Gotta admit I winced when I heard there was a Sweet Smell of Success musical playing on Broadway. And thought of Dennis Waterman in Little Britain pitching Scum! The Musical ("Don't go into the greenhouse, greenhouse, greenhouse!") I couldn't stand the thought of a piece of art like Sweet being rendered all cutesy and toothless.
But then I thought maybe my prejudices are unfounded. Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?
The musical, believe it or not, retains a great deal of the film's grittiness. None of the characters are soft-pedalled for the musical re-telling. Some top talents worked on the musical version: playwright John Guare (The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, etc.) wrote the adaptation, and Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line, etc.) wrote the music. It has an extremely vibrant, menacing 1950's jazz-tinged score. In the musical, however, the narrative found in the film makes up the second act - - the musical authors wrote a new first act in which we see how Sidney got to be Sidney, and the romantic back story of Susan and Dallas. Dallas is a jazz pianist in the musical, not a guitarist. J.J.'s background/beginning as a vaudevillian is exploited in a clever way, and let's just say the musical has an even bleaker ending than the film. If you can trace a copy of the cast recording on CD, get it. One of Sidney's songs, "At the Fountain," is one of the better theatre songs written in the past 10 years. Hope this helped.
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