Kids' gangster musical by Writer/Director Alan Parker (The Commitments) featuring the young Jodie Foster as Tallulah and Dexter Fletcher (Gamesmaster, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Band of Brothers) as the tiny Baby Face. Child actors play adults. Fat Sam (John Cassisi), the mob boss who owns the speakeasy at which Tallulah sings is falling behind the times. His rival gang, headed by Dandy Dan (Martin Lev), have imported splurge guns, which are much faster at shooting than the hand-thrown custard pies that Fat Sam's lot work with. Bugsy Malone (Scott Baio), a real ladies' man, who gets by doing "this and that", is hired by Fat Sam to get some of the merchandise for the goodies.
There are some great songs, such as "Tomorrow", "So You Wanna Be a Boxer?" and "Bad Guys". Parker marshalls his cast brilliantly. Apparently, they all woalked around on set listening to the songs on headphones whenever they weren't shooting so that they became comfortable miming along to them.
This was one of my favourite films as a wain - and is still one now that I'm a slighly bigger wain. The jokes and references to the gangster flicks of the 30s are aimed more at adults (Foster has some great one-lines); but the pedal cars and splurge fights keep the kids bopping along.
Nugget: "Everybody loves that man, Bugsy Malone."
No comments:
Post a Comment