Heh! I like BBB. How can you beat Paul Lynde trying to play straight and singing “Kids”? How can you beat Dick Van Dyke leaping around that park? “Take off that gloomy mask of tragedy, it’s not your style!”
I’d say Bye Bye Birdie is the most disappointing movie musical. They had a great property, but decided they needed to jazz it up, so they added the incredibly stupid “speedy turtle” subplot. The staging wasn’t all that good, either.
But the basic play was good enough to keep it from being utter crap.
Lost Horizon is the strongest candidate for the crown.
Maybe you have to be gay to enjoy it. 
But does ruining a great song hurt less than doing a bad song? I’ve never been sure about the answer to that one. A number of the performances aren’t just dull, they’re really bad and perplexing. The robots singing “She’s Leaving Home” come to mind. Or Robin Gibb taking all the psycho out of “Oh, Darling” and Alice Cooper speaking “Because” through his nose.
A more obscure candidate is Half a Sixpence. Mind-numbingly mediocre, without a single song that was anything more than forgettable, weak plot, enthusiastic overacting, and absolutely forgettable acting.
The Broadway Melody is also unimpressive. The best songs were put to much better effect in Singin’ in the Rain. I think it won Best Picture Oscar primarily because it was an early and successful musical. But it dates terribly, with none of the fun of the Warner Brothers musicals of a few years later.
I definitely lost brain cells watching Cannibal the Musical, even though it was supposed to be funny and cheesy it just hurt.
I agree- but a few of the musical numbers were pretty good (I liked Billy Preston’s version of “Get Back” and Aerosmith’s “Come Together,” and the Earth Wind & Fire version of “Got to Get You into My life” wasn’t bad, either). The movie as a whole was terrible, but there were just enough good moments to make you understand why someone in Hollywood gave it the green light and thought it might work. Even now, one could wonder if a better cast and some better performances might have made the movie, if not good, at least semi-enjoyable.
But NOBODY could’ve made the Bacharach songs from “Lost Horizon” any better. Sally Kellerman was horrible, but even a talented singer couldn’t have done better.
Apparently “Mame” starring Lucille Ball was so bad I’m the only person who remembers it. :eek:
Not anymore you’re not, and I’ll be expecting you to pay the therapy bills.
Agreed, the movie version was awful. I love Lucille Ball, but the woman had the voice of a laryngitic frog. When Bea Arthur sounds like Jennifer Holliday next to you, you just can’t sing.
According to the critics is was Vera whose voice was the voice of a frog.
snerk Don’t you go quoting lyrics at me!
Did I mention that we’re going to see this at the Kennedy Center in June with Christine Baranski as Mame and Harriet Sansom Harris as Vera?
Aack! How could I forget? That was quite possibly the worst movie experience of my LIFE. Absolutely terrible.
I guess I’m not gay enough, because this movie bored me to tears and I gave up about 20 minutes into it, and I really did want to watch the whole thing. Of course, I’m also generally can’t stand musicals. But I will also have a special place in my heart for Xanadu.
turns green with envy
I came into this thread to nominate this one. It was horrrrrrrrible.
Without having seen it, (or indeed, without its having been made), I would have to vote for ‘Saucy Jack’, the musical version of the life of Jack the Ripper, by David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls.
Saucy Jack, you’re a naughty one/Saucy Jack, you’re a haughty one…
A close second would go to “Springtime for Hitler”.
That depends on who’s performing the lead role.
Those are the three good ones, yeah. Aerosmith’s was the best of the movie - a bad sign when they’re supposed to kinda somehow be the villains. Their version of “Come Together” is better than the Beatles. Unfortunately they only play about half the song! Billy Preston’s song would have been great if the scene around it hadn’t been so bad. Most of the Bee Gees/Frampton numbers, and that’s the bulk of the movie, are weak.
A movie based around “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” sounds like a good idea. Especially if you’ve seen “Yellow Submarine,” which I think is an absolute classic. But once you get into the plot they came up with and the terrible attempts to tie some of the songs together, I don’t know how they went forward with it.