“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd …”

So goes the first lyric in the Tony-winning Stephen Sondheim / Hugh Wheeler musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

But attending that tale doesn’t require a trip to the theatre. Long before and since the musical debuted on Broadway in 1979, films, live-stage captures and concerts have brought variations on this story to screen watchers.

So for this year’s contribution to Midwest Film Journal’s No Sleep October series, I set out to watch or rewatch as many as I could track down.

(Full disclosure: I saw Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury and the rest of the original Broadway cast at what was then the Uris Theatre. That experience is one of the prime causes of my theatre addiction.)

First, some pre-cinema background.

While the legend goes back further, Mr. Todd’s story first saw print in the 1840s in a “penny dreadful” called The String of Pearls, in which Todd dispatches people, Mrs. Lovett makes use of the meat in her pies, and it all ends with a “Soylent Green is people!”-ish announcement from the man who discovers the crimes. The pearls would be a key prop in some versions and not in others.

Subsequent stage versions were popular in England, leading to a silent film in 1928, Sweeney Todd, whose credit claimed it was “adapted from the famous ‘Elephant & Castle’ melodrama & based on established facts.”

Established facts?

Not really. “Established facts” are as difficult to pin down as those of the more benign English legends like Robin Hood and King Arthur. That lack of historical grounding, though, has made variations possible. As multiple versions have shown, motivations, character names, ending and just about everything else — except the presence of a murderous barber and opportunistic piemaker — is up for grabs.

In the silent film, for instance, the tale is framed as a fantasy of a contemporary man who “becomes” Todd. While sections of the film have decayed, most of the plot of is clear. Motivated purely by greed, Todd (Moore Marriott, primarily known now for his roles in Will Hay comedies of the 1930s, including Oh, Mr. Porter!) lathers his victims, dumps the bodies into the basement and ropes Mrs. Lovett into his deeds by offering her money to upgrade her shop in order to attract a wealthy clientele. Meanwhile, a young sailor named Mark returns from seafaring adventures to his beloved but foolishly shows off his acquired pearls to the barber.

Unlike in the later musical, where Todd and Mrs. Lovett are accomplices, here, she attempts to rescue the sailor and fights with Todd. While the climax is fairly incomprehensible (only partly due to deteriorated footage), the kicker is not: The film ends with a lame joke — the contemporary man’s wife offering him … surprise? … a meat pie!

Cinematic Sweeney next set up shop in 1936’s The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, featuring the appropriately named Tod Slaughter in the title role. This one, too, begins with a prologue and ends with a joke. This time, a barber tells his customer about the legend and we jump into the story he’s telling.

Again, Todd’s motivation is pure greed, and the cannibalism of the original printed story isn’t on the menu. Instead, the secondary characters’ romance takes more of a front seat. Joanna is in love with Mark, who sets sail to find riches in order to return and marry her. Meanwhile, Todd goes about his killing business, the barber chair creatively flips, and Mrs. Lovett disposes of the bodies for a cut of the stolen goods. When Mark returns — after some period-standard racist scenes on his seafaring trek — he finds his way into Todd’s chair but is rescued by Mrs. Lovett, who again proves some semblance of humanity. Like the silent version, it’s a curiosity but not a very satisfying film — and hardly a scary enough story to warrant the storytelling barber’s client bolting up in terror and out of the shop.

Shouldn’t a story like this be more gruesome? 1970’s Bloodthirsty Butchers seems to think so.

So bad it’s been ignored by both Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the How Did This Get Made? podcast, Butchers often looks like scenes were shot in the dioramas at a third-tier amusement park dark ride. Inappropriately cheerful, pastoral and painfully redundant background music relentlessly underscores (OK, overscores) a film that balances absurd gore with rambling dialogue. Actors — and I’m using that term generously — often seem to have blanked and fill time until someone remembers their lines to keep a scene moving.

Unlike previous film versions, though, Todd’s victims do end up in Mrs. Lovett’s pies … but not just the meat. A chunk of hair and a breast are also revealed, unconvincingly.

