Musicals Blog

Chicago (2002)

by Claire J Rottenberg


Although "Chicago" was a hit musical play in 1975, playing on Broadway for 2 years, it was not made into a movie musical until 25 years later, after a second highly successful run on Broadway. In fact, the movie version of "Chicago" was based on the 1996 revival rather than on the original 1975 play.

The first healthy run on Broadway of "Chicago" earned 13 Tony nominations but it, surprisingly, won only 1 minor award. The film, on the other hand, won 6 Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture, out of 13 nominations.

The music and lyrics for the score of "Chicago" were written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, the only songwriters who have had two major movie musicals based on Broadway successes. Their other movie hit was "Cabaret," released 30 years prior to "Chicago." Although the movie score for "Cabaret" was dramatically changed from that of the play version, the score from the original version of "Chicago" was only slightly changed for the movie version. Five songs from the exceedingly long original score of 19 songs were cut from the movie. However, one song, "Class," was originally in the film but edited from the final version. It is included as an extra feature on the DVD of "Chicago."

The cast of the movie version of "Chicago" consisted primarily of movie actors and actresses. Only Catherine Zeta-Jones had musical background, yet no dubbing was used for the film, with, apparently, successful results.