FOLLIES (1971, Broadway)
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- Опубліковано 3 кві 2021
- Hats off!
In honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the Broadway opening, we present a glimpse into the original magic that played at the Winter Garden Theatre, in Follies. Alexis Smith, Dorothy Collins, John McMartin, Gene Nelson and Yvonne DeCarlo were the stars of this glorious musical, with a score by Stephen Sondheim, libretto by James Goldman, and direction by Hal Prince and Michael Bennett. This 'recreation' project was first conceived seven years ago, and today boasts four film sources and several audio recordings and still photographs, to achieve an audiovisual document as true as possible to the original masterpiece.
The other notable names that contributed to that original magic were Boris Aronson, Florence Klotz, Tharon Musser, John Berkman, Harold Hastings and Jonathan Tunick in the creative team, while the performers were Ethel Shutta, Fifi D'Orsay, Mary McCarty, Justine Johnston, Michael Bartlett, Virginia Sandifur, Marti Rolph, Kurt Peterson, Harvey Evans and Victoria Mallory.
I was 15 years old, went with my mother. We sat Orch row C for $7.50 a ticket on Aug 25, 1971. We couldn't get tickets for Fiddler at the Broadway Theatre, as we walked back to Times Sq. I said to my mom let's see this as we passed by the Winter Garden Theatre. She didn't want to spend the $7.50 for the tickets. I talked her into it and it was Magic. Thanks for posting this.
Frank I keep reading this so often. I was 18 when I caught the June 30th matinee. I would see it 4 times.
Well did your mother think she had made a wise choice.
I feel like those of us who love the show should have a reunion. The star trek people do
Sorry to hear Harvey Evans died
....but we'll still here
I’m so happy you have such a detailed memory of it down to the price, I’ve always wished I could remember things that clearly.
All of this is wonderful to see. To watch Gene Nelson sing and dance "The Right Girl" is especially sheer bliss to me. Thank you.
Thanks for putting this together. What a labor of love. It so vividly brings back all my memories of my time in New York when I used to be mistaken for Michael Bennett on the streets. Follies been a touchstone for me in all the convening days since 1971.
i cannot even imagine the hard work that went into piecing these PRECIOUS tidbits together. it’s funny, one is not supposed to film live performances but i thank god for the “pirate” who did. this is a legendary, landmark, mythical show and my hats off to the pirate who flaunted the law and gave us this slice of history. i just wish yvonne’s whole number was intact. thank you for this special gift.
My grandma, who was a high school drama teacher, took me to see this on Broadway when I was 5. I was enthralled! This was the beginning of my love for musical theatre.
I saw the original several times. Lucky! YES! Everytime I'm reminded about FOLLIES, like now, my heart wells up and I get chills remembering all the wonderful, wonderful memories. I AM just a Broadway baby, and YES, I'm still here!
I had wondered why your classic 1971 "Follies" movie had yet to return to UA-cam, but of course you waited for the perfect day, and here it is, longer and more elaborate than ever. An extraordinary and loving job of reconstruction, and quite thrilling. May it remain on YT forever, and thank you.
Aurora, what compliments, I don't quite know what to say! I had been holding it off, but I was so glad to be able to share it on this special day. Thank you!
This restoration is great. More than a dozen years after I saw Follies with a group of high school friends, I used to listen to an audio cassette of the final Boston performance. A valued gift from a close friend. Serendipitously, It was my first Broadway musical. I remember waiting at the stage door after the show with a mob of fans to have some of the stars sign our playbill.Thought I had died and gone to heaven. Impossible to describe how wonderfully elated I felt riding home on the subway after the show. An introduction to live theatre that is impressed on my brain 50 years afterwards.
I was in high school when this opened. Saw it about a month later.
I remember being TOTALLY blown away.
The kind of show that after you come out of the theatre, you just don't talk.
I was 15, and I remember it as clear as if it were last month.
I was in high school too. In Suffolk Co., Long Island. I didn't see Follies. So I envy you! 😊
@@zyxw2024
Lolol
I lived in Suffern (Rockland County). Went to college at Plattsburgh, which was probly half Long Islanders...lol
Many friends on five towns area, Port Jeff, Riverhead, Sayville...
A lifetime ago...😎😎😎
@@zyxw2024
I also saw it in London in 1988, and Music Directed a production of it in Philadelphia
😜🤪😜🤪😜
@@zyxw2024
We had a "Theatre-Goers" club....went every 2 weeks!!
Fiddler, Mame, La Mancha, Company, Applause , Coco, Sugar, Irene, Lorelei, Night Music, No No Nanette, etc, etc etc.....
