an adult, it can get kind of o_O.

the song in the final scene is so joyous fuiud

yeah the closing number is all time

man I had never heard of this movie and I thought you guys were talking about the Warren Beatty movie and I was so confused

nah the all-time number in bugsy malone is 'we could have been anything that we wanted to be'

My wife has never heard of this movie

Was it bigger in UK than US?

Best choon is "down down down down" in the mess hall or whatever it is

yeah that's good too

nah the all-time number in bugsy malone is 'we could have been anything that we wanted to be'

um, the closing number is a reprise of this song with an added tag

actually most of the songs on the sdtk are fuckin awesome, with the exception being the horrible Blowsie ballad. The boxing song is hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ9KtuRHXRc

well, specifically i'm thinking of the 'la la la lalalala' bit that spoils it, shakey. need to 'rescreen' this

Was it bigger in UK than US?
I remember this being huge in the UK (where it was made). No one I've asked in the US has ever heard of it.

grown-up Fat Sam = primo Sopranos casting material

Became a crooked Citibank official, now going to prison.

http://fortune.com/2015/12/02/citi-bribery-cassisi/

He was also in the sitcom "Fish," so someone shd get a quote from Abe Vigoda.

so, "splurge" guns huh

haha I idly watched this the other day and it's really not v good although it is a bizarre artifact - you can see it aping adult film styles of the time (Altman, Coppola, Scorsese) but most of it is pretty meh apart from the musical numbers. Paul Williams delivers on that front imo.

the opening line ("people say if it was raining brains, Roxy Robinson wouldn't even get wet") still makes me laugh tho

It's a great musical, maybe not a great film

the singing voice is awful for the most part

its a better child performance exhibit than either a movie or a musical rly, some of the kids are really brilliant

The kid who played Dandy Dan is spectacular - it's always a shock seeing him ditch the character and smile at the end.

As an adult, I love the songs that bored me rigid as a child (Tomorrow, Ordinary Fool).

It's one of those "false memory" things, I have found:

me: "Do you remember the song "Tomorrow"?
xx: "Oh yeah! Great song.."
me: "And that lad who had the mop who sang it?"
xx: "Yeah, he was great."
me: "What about the dance routine he does in the instrumental?"
xx: "Yeah, fantastic he was."
me: "Would it surprise you, then, if I told you he doesn't dance a step at all in that song?"
xx: "............!"

haha yeah that is so weird - he even takes out his dancing shoes and stares lovingly at them and you think "okay here we go" but nope he just puts them back in the cabinet and goes back to his broom while the *girl* dances.

agree that the Dandy Dan guy is really good. he brings out the slobs vs. snobs angle well.

I remember when this movie came out, and I lived in a town with a lot of mobsters and everyone's daddy packed real guns. We used to play at being mobsters. But that shit was real. I mean, the mob used to dump bodies in the river near us and everything. We HATED this movie. It was like a bad imitation of our life story. They got it wrong. Some kids grow up fast, and there really isn't anything cute about gangsters if you grow up around them.

a+

Lol

Damn, the actor who played Dandy Dan took his own life in 1992, aged 32.

Martin Lev, from Liverpool - also appeared in the sci-fi drama-doc Into Infinity, produced by Gerry Anderson between seasons of Space: 1999. I loved that.

Its true this movie is unrealistic

are we revisiting Bugsy as a protest against Bryan Singer's awards nominations or

? I’m unaware of any abuse accusations associated w this film

kid who played Baby Face took over directing when Singer was fired off Bo Rhap

(he'd already been attached as director during development, but walked three years earlier largely bcz it was going to be a populist whitewash)

Oh huh weird