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.