OK, not a great track record so far.

Matters improve a bit in a Sweeney Todd episode of the Thames Television series Mystery and Imagination (also from 1970).

It opens with Todd luring Mark (here an unsuspecting pearl-carrying snot of a customer) into his shop. The Todd here is Freddie Jones, familiar to some from his work in Hammer films, including a memorable turn as the sympathetic creature in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. Jones’s Todd doesn’t have the outward creepiness of previous incarnations, at least until he ascertains the value of the string of pearls in the pocket of the man in his chair.

Also, this Todd has the hots for Mrs. Lovett instead of vice versa. He tries to present her with the pearls, but she wants the money and hints there may be a romantic future for them if he can turn them into cash. When the deal doesn’t go well, Todd has a flashback to his abusive childhood and runs off into a den of Dickensian thieves.

There’s more psychosexual stuff going on here, with Todd turning over his apprentice, Tobias, to an asylum in part because the young man is hitting puberty. Personal space is repeatedly violated with nose-to-nose scenes between various combinations of characters. Too many of the scenes feel padded and longer takes (most likely the result of a budget issue) slow things down. And while Todd’s nefarious actions go beyond the barbershop, by the end — when a batch of his victims return — it becomes evident that much of what we’ve seen was in Todd’s head rather than actually in his shop. Todd’s basement also seems to have been dressed by Spirit Halloween. Still, it’s a big step up from previous filmed versions.

So far, though, there was nothing to indicate a masterpiece could be baked using these ingredients. And the largely British-known story wouldn’t have come to the attention of the American-born Sondheim were it not for actor / playwright Christopher Bond — who, in drafting a non-musical version for the English stage, added a magical thing called motivation.

Rather than just see Todd as greedy and evil, he created a compelling backstory. Todd, you see, was an upstanding family man until an evil judge coveted his wife and deported Todd to a prison colony on trumped-up charges. The barber returns with a new name and becomes a murderer. But now it is for revenge … at least at first.

After seeing Bond’s play, Sondheim set about to turn it into a stage musical, first on his own and then with the help of Wheeler, a playwright. In 1979, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opened on Broadway in a large-scale production directed by Hal Prince. That’s the version I saw, nearly hanging off the balcony. Later, I hopped another school field trip (this time to Philadelphia) to see the slightly scaled-down national tour.

That tour was the one recorded from the stage in Los Angeles and originally aired in 1982 on The Entertainment Channel (which shortly thereafter was part of the merger that became the A&E Network).

While the filmmaking lacks the polish of later pro-shot stage work, it’s a treasure — capturing not just the very special performances of Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett and Broadway replacement George Hearn as Todd but also making clear the piece’s remarkable blend of horror, comedy and music.

Watch it once for the story and songs themselves, which contain shocks, surprises and rich character work. Watch it again and pay attention to the way Sondheim underscores almost every scene with themes and variation, the way he and director Prince use individual chorus members to provide transitions and keep the mood tense, and marvel at the clarity of Wheeler’s book as it blends seamlessly with the score. Yes, it’s a masterpiece, and it’s a gift that this production has been preserved — paving the way for live captures of subsequent Sondheim shows.

The Sondheim / Wheeler version soon became a staple for bold opera houses and gutsy theatres large and small. A production from Barcelona, Spain — Sweeney Todd: el barber diabòlic del carrer Fleet — was professionally recorded, capturing a particularly brutal version headlined by Constantino Romero. Resembling (in long shot) Peter Boyle’s Monster from Young Frankenstein with a major mullet, Romero delivers a performance that’s all the more remarkable considering his limited stage experience. His primary claim to fame was providing the Spanish-dubbed voices for Darth Vader, Mufasa, James Bond, Captain Kirk and more iconic characters.

