Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001)

Actors: Patti LuPone (actress), Jeremy Kasten (editor), Neil Patrick Harris (actor), Jeff Thorsen (producer), Hugh Wheeler (writer), George Hearn (actor), Gary Bradley (editor), Ellen Krass (producer), Victoria Clark (actress), Lonny Price (director), Cheryl Mergaert (miscellaneous crew), Iris Merlis (producer), Davis Gaines (actor), Morton Swinsky (producer), Chase Mishkin (producer),

Plot: This movie is a recorded performance in concert. It all begins when Benjamin Barker( George Hearn), a mysterious,quiet,and subtle barber, returns to his hometown in London after escaping from a prison in Australia with help from a young sailor named Anthony. Now Sweeney Todd, he returns to his home where he and his wife Lucie and daughter Johanna used to live. When he arrives he meets Mrs. Nellie Lovett(Patti Lupone), a lonely woman who owns a down and out pie shop, and discovers that his wife has poisoned herself and the judge that unfairly punished him is responsible and the judge also has his daughter. So then Sweeney plots his revenge on the judge and his accomplice the Beadle and with help from Mrs. Lovett he re-opens his barber shop and vows to give the judge the closest shave he will ever know and give Mrs. Lovett a tasty new ingredient for her homemade meat pies.

Keywords: based-on-book, character-name-in-title
Genres: Crime, Drama, Horror, Musical, Thriller,

Quotes:

Mrs. Lovett: And who says the week's out yet? It's only Friday.

Beadle: Mr. Todd. Strange, sir. It seems your face is known to me.::Mrs. Lovett: Him? [laughs] That's a laugh, him being me uncle's cousin and arrived from Birmingham only yesterday.::Sweeney Todd: And yet already, I have heard Beadle Bamford spoken of with great respect.::Beadle: Well, sir, I do try for my neighbors. Fleet Street, eh? Above your pie shop, ma'am?::Mrs. Lovett: That's it, sir.::Beadle: Then, Mr. Todd, you shall surely be seing me before the week is out.::Sweeney Todd: You will be welcome, Beadle Bamford, and I guarantee to give you, without a penny's charge, the closest shave you will ever know.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982)

Actors: Angela Lansbury (actress), Harold Prince (miscellaneous crew), Terry Hughes (director), Archer King (producer), George Hearn (actor), Hugh Wheeler (writer), Jimmy B. Frazier (editor), Edmund Lyndeck (actor), Bonnie Burns (producer), Franne Lee (costume designer), Sal Mistretta (actor), Calvin Remsberg (actor), Larry Fuller (miscellaneous crew), Patricia Parker (actress), Walter Charles (actor),

Plot: It's 1846. Sweeney Todd and Anthony Hope, greeted only by a crazed beggar woman, sail into London, where Todd implies he has been before but not in quite some time. Todd heads to his old stomping grounds of Fleet Street, where he runs across the pie shop belonging to Mrs. Nellie Lovett, who professes to make the worst meat pies in London due to the high cost of meat. The upstairs of her building has sat empty since no one wants to rent a space that is considered haunted by its long ago tenant, barber Benjamin Barker who was falsely accused and ultimately sentenced by the sadistic Judge Turpin and who was shipped away to prison in Australia, leaving his wife Lucy and infant daughter Johanna alone in the world. Todd comes to an agreement with Mrs. Lovett to rent the upstairs of her building so that he can open his own barber shop. A series of incidents, including one with rival barber Senor Pirelli, make Todd change his focus slightly away from having a choice encounter with Judge Turpin and his equally sadistic henchman Beadle Bamford, which was one of the reasons he returned to London. Mrs. Lovett believes this change can only help her pie shop. Meanwhile, upon sighting each other, Anthony and Johanna fall in love at first sight. Johanna is now the ward of Judge Turpin, who has his own incompatible wants with her. Todd and Mrs. Lovett's collaboration as well as Anthony's pursuit of Johanna take marked turns with a number of revelations, most specifically about the crazed beggar woman and Mrs. Lovett's motivations.

Keywords: 19th-century, adoption, assumed-identity, asylum, barber, based-on-stage-musical, betrayal, black-comedy, blackmail, burned-alive
Genres: Drama, Horror, Musical, Thriller,

Quotes:

Judge Turpin: [singing] What more can man require than love sir?::Sweeney Todd: [singing] More than love sir.::Judge Turpin: [singing] What sir?::Sweeney Todd: [singing] Women.::Judge Turpin: [singing] Ah yes, women.::Sweeney Todd: [singing] Pretty women.