This is like a priceless gift for those of us not lucky and old enough to have been there. Thank you! 🥲
Thanks for posting my favorite musical. I saw it at the Winter Garden...
Orchestra seat $15.
I also have a huge
Poster from Follies signed by the artist
David Byrd. 😃
What was it like seeing it live?
This is a remarkable record of one of the greatest works of theatre of any age. I constantly dip into it to relive a moment or two of that remarkable evening that I saw the original production. Right now I just watched Gene Nelson singing and dancing THE RIGHT GIRL. Has anyone since Nelson been able to dance this song with so much intense emotion and technical skill?
Incredible. Saw it 5 times in 1971. Was a student in Juilliard. Dorothy Collins gave one of the most consistently brilliant stage performances I've seen to date, and Michael Bennet's contribution was nothing short of genius. What a treasure! Thank you....so much.
I saw this in NY in 1971 also. I saw it at least 7 times including it's final NY performance. At that performance I saw the audience go insane after "Who's That Woman" the applause was so lengthy that they did an encore of the entire number. I will never forget that night.
For those who say Sondheim cannot write a melody listen to this cast album. Gorgeous and my favorite of his shows
"Faced with these Loreleis
What man could moralize?"
"This is how Sampson was shorn,
Each in her style a Delilah reborn.
All for you, these beautiful girls!"
Mein gott in himmel, what lyrics, and married to the perfect magnificent melody!
Thank you. It's hard to comment without falling into hyperbole, but it's like pushing back the clouds and getting a glimpse of Paradise. Cheers.
magical ...the show and what you made so lovingly, thank you
❤Thank you for posting this priceless wonderful Show. I never thoght that I would see part of the original broadway musical.
Hats off indeed! I especially enjoyed Yvonne De Carlo's reaction at the curtain call. It seems a cross between surprise and pure joy.
just watched it again....omg!!!! can't beat the original. Dorothy Collins so under rated--that staging.,...that Mirror number!!! Like I was back at the Winter Garden in 1971!!! As good as the revivals have been, you can't get better than this.....I'm a mess....
I remember Dorothy Collins on early TV - The Hit Parade. Stagings of the ten most popular songs of the week.
"Hey up there!" Sitting here with tears in my eyes. Exquisite! Bravo! And many, many thanks.
A treasure. I watch, mesmerized.
I saw this production. I was 13. Much of the "road-you-didn't-take plot" was lost on my younger self. But I was dazzled, especially with Loveland.
In the intervening years I have seen and loved many productions, the latest being the National's gorgeous, bittersweet rendition which moved me deeply.
But to see Alexis Smith and Dorothy Collins again. What magic.
I cannot thank you enough.
I saw the show that year. it really was beautiful.. a show that has always stuck in my mind. I've seen a lot of the revival versions, and some of them are beautifully costumed. That one was pretty special though. What made it unique though was that fabulous cast.
So many productions have tried and failed to recreate the magic of the original 1971 cast and crew. To me, it feels like young people in old folks clothing. You cannot replace the importance of casting choices like Yvonne Decarlo as Carlotta, Alexis Smith or Gene Nelson as Buddy. There are pieces that are indelibly linked to the time they came out. Follies will forever be linked to 1971, and if that means it becomes a museum piece, then we have this incredible artistic undertaking to watch again and again.
What a treat! A ghostly video of a musical abut ghosts from an even more distant past. It's like digital archeology. Great work, thank you!!!!
What a fantastic description, thank you!
More like a digital séance, I'd say.
What a great thing to have done. Thank you! The thing that strikes me the most, even though it's only seen here as stills, is the fact that at the very end of the show, the back wall of the theater is gone. It doesn't return to "reality" the way other stagings have. "Oh, dear Lord, it is tomorrow!" says Sally. Chilling (that, and the fact that the original libretto tells us she's attempted suicide multiple times...oh dear Lord.)
Thank you 4 this GEM! I saw this as an impressionable 11, and never ever 4got ! Akexis Smith in Lucy n Jessie !! Yvonne DeCarlo can never ge matched ! Superior cast!!!
I was 11 as well, and I was just gobsmacked. This was the show that made me want to go into theater - I had to be a part of such incredible magic. And many years later I got to play Ben, and it is still one of my favorite roles.
This is like the STAR IS BORN reconstruction!
I only wish I was in that class! Thank you so very much!
Haha I was thinking the same. ✨
Just back from Carnegie Hall one night only concert version, had to come here to see some of this straight away Oh to have seen this production, but I was only 13 and living in Massachusetts. At least I'm in NYC now
Wow-the original was so much more elaborate and spectacular compared to the many revivals I’ve seen all over the world the past 40 years-truly remarkable!
