Final-Lee: 1776 (the Musical) Thread

Cafe Society
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Sampiro, I doff my chapeau to you sir. You either did a ton of research or this period in history is passion of yours. Either way, bravissimo for all the details and tidbits.

Count me among those who consider 1776 a favorite. I was first exposed to it during a cast party for a junior high (summer session) production of Pirates of Penzance. I immediately bought the album (as soon as I had enough allowence, that is) and proceeded to memorize the score. Within a month, I could sing all parts.

My favorite number is a toss up between But Mr Adams and The Egg but really only from the movie because of DaSilva

DaSilva Trivia: Several years earlier, he played another politcal Ben: Republican Machine Boss Ben Marino in Fiorello!.

Vocally, the movie soundtrack will always be the one playing in my head whenever I think of 1776, but I have to say, I find Brent Spiner’s rich, well trained baritone quite thrilling.

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BTW: Netflix users “1776” is currently a play now movie. No need to wait. We’re about to watch it.

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My favorite thing about the revival soundtrack is the music. It’s better quality and runs longer, so that on, for example, He Plays the Violin, the dance instrumental is longer and a lot more “you are there” than the pre digital Broadway soundtrack. Also it has a lot more of the spoken scenes, and the short but enjoyable “Compliments of…” number.

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Love the movie, though I really despise the “He Plays the Violin.” I think it’s awful and shoehorned in. Otherwise, I love it. William Daniels is ridiculously appealing.

“New York abstains. Courteously.”

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I Netflixed it when I first got Netflix.

And when it was done, I could say “Well, now I’ve seen 1776.” It has some good songs and some great moments, and some pacing problems. For example, “He Plays the Violin” never ends.

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Yeah, why on earth do people like that song? I don’t even like Martha’s presence in the movie - it’s just stuck in there. Abigail serves a point.

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I enjoyed your OP, Sampiro.

I’ve never seen the show on stage, but I love this movie. Like others, when I read about the founding fathers I’m picturing this cast in my head. My favorite songs are Sit Down, John and But Mr. Adams.

My mother was a junior high school history teacher and she used to show this to her students. She got a kick out of the handful of kids who got the risque jokes. (Those who didn’t bring their signed permission slips had to watch Johnny Tremain instead.)

I have a few memories of the Bicentennial, and I have a picture of my mother and I wearing what were supposed to be period dresses that my grandmother made.

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It’s there so we can have this exchange (from memory, forgive errors):
Franklin: Oh John, you can dance!
Adams: We still know how to do a few things in Boston, Franklin!

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I adore this musical/movie. I got the chance to finally visit Monticello, and the tour guide asked the group what instrument Jefferson played… got that one right.

Incidentally, William Daniels is well-known to those of a certain age as being Mr. Feeney on the long-running show “Boy Meets World”. The show was set in Philadelphia at John Adams High. Imagine that…

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For some reason the ‘Compliments of…’ number in the movie always makes me a little teary. Don’t know why.

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If they took out the stupid songs, it’d be a pretty good play. Not everything has to be a goddamn musical. We have enough of the principal characters’ own words not to need a showtune to express a point. (Some of the songs are decent on their own, though.)

I can’t watch the movie because I hate “He Plays the Violin” so much. Also the characterization of Richard Henry Lee as something of a buffoon, making childish puns on his own name.

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For god’s sake Baldwin,sit down!

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I’ve always wondered about the line (as I’ve heard it)
And is my favorite lover’s pillow still firm and fair

I always admired it as a line with three potential meanings (in increasing order of risque-ness)
“favorite lover’s” pillow - Abigail’s pillow
favorite “lover’s pillow” - an under-the-hips type pillow
or just asking about Abigail’s mons veneris.

And now when I Google the lyrics, they all claim the the line is
And is my favorite lover’s pillar still firm and fair

which makes no sense at all, at least with John singing it to Abigail…

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I assumed he was talking about her breast. You know, he’d pillow his head on her breast. It’s “pilla” to make the rhyme, but it’s supposed to pillow.

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I do the same thing!

One of my all-time favorites.

For God’s sake, John, sit down! (Vote yes, vote yes…)

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A couple of not completely irrelevant notes on the setting:

I’m from Philly, and in fact lived about three blocks from Independence Hall during my junior-high years. Actually, I got off the bus from school in front of Independence Hall, and cut through the colonnades on either side of the main building to walk home. That whole area got closed down hard after 9/11, and though you can now walk on the sidewalk in front of it, there’s a security check to go to the square in back, and you need tickets (free, a finite number available each day at the visitor’s center) to get into the building. Which is very sad, because I remember going into the building on a class field trip when I was but a wee twickster, back in the mid '60s when the Liberty Bell was still in that building. (It’s now in a fancy pavillion across the street, though there are windows so you don’t have to go into the building to see it.)

