Ah, but you left out Adam’s muttered remark afterwards!
“I’ll speak with the printer about it later.”
I agree with the OP, it’s a flawed work, and performance. But it’s still a great deal of fun. And I’d forgive it anything for simply “Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve.”
(The exchange about the NY Legislature appeals to me, a lot, too.)
I am Not A Musical Fan. I could expound for hours on the extent to which I Do Not Like Musicals.
But I madly enjoy 1776.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m a big history buff, and I like all the bits that are taken from real writings.
Or maybe it’s because I adore William Daniels in all his incarnations, and it amuses me greatly that John Adams is K.I.T.T.
Either way, it’s just about the only musical on earth that gets an inequivocal thumbs up from me.
Also a favorite musical of mine. I played the Rev. Jno. Witherspoon in a college production and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The actor who played Dickinson and I were good friends (he later played the organ at my wedding), and we always tried to break each other up with laughter when we were onstage together (once we walked offstage and I said under my breath, “Now let’s go get a pizza!” and he about busted a gut). I didn’t mind playing the straight man for the New Brunswick gag.
I did a little reading about Witherspoon to learn more about the character, and became intrigued. He’d been a rebel and a freedom fighter since back in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s time, years earlier in Scotland, and was THE leading Presbyterian of the early republic. Wartime propaganda accused him of proslytizing British POWs during the Revolution. From Wiki: “As to Witherspoon’s legacy at Princeton, from among his students came 37 judges, three of whom made it to the Supreme Court; 10 Cabinet officers; 12 members of the Continental Congress, 28 U.S. senators, and 49 United States congressmen. One student, Aaron Burr, became Vice President, and another, James Madison, became President.” I even did a research paper on Witherspoon when I was in law school. Fascinating guy.
My favorite line is the very first one of the show, by John Adams, of course: “I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!”
My second favorite is Franklin’s: “I’d invite you to come along, John, but talking makes her nervous.”
My favorite song is “But, Mr. Adams.” My least favorite is “Momma Look Sharp.”
Howard Da Silva was also in the Cuban Missile Crisis TV movie The Missiles of October, playing Nikita Khrushchev!
Oh EH, I usually agree with you, but I like “Momma Look Sharp” Well, not like exactly, it’s so sad. But it’s a song I appreciate, and I tear up sometimes listening to it.
My favorite song are the various parts of “Yours, Yours, Yours” and my least favorite is “Cool, Considerate Men”
Which, according to the notes in the script preface, he did!
Business, pure and simple. In newspapers, “if it bleeds it leads”. In theater, “if it sings, it brings”. More people will attend MY FAIR LADY than will attend PYGMALION.
I’m a big fan of the play. I saw it on Broadway when it first came out. Saw the movie when it was first released. Bought the play and read and re-read it until I had it memorized. When I was in college, I played Charles Thomson (the secretary). I haf more lines than anyone else, but they cut out my singing solo lines, for which I did not forgive them.
I bought the DVD, and was delighted not only with the restored “Cool, Cool Men” number, but also with the restored opening (the version I saw in the theater was different), and at least one other restored scene (the fire truck).
Visited Philadelphia last summer and saw the real thing. I grew up in NJ, so I’d been there before, but I forgot how hot and humid it could get in the summer. My heart goes out to those delegates – Enduring the heat and the stench and the flies (there were stables right around the corner) would have been intolerable.
Charles Thomson, by the way, was eventually adopted within the Delaware Indians. He apparently served as an envoy to them. I wouldn’t have retained this datum if I hadn’t had the part.
One reason I liked 1776 was that the songs didn’t get overplayed and schmaltzified (anthough I bet Sherman Edwards felt differently about it.) A lot of the actors in the film, by the way, were the ones from the NYC stage production. And a lot of them hailed from soap operas being shot in the city. f you look them up on iMDB, they have few or no other film credits, outside of the leads.
From Stone’s notes in the published edition of the play, he wrote a scene with Franklin and Adams sharing a bed on the inspection tour in New Brunswick. I’ve always wanted to read that scene. e have Adams’ account, upon which it’s based. They may have stayed at the Indian Queen Taver, which still exists (although it was moved some 35 years ago).
Supposedly one number was cut from the movie, although it was in the play. All the Tories dance to the right, the right, the right. (And remarkably they do, sidestepping for a good five minutes, but only moving to the right.
Did you read the OP?
The fact that *1776 *is one of the three of four movies I have damn near memorized testifies to its status at the top of my favorites list – certainly my favorite musical. Growing up, it was the only musical that the family could watch together without my father getting up and finding something else to do. Philistine though he be, he always finds the historical tidbits accurate and compelling enough to render the presence of music, dancing and comedy (none of which he has much appreciation for) forgivable.
As a freshman in college, I was housed in a men’s dorm whose population, generally speaking, suffered from as intense a case of collective testosterone poisoning as an academically rigorous private liberal arts school could sustain. Being neither a fan of rugby nor inclined to drink, I made my friends among a quieter crowd. One evening I discovered the dorm lounge unoccupied and seized the opportunity to show my copy of 1776 to a group of my friends. As fans of the show will recall, there is a lengthy gap between musical numbers in Act I – I’d estimate almost half an hour of screen time elapses between “The Lees of Old Virginia” and “Dear Mr. Adams”. During this time a number of dorm residents passed through the lounge, observed some humorous bits of dialogue going on, and decided to stay. The room was nearly full by the time Benjamin Franklin opened his mouth and started to sing. A live grenade tossed through the window would probably have yielded a more orderly stampede for the exit. Not thirty seconds had gone by before the population of the room was once again back down to my friends and myself. The real kicker of the story, though, is what happened later. Over the next couple of weeks, I received a number of surreptitious visits from neighbors who wanted to see “that movie I was watching in the lounge”, but who clearly would rather enjoy it in the privacy of their own rooms than be observed watching “a musical” publicly. True story.
