I just saw the movie Sweeney Todd (yes I was late to the party), and in general I really like it - I’m a big Tim Burton fan. But, I have a probably weird nitpicky question.
Sweeney Todd used to be Benjamin Barker, right? And he had a barber shop above the pie shop, back in the day. Okay, got it. But, in the flashback we see of Benjamin and his wife, they clearly* live* in the room above the pie shop, with no barbering supplies to be seen. When Sweeney comes back to London and Mrs.Lovett shows him the room, it clearly has the same old wallpaper that the old living room had, and the baby’s crib. By the next scene it’s a barber shop again.
So what’s the deal with that? It doesn’t seem like there is another room up there, just the one. Is it a shop, or his living quarters? If its all shop, where does he live? What’s with the flashback?
I know this isn’t a 100% realistic movie, and Tim Burton isn’t known for strict realism, but this really bugged me.
B. Victorian London didn’t have the same kind of zoning laws that we take for granted today; it was not at all unusual for people to live and work in the same please. Still, I think “A.” comes closer to answering your question.
I thought of the live-and-work-in-the-same-space angle, but we see pretty much the whole room and there is no bedding or anything. Unless it’s in the chest that he sticks Pirelli in? Hmmm.
I do appreciate the ‘suspend your disbelief, it’s just a movie’ angle, I just wondered if anyone had any ideas.
I don’t remember, do we see where Sweeney sleeps after his return? Do we see every part of all four walls of the barbershop? Could there be living quarters off camera? I can buy a bachelor barber living in his shop, but it seems like the woman and the girl would have to be somewhere during business hours.
(Not that the Barkers’ living arrangements would be the most implausible part of the story…)
Another small plot hole that appears in the movie (but not the stage show):
The movie has Judge Turpin appearing at the doorstep of the Barkers’ home with flowers. Then, fifteen years later, he returns to the SAME building for a shave, and the memory of Benjamin Barker doesn’t even come close to entering his mind.
In the stage version, no time lapse is implied between Sweeny being transported and when Beadle comes to bring Lucy to the Judge’s masque. The judge has no idea where she lives.
In the stage musical, Mrs. Lovett has saved Todd’s razors but nothing else. The room above her pie shop has been empty for years. Todd upon his return uses the room and begins business using an ordinary chair. The arrival of the new barber chair comes at a later point, during a musical number that is severely trimmed in the film. Todd, I imagine, is simply living with Mrs. Lovett.
On stage, the pie shop set piece is rather stylized with different downstairs rooms shown by turning the piece around, while only one room is visible above. It’s hard to conclude what the past or present living arrangements might have been.
Yeah - I noticed this too. Judge Turpin must be pretty damn forgetful if he doesn’t think “hmmm, a barber, in the same location, looks the same, something seems familiar about this…”
VernWinterbottom - it hadn’t really occurred to me that Sweeney might be living with Mrs.Lovett. I haven’t seen the stageshow (although I’m familiar with it), but I imagine it is without the flashback, and really, the flashback part is what made me wonder.
Perhaps Barker/Todd cut hair elsewhere before his imprisonment but still lived above the pie shop, and he only began to use that as his shop upon his return. That would also help eliminate Turpin’s suspicion. Of course Barker’s home would become something else; he’s never coming back, thinks the judge.
I don’t recall if Mrs. Lovett says it in the film or not, but in the play, when Todd first asks her about the room upstairs–before she’s confirmed his identity–she replies that years ago something happened up there, “something not very nice. . .” She never says Barker was cutting hair up there.
Was it established that the downstairs was a pie shop when the Barkers lived there? I assumed that the barber shop used to be downstairs and the Barkers lived upstairs and it became a pie shop after the Barkers were removed.
You know, I think this is probably the best explanation. He probably had a nicer, better shop somewhere else and just lived above the pie shop.
VernWinterbottom - in the film she does say something happened up there, and that nobody will rent that room. You’re right that she doesn’t say there was a barber shop up there, but she does have his razors, which sort of suggests that she was around on the street, running the pie shop at the time.
Sorry, my last response was to both you and randwill - it was not too clear. Randwill suggested that the pie shop did not exist in the past, but then how would Mrs.Lovett know Benjamin Barker and get his razors?
In any case, I think the explanation (so far as it exists at all) must be that the shop used to be somewhere else, and now he uses the upstairs room as the shop and sleeps downstairs with Mrs.Lovett, so no bedding upstairs is needed.
That actually only partly explains Judge Turpins behaviour - he came by the Barkers house 15 years before, and comes back to the same place for a shave, so in theory he could recognize it and has been there. But, if it was an apartment and not a barber shop, it makes more sense that he doesn’t recognize it.
The only flaw remaining is that on the building, outside the upstairs room, is a striped barbers pole, all rusty and dirty like it’s been there for years.
As RandySeltzer explains, in the stage version, the Beadle brings Lucy to the Judge. The judge had never visited Lucy at home and so would not recognize the place later.
Obviously by having the Judge visit Lucy’s home in the old days and by having the barber pole outside the window, Burton introduced this flawed scenario which requires the Judge to have forgotten the barber shop/ home.
Although that flaw is not in the stage version anyway, with the ages of the original cast members being considerably older than the film cast’s, there is also the element that far more time has passed since Barker was transported and Todd returns. This makes more believeable Mrs. Lovett’s failure to recognize him at first.
VernWinterbottom - thanks for your insight into the stage play, it’s interesting to know that it makes more sense on stage (although I’m not surprised). I’d love to see the stage show, but I’ve never gotten the chance, so it’s good to get the insight.