Producers think audiences want scaled down intimate shows with actors playing instruments…not for $200 a tix i dont
What a magnificent reconstruction this is. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Incredible footage. So very very glad it was preserved of an historic theater piece. Just as the musical confronts the past of its characters, this video footage asks the same questions: "Where are we now? What has changed? How have we changed? "
Thank you. I've never seen a production and to finally hear the dialogue and see the actors between the score I love is glorious. And as a retired dancer, to see Bennett choreography, the stuff I grew up on, is just so delightful! The graininess of the film really accentuates the light and shadow and form. So pleased you posted.
Thanks for posting. Saw this original production 3 times--it's etched in my memory.
Thank you so much!
What a jewel. Thanks for sharing!
In '71 I was living in San Francisco and did not return east until a couple of weeks before the Bicentennial. However, in the early - mid-sixties I was a student and then a teacher in Boston. I got to see Uta Hagen in Who's Afraid of VW (Although that may have been New York; I'm pretty sure it was Boston), and Liza in Kander & Ebbs first show Flora, the Red Menace. I saw Anyone Can Whistle. (One had to be quick to do that!) Saw the Philadelphia opening of Mame on my 21st birthday. Which meant that had to be in late June 1963. I cannot recall now why I was in Philadelphia!
In July 1972, the original Follies cast opened the brand new Shubert Theater in Century City Los Angeles, and I was fortunate at 24 years of age to see it in person. Ironically , in October 2002 , thirty years after it opened, it was torn down for an office complex. I still consider that a great loss. Los Angeles and Long Beach CA where I live, have a "tradition" of tearing down many wonderful and historic buildings and grand old movie theaters.
My god, the 'Who's that woman?' number, which I already found stunning visually in the 2017/2019 London revival is even more riveting here - not visually per se, but conceptually, with the 'young' versions perfectly mirroring the 'old' ones.
There was an extra ghost chorine in the mirror number. Her older counterpart was not at the reunion. Dead, perhaps?
@@scottgahagan8276 I recall hearing Sondheim refer to his writing of this number, picturing “an empty spot” in the group of girls to indicate the passing of one of them, but then Bennet staged the number differently and Sondheim loved the way it worked. I hadn’t realized that they did still include that somber detail in the final staging, but more subtly with the ghost counterparts instead. It just adds another layer to an already wonderful number!
The towering Alexis Smith has such presence!
Yes and I unfairly compare other performers to Alexis smith. But she nailed it
This is amazing; I never thought I’d see so much footage from the magnificent original cast in one place. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!
Very creative reconstruction! Very resourceful! Thanks for posting.
This is MAGIC. I know it's impossible to go back in time but this comes close to giving me the feeling that I'm experiencing this extraordinary musical that I wasn’t lucky enough to have seen. Thanks so much for creating this.
That's what I was trying to achieve, so I'm very glad it offered you a glimpse in the past!
SUCH A RARE GEM! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING! 😮! I AM IN AWE!
oh wow! this is amazing.
Such amazing reconstruction, Follies is such a interesting show, I never realised how great Dorothy Collins was in the final scene "I should have died that first time" and I have always wished somebody did a karaoke version of Shutta's Broadway Baby, it always sounded better. Thanks for a peek into the past
Thank you so much! Yes, Dorothy's performance, particularly of the last scene, was really shattering.
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!
I get chills every time - and this is just perfection!!! Thank you so much for posting!
WOW! THANK YOU 👏 👏 👏 😍 😭
IMMA HAVE A HEART ATTACK
Oh! This is splendid! Thank you so so so much for this! Such a fine show, and Gene Nelson just rules it for me. I'm beaming from ear to ear. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Quite simply a landmark!
Wow! I saw the original 8 or 9 times (at least) back during the original run when I was sixteen going on seventeen. I tried to memorize it as I watched. How great after all these years - the only thing it needs is an optional commentary that would contextualise the action etc for those who did not see the original. Masterful! Many thanks!
This looks fantastic!!!!! I want to watch this on my TV to get to “full” effect!!!!
Wow, this is so great, thank you so much for posting! Follies is one my favorite shows, one of the best from Sondheim without a doubt. Loved to watch some of Bennet's original choreography. Thank you again for this amazing work.
I had no idea this much footage existed. What a discovery! What a reconstruction! Brilliant cast!
What a god. damn. treat! thank you!
Beyond grateful for this - an absolute masterpiece... thank you ❤️
I've been waiting for the day that you'd finally reupload your composite! What a gem!
this staging looks completely insane and great! Makes the back and forth between present and past much clearer than just the score alone did.