One question I’ve always wanted to ask. At the end of “Mama, Look Sharp”, the image of the dispatch rider’s face fades away and is replaced by that of Mr. Thomson, the congressional secretary. I’ve long wondered the reason for this. Is the director suggesting some hitherto unreferenced connection between the rider and Mr. Thomson – the former being the son of the latter, for example? Or is there some more mundane explanation?
I think it’s just a transition shot. I’ve wondered if the boy in the scene (not the courier but the young boy) is supposed to be McNair’s son or just a waif in the employ of Congress. William Duell, the actor who played McNair (the rum bringer) in the movie played Stephen Hopkins (the rum drinker) in the Broadway revival. (One stage version I saw featured a woman in the role called, of course, ‘Mrs. McNair’, which worked fine save for her occasional desire to Cockney-fie her accent.)
The Thompson from the movie, an actor named Ralston Hill, has no other screen credits. Very odd considering how memorable his voice was; he’d have been perfect as a narrator for BULLWINKLE or a cartoon.
There is a line in “Cool, Considerate Men” that I’ve always found highly amusing:
Hancock: Fortunately, there are not enough men of property in America to dictate policy.
and btw -
is this the line you mean?
Come ye cool cool considerate set
We’ll dance together to the same minuet
To the right, ever to the right
Never to the left, forever to the right
May our creed be never to exceed
Regulated speed, no matter what the need
eta: and I’m listening to the album right now
They changed this one a bit on the revival soundtrack. Earlier, when Adams is aghast that the Jeffersons are going to make love “In the middle of the afternoon?!”, Franklin tells him “Not everyone’s from Boston, John”. In the update, when Franklin says “Oh John, you can dance!” Adams responds “Not everyone’s from Philadelphia Franklin.”
(Of course the nitpick and irony on both is that Franklin was from Boston long before he was from Philadelphia.)
The latter, I always thought, or there’d be some dialogue about it.
I’ve played Martha twice in two community theatre productions – one of them let me play my own fiddle, which I thought was a daring comment on independent female sexuality. Or something. 
I love “He Plays the Violin” and “The Lees of Old Virginia” because I think they are examples of what John Adams finally taps into in “Is Anybody There?” – the pursuit of happiness. The point of making a musical with raunchy jokes is that none of the Founding Fathers have set out to become Historical Figures (well, maybe Franklin); they want to go home and be with their wives and children, and favorite horse, and beef cooked just the way they like it, and that old apple tree in the garden, and the nice temperate weather, and the view of the river from their bedroom window, and &c.
That’s the driving motivation for most of the characters in the play, and those two songs especially are fundamentally about the joy of being, which the Congressmen are unable to reach (or even pursue) until American independence is achieved.
(The third verse of “He Plays the Violin”, which starts “When Heaven calls to me/Sing me no sad elegy”, I always found quite poignant, knowing that Martha Jefferson was historically in poor health at that point and died shortly afterward. I tried to play those lines with some self-knowledge that she might not be long for the world and was trying to make the best of it.)
I believe the action between “The Lees of Old Virginia” and “But Mr Adams” is the longest scene(s) without music in a musical, ever. Good thing it’s so riveting.
The vote was unanimous, though, and it really had to be. There’s a discussion about that in the play.
Peter Stone (and, presumably, Sherman Edwards) definitely had this in mind when they wrote those verses – Stone mentions her early death in the commentary in the published version of the play.
which is why Dickenson chose to resign
Every time I watch the movie (and I watched it again this past weekend) I am struck by the amazement I feel when the final vote is tallied and Mr. Thomson says “the resolution on independence…is adopted.” There’s no cheering, no celebrating, not even a smile. Even Mr. Adams’ comment of “It’s done. It’s done” is spoken with an air of grim finality. Despite knowing in advance what the outcome would be, and having just witnessed the whole warts-and-all process, it’s difficult to sit through this scene without wondering in amazement how it was ever accomplished.
Some historical notes:
John Adams was actually a lot less contentious and irascible than the movie portrays. He himself tended to overstate his unpopularity; he actually had many friends among the delegates and got along fairly well. Later on, he had a serious falling out with Franklin* and a less-serious one with Jefferson**.
*Adams was infuriated by Franklin’s conduct in France. In Adams view, Frankline should have been vastly more circumspect in his dealings with the French Crown. More importantly, perhaps, was that Franklin regularly refused to conduct any sort of practical business, with the result that although Franklin arranged huge loans, they often didn’t get to any good use.
** Jefferson and Adams wound up in opposing political parties. Adams was never the feisty political brawler despite his energetic personality, and Jefferson was absolutely brutal in his public treatment of Adams, going so far as to fund a libellous newspaper and accuse Adams of virtual treason. They two reconciled (sort of; they never openly broke).
Rutledge was another interesting character almost forgotten by history. He probably was as sure-fire against the slavery clause as in the movie, but the man was vastly more complex. He actually freed his own slaves not long after the war ended, so his opposittion seems to have been more philosophical than practical. He apparently simply didn’t want to be dictated to.