Nellie Lovett: [singing] Mrs Mooney has a pie shop. Does a business, but I notice something weird - lately all her neighbour's cats have disappeared.

Nellie Lovett: [singing, after Sweeney Todd has bitten into one of Mrs Lovett's pies] Is that just disgusting? You have to conceed it. It's nothing but crusting, here drink this - you'll need it.

Sweeney Todd: [singing] There's a hole in the world like a great black pit/ And the vermin of the world inhabit it/ And its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit/ And it goes by the name of London.

[first lines]::Man: [singing] Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd. His skin was pale and his eye was odd. He shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again. He trod a path that few have trod, Did Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Company: [singing] Swing your razor wide, Sweeney! Hold it to the skies! Freely flows the blood of those who moralize...

Sweeney Todd: [singing] Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd...::Company: [singing] Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd...::Sweeney Todd: [singing] He served a dark and a vengeful god...::Company: [singing] He served a dark and a vengeful god...::Sweeney Todd: [singing] What happened then? Well, that's the play and he wouldn't want us to give it away. Not Sweeney...::Todd, Company: [singing] Not Sweeney Todd... the demon barber of Fleet... Street.

Sweeney Todd: [singing] There was a barber and his wife, and she was beautiful. A foolish barber and his wife. She was his reason and his life, And she was beautiful. And she was virtuous. And he was - Naive. There was another man who saw that she was beautiful, a pious vulture of the law, who, with a gesture of his claw removed the barber from his plate. Then there was nothing but to wait and she would fall, so soft, so young, so lost, and oh, so beautiful!::Anthony Hope: [speaking] And the lady, sir-did she-succumb?::Sweeney Todd: [singing] Oh, that was many years ago... I doubt if anyone would know.

Sweeney Todd: [singing] You there, my friend. Come, let me hold you. Now, with a sigh you grow warm in my hand, my friend, my clever friend. Rest now, my friends. Soon I'll unfold you. Soon you'll know splendors you never have dreamed all your days, my lucky friends. Till now your shine was merely silver. Friends you shall drip rubies...::Nellie Lovett: [singing] [simultaneously] I'm your friend too, Mr. Todd. If you only knew, Mr. Todd - Ooh, Mr. Todd, you're warm in my hand. You've come home. Always had a fondness for you, I did. Never you fear, Mr. Todd, you can move in here, Mr. Todd. Splendors you never have dreamed All your days will be yours. I'm your friend. Don't they shine beautiful? Silver's good enough for me, Mr. T.::Sweeney Todd: [singing] You'll soon drip precious rubies...::Sweeney Todd: [holds up his razor]::Sweeney Todd: [singing] At last, my right arm is complete again!

Johanna: [singing] Green finch and linnet bird, mightingale, blackbird, how is it you sing? how can you jubilate, sitting in cages, never taking wing? Outside the sky waits, beckoning, beckoning, just beyond the bars. How can you remain, staring at the rain, maddened by the stars?

Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970)

Actors: Andy Milligan (editor), Andy Milligan (director), Andy Milligan (writer), Andy Milligan (costume designer), William Mishkin (producer), Berwick Kaler (actor), John Miranda (actor), John Borske (writer), Susan Heard (miscellaneous crew), Susan Cassidy (actress), William Barrel (actor), Jonathan Holt (actor), Annabella Wood (actress), David Pike (actor), Jane Hilary (actress),

Plot: Sweeney Todd, a barber, and Maggie Lovett, a baker, join forces to commit a series of brutal, gory murders in London with a little help from Tobias Ragg, an employee of Maggie' bakery who abducts a number of customers from the barber shop and kills them and helps the couple make "meat pies" out of the dead victims for sale.

Keywords: baker, barber, barber-shop, blood, butcher, butcher-knife, cannibal, cheating, customer, death
Genres: Horror,
Taglines: Too Sensual To Miss If You're Curious! Too Terrifying To See If You're Yellow! Their prime cuts were curiously erotic... but thoroughly BRUTAL! Sadism Was Just An Appetizer For the Bloodthirsty Butchers! More Savage--More Violent than anything written by the Marquis de Sade