I recently watched Ethel Shutta in Whoopee and here she is again! Thank you.
And what an brilliant show this was/is.
I saw this in 1971 with the original cast.. and corny as it sounds, it changed my world view. It introduced me to Sondheim -- and pretty much got every recording, even went to a local theater group here in Florida that took the challenge to stage it (and they were *very* good amazingly). That being said, as amazing as the original cast was, Imelda Staunton's "Losing My Mind" became to me the definitive performance of that song.
Endless appreciation for your hard work in bringing us this reconstruction!
thank you so much for this!!!!♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Gene Nelson 😍 I love love him!
Well done!
So very happy to see this! I was in the Birmingham Alabama version of this musical in 1988! I never knew this existed (was filmed) and I am so very grateful for this treasure!😱🤗😇❤️
You're incredible! Thank for so much for editing all the know footage and syncing it to the audio track. You're great!
This is outstanding! I've never seen the costumes for the young counterparts during the Loveland sequence, much more vibrant. Also fascinating that in this recording of Live, Laugh,Love he doesn't even bother with trying to sing, he's completely out of it, in the other you get this eerie feeling as he tries to continue while the song is completely off tempo
What a tremendous gift this is. Thank you for your hard work!
I can't tell you what it means to see even a hoary film of the original "Follies." This is platinum! It really was about the best musical I ever saw. They brought the entire Broadway cast to California to open the Shubert theater in Century City in 1973, and we saw it from first row loge. The last major revival was disappointing. They didn't even have a platform for the "ghosts" to tap dance on.
There I was, Second Row - Center Mezz with my brother, mother, and father sitting on the edge of my seat, wait for the prologue. It was my first b'way show. A gift from my parents to me and my brother. His for graduating from High School; me from Grammer School. It was the last Sunday Matinee in the Spring of 1972 just before the TONYS. As the lights were dimming, my mother turned to me and said, "Now don't be disappointed if, after the countless hours of listening and reading about this musical, it doesn't meet expectations. It didn't take long to confirm what I knew to be true.....it was BETTER. #spoiled4life. What a way to begin. BTW, When I met Hal Prince, I told him the story. He said to me, "You know, I actually directed much of the show from that location."
That’s really Broadway! Back in the day
When performers were more natural. The technically trained on stage today lack presence and raw talent. So rare to be fascinated by a performance.
I saw the original LA tour, with most of the original stars. I was in college. Still have the ticket stub somewhere. Fantastic!!
Thank you for this, every new version is better and better, what an important piece of restoration you are doing!
To think that this video is a year old and yet I come back to it so often!
This show opened about 14 months after I was born. What a treat to see the wonderful reconstruction just a few weeks before my 51st. I'd like to thank the uploader for all the time and care he took to make it an entertaining, educational experience to behold. There aren't too many other shows from this era that have been (or could be) reconstructed so faithfully. Your effort is greatly appreciated.
How wonderful to make this availlable!!! Thank you very very verry much!
How wonderful. Thank you so very much.
That horrible combination of..... thrill/pleasure/excitement, melancholy sadness, regretfulness, heartache ....gratefulnes
such a treat! once I felt the 9 minutes of footage I saw would be all I would ever get to but I feel I have seen it all thanks to this!
That opening scene with the ballerina reminded me of my mother who at 16 and 18 was a prima for the Ziegfeld Follies 1923 and 1925 Name Lina Basquette you can look it up
Thank you so much for this! The next best thing to being there.
What a piece of work! I'd despaired of ever getting to see the original company dancing "Bolero D'Amore" and finally getting to see it, not to mention "Who's That Woman?", is an absolute delight. Thank you so much for the upload and work put into editing this, this is a fabulous reconstruction!
oh my god…thank you ..this is amazing. i was 12 when i saw this and had no idea at the time those were their ghosts, thank you for allowing me to experience this again
I missed the original production, but saw one of the many revivals, and it was still marvellous. The cast included Blythe Danner, Polly Bergen, Marge Champion, Gregory Harrison, Treat Williams, Judith Ivey, Betty Garrett, and Joan Roberts (the original Laurey in "Oklahoma!" ).That was some cast!
Great job editing this together, wow. Thanks for posting!
Always wanted to see the original show but I was slow to get tickets and it closed. So, this is great to see, although I've listened to the cast recording many times. My older sister saw it and liked it but then forgot about it until I reminded her she still had the program at our parents' house. Shortly after she saw Follies she ran into Alexis Smith at the Paramus Park Mall in NJ, if anyone cares!
Alexis Smith in Paramus - wow!😂
@@bkynbiker19 Yes, and when my sister asked if she was Alexis Smith, she confirmed. Maybe she was renting a NJ place while she in the show.
I did this show at The Covina Valley Playhouse in 2001! So much fun!!!
words can not describe how much i adore sally's dress
Wow! Phenomenal!
I am so thankful that this exists, because it gives you the opportunity to see what Harold Prince's concept of "rubble in the daylight" is all about. To have captured these performances is an amazing experience. Dorothy Collins plays Sally like no one else I've seen in the role and her fragility is so evident here; Ethel Shutta's original rendition of Broadway Baby is one of the greatest moments of musical theater ever captured! To see Gene Nelson do The Right Girl and then to see Alexis Smith do The Story of Lucy and Jesse, you see the inspiration for The Music and the Mirror in A Chorus Line. Why aren't Florence Klotz's costumes on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? They are glorious! I've seen four other productions of Follies, including the 2011 revival, (which I saw twice and would have seen a third time had I not gone to that stupid trio of one acts, Relatively Speaking!). Thank you. This is a great contribution to the classics of the musical theater not captured on film. I think Follies is Sondheim's masterpiece!
The list of greats that I have seen perform Broadway Baby include a who's who of stage, comedy and Hollywood. Everyone has tried it but none of them got the laughs that Ethel does here. They don't come close.
@@BTURNER1961 Is the Hattie/Ethel character inspired by Fanny Brice?
@@PeterMcDowellArts I had not read or heard that, myself, but I can see how one could come to that conclusion.
Having seen this at the Winter Garden on a weekday night way back then, front row of the balcony with my aunt, it was easy to get tickets for that same day, the show was not a big hit, I give myself permission to say that this reconstruction captures authentically a bit of the feel and movement of that SPECTACULAR original production. A great moment in the history of the bway musical. Ethel Shutta (I'd loved her in Jenny in '63) meets young Harvey Evans, on Boris Aronson's haunting masterpiece of a set. History pervaded every moment, Gene Nelson, Dorothy Collins Alexis Smith Yvonne DeCarlo dealing with their past!! Yikes.. It was more than my 23 year old mind could fathom, NO INTERMISSION too, unheard of back then, And when the Loveland set flew in..... astonishing, unforgettable.
In Philly they had to hire a cherry picker machine to hoist the ghosts to the top of the set at the top of the show . The women couldn't get up the steps backstage in their fabulous costumes. Early in previews also in Philly the mirrors flew off the dresses and there was some blood on the stage at the end of that number. It's true. (Friends of mine were working the costumes, mirrors had to be restitched using stronger threading material)
The show did not try out in Philadelphia. It was Boston.
@@josephcozza3117 I happily sit corrected about Philly Joe , I was told about it waaaay back then. Fifty years later Philly or Boston are easy to misremember. So many previews in both cities.
@@lotteweill I'm with you there.
This is so cool!
Just ... beautiful!
I'm so grateful. Thank you all so much.
Very Interesting. I was so hoping you had the complete Dorothy Collins' Losing My Mind. When I bought the album OBC fifty years ago, that was the song that became my favorite and I loved Dorothy since I was a kid watching her on Your Hit Parade. I had yet to make it to NYC to see a Broadway show. I had all the albums and knew the music. The first tour I saw was Camelot then Cabaret, I Do , I Do with Mary Martin and Robert Preston (Yes, they did the National Tour). I ended up seeing Sondheim's Pacific Overtures at the Winter Garden in mid-70s. Before the show we spotted Hal Prince talking to someone in one of the boxes before the show began.
It looks stunning, like Magic! (by Solange)
I'll take a bottle! This is much appreciated!
@@FolliesFan-yu8mf I also love the little edits to the footage that was already on youtube, which made this video even more unique (like the clips at 47:21 or 50:22 and the better audio quality). Thank you so much for posting!
@@wickedwizard5377 Well thank you, but I didn't use anything taken from UA-cam (although of course the material comes from the same source) - it was all especially edited and given a fresh synchronisation by yours truly to have the best possible resolution and quality!
@@FolliesFan-yu8mf Sorry, I meant to say circulated, but well done!
@@wickedwizard5377 Not at all! I just wanted to be sure :)
This is a cultural treasure. One of the most remarkable, prescient, devastatingly beautiful works of Musical Theatre. The score will live for ever. Thank you so much for this recreation. You have done a service to posterity. :)
I first saw Follies in January, 1972, when I had just turned nineteen, and the musical has only grown with me over the years. I have always been disappointed with the original cast album, which I always felt was excessively truncated.
Perfection
I still have my Playbill.