Anyway, I know the building well, and it’s a fine replica they built on that soundstage – but it’s clearly on a soundstage, because the “sun” isn’t in the right spots. There’s an exterior shot, morning, with the sun coming from the right – but “right” looking at Independence Hall from the front is actually west.

I do, however, take people past there when I’m giving them the quick tour of colonial Philadelphia – and then over by Franklin Court, where BF had his home and print shop, then by Franklin’s grave – all of these within a few blocks of each other.

The house where Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence was torn down, but has been rebuilt. I’ve never visited the replica – never seen any evidence that it’s open, actually, and I walk by there regularly.

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Some years ago, friends who have 1776 memorized talked me into seeing it. I didn’t want to because, well, being 11 years old and English in a small American town during the Bicentennial put me off such things for a long time, but I wound up loving it. A few years ago, the gentleman I was seeing took me to see it a few weeks before his 41st birthday. You can guess what I sang to him a few weeks later! :smiley: He can’t have objected – we’re now married, and “Yours, Yours. Yours” has some sentimental value.

When I was in grade school, the American Revolution was taught from a very one-sided view, with the British portrayed as perpetual bad guys. The way I was taught about it, you’d think everyone in what became America was in favor of independence and the vote on the Declaration of Independence was unanimous. I love how historical 1776 was and how it portrayed how very controversial the idea was and how close the vote was. In addition to being very singable, it’s a nice history lesson as well.

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The part about your grade school is a little sad. While the British government was portrayed as the “bad guys” and the King ineffectual, we learned that only about a 3rd of the Colonists were pro-Independence and that nearly as many were Loyalist/Tories. My class even took in a little New Jersey-centric history as we were close to Monmouth Battlefield Park. It was brought up about how the British Salt laws inspired many in NJ to rebel as it was killing a major NJ industry at the time on the salt marshes and greatly increased the cost of salt thus making it harder to make it through the cold harsh winters. Maybe I just had a good teacher.

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Sampiro, you’re a man after my own heart. 1776 is one of my all-time favorite musicals, and is on the short list of “movies I absolutely have to watch when they’re on TV.” I played Stephen Hopkins (“Old Grape ‘n’ Guts”) in my college production more years ago than I care to remember, and fell in love with the show at the first reading. I went to college in NY, and when Morris delivers his line “Have you ever been present at a session of the New York legislature?”, it was a guaranteed huge laugh every night.

I take issue with a couple of the previous postings, however. “He Plays the Violin” is one of my favorite numbers from the show. I’m sure my schoolboy crush on Blythe Danner at the time has a lot to do with that, but I also believe it serves to reveal an aspect of Jefferson’s character previously unknown to most people–and that’s the purpose it serves.

Speaking of Jefferson, I absolutely love the wink he gives to Adams after his “To put forth the sense of the argument…” line.

Another favorite exchange of mine:

Adams: “A week! The whole world was created in a week!”
Jefferson: “Someday you must tell me how you did it.”

And from the same scene:

Adams: “Look at him, Franklin, Virginia’s greatest lover!”
Jefferson: “Virginia abstains.”

Re the cutting of “Cool Considerate Men”: I’ve heard the Nixon story before, but I tend not to believe it. If it was for that reason, I would be more inclined to believe that it was one of his “handlers” who made the suggestion rather than Nixon himself. Anyhoo, I’m going with the “time constraints” story. Plus, IMHO, it’s not that great of a number and really doesn’t add anything to the show. I’ve seen the film with and without it, and as much as I appreciate the fact that it was put back in for the DVD release, the film works just as well without it. If I was cutting a number from the film for time’s sake, that would be the one I’d cut.

One more thing, Sam: How can you not love The Lees of Old Virginia? It’s one of my favorites; also, it has a connection to one of my other favorite musicals. Ron Holgate, who played Lee, was a veteran Broadway musical actor who played Gen. Miles Gloriosus in the original Broadway cast of A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum. Oh well, to each his own, I guess.

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I am Very Definitely Not A Musical Fan, but I can’t help liking 1776, in large part because of this exchange:

The Beloved Alma Mater does not get that many shoutouts in pop culture, and this one is particularly gratifying :slight_smile: