Pippin: His Life and Times (1981) (TV)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

David Sheehan

Writer:

Roger O. Hirson (musical)

Genre:

History | Musical | Romance | War

Plot:

At the goading of the ominous and omnipresent Leading Player, Pippin, the eldest son of King Charlemagne, samples life's pleasures to discover his place in the world and the meaning of his life. |

Plot Keywords:

King | Stage Play | Love | Patricide | Male Female Relationship

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Ben Vereen	...	The Leading Player
William Katt	...	Pippin
Leslie Denniston	...	Catherine
Benjamin Rayson	...	Charlemagne
Martha Raye	...	Berthe
Chita Rivera	...	Fastrada
Joanie P. Oneill	...	Player
Debra Phelan	...	Player
Linda Haberman	...	Player
Kate Wright	...	Player
Allison Williams	...	Player
John Mineo	...	Sword Bearer
Charles Lee Ward	...	Peasant
Lee Mathis	...	Beggar
Frank Mastrocola	...	Noble

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Elkins Entertainment

Trivia:

The lyrics to "With You" are almost entirely different than the lyrics appearing on the Original Cast Recording. Also, slight differences in "War is a Science" and "Simple Joys."

Quotes:

Fastrada: When I help others, I'm really helping myself!

Soundtrack:

Corner of the Sky

Can you paint with all the colors of my wind?

Perhaps there's a worse librettist in the history of musicals than Stephen Schwartz but I don't know one. What the hell does the lyric "morning glow/fill the earth/come and shine/for all you're worth/we'll be present/at the birth/of old faith looking new..." mean? He begins with a vague hopeful image but then the sentence keeps going and going, desperately trying to find it's point; the next twelve words do little to deepen things.

This is what annoys people about musicals. You can get away with perky, poorly written sentiment tossed away as dialogue (I've just named every drama that won an Oscar in the last 70 years) but as songs, the schlock is transparent. It's called padding; it appears most often on college exams and in poor creative efforts from the 60s and 70s. It was all Fosse could do to undermine this amorphous treacle with his more acid take on things. Schwartz could make a decent melody but his lyrics...ugh. Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself.

Pippin is absolutely trite, and in it's current form it barely resembles Fosse's work.