Intensity arrives early here in a particularly powerful first encounter between Todd and the beggar woman (Teresa Vallicrosa). Even having seen the musical multiple times, I still feared he’d do in Mrs. Lovett during his “Epiphany.” Vicky Peña is a feral Lovett, playing her last waltz with Todd as a woman optimistically looking to the future unaware of what’s about to happen to her. And while Pep Molina isn’t the ideal young sailor — looking a bit like Cosmo Kramer — Xavier Ribera-Vall’s sprier-than-usual Judge Turpin stands out. His final confrontation with Todd is a musical and dramatic thrill.

An appropriate bonus: Orchestra members are also part of the curtain call.

Given the acclaim, if not the financial success, of the Sondheim / Wheeler musical, other adaptations arose.

In the late 1990s, Showtime’s The Tale of Sweeney Todd spent as much, if not more, time following the detective work of an American (played by Campbell Scott) as it did on the shave-and-bake duo.

Ben Kingsley plays a talkative, boorish Todd in a pathetically desperate relationship with Mrs. Lovett (Joanna Lumley). Directed by a near-the-end-of-his-career, take-what-you-can-get John Schlesinger in between music video projects with The Why Store and Paul McCartney, the film has some interesting moments, including a scene with a doctor performing forensics on a batch of pies and refusing to say the last one is human because of what it would say about England. Things get farfetched plot-wise as Scott’s investigation involves him sneaking into Todd’s lair inside a sack, and there’s a creative confessional twist in the end, but the thrills are few and far between.

In 2006, the BBC took a swing at the story with Sweeney Todd. This one features a moralizing title character played by Ray Winstone, who, in an early scene, surprises himself by slitting the throat of a callous client. Because barbers at the time were also surgeons, Todd also agrees to Mrs. Lovett’s request for an abortion. There’s a sickly and abusive Mr. Lovett in the picture as well, and when asked to operate on him, Todd kills him instead. Venereal disease strikes Mrs. Lovett (Essie Davis of The Babadook), and when she’s taunted because of her appearance, she sends customers to Todd’s chair and makes use of the aftermath in her baking.

It’s certainly … different. So I grudgingly respect what could’ve been a cash-grab quickie hitting before the 2007 release of Tim Burton’s film — which I’ll get to in a minute.

Let’s first backtrack a bit, though, to the year 2000, when the New York Philharmonic staged a series of concert performances of the musical with Lonny Price directing a cast headlined by Patti LuPone and the aforementioned Hearn. When restaged in San Francisco, it was recorded for broadcast on PBS on Halloween in 2001. What’s now available as Sweeney Todd in Concert features Hearn still in outstanding form with a less ghostly, more tormented take on the character. LuPone would later go on to play Mrs. Lovett in a Broadway revival in which the actors also served as the orchestra (she played the tuba in that one), and while her British accent wavers, she clearly relishes the role. In support, Neil Patrick Harris is a bit of a distraction as Tobias, and Victoria Clark (an eventual Tony Award winner for Kimberly Akimbo) doesn’t quite work as the beggar woman. Beyond Hearn, the standout element here is the chance to hear the score with a full-bodied orchestra.

Price would have another go at it, in a far more dramatic concert production, 13 years later. For what would be recorded as Live from Lincoln Center: Sweeney Todd, opera star Bryn Terfel — who was originally scheduled to appear in the 2001 concert but bowed out due to illness — brought his magnificent voice to the title role. He’s the rare opera star who can venture into musical theatre without remind you he’s an opera star. He’s also a solid actor.

Opposite him for this 2014 release as Mrs. Lovett was Emma Thompson, who film fans may not realize first garnered attention in London for her work in the musical Me and My Girl. She’s not quite up to the vocal challenges here, but she’s delightful in the part and plays wonderfully against Terfel’s intensity. Audra McDonald, already a Broadway star, took on the supporting role of the beggar woman and Christian Borle is rival barber Pirelli.

Beyond the orchestra and leads, what makes this production stand out is Price’s direction. Honed over multiple versions on tour, it begins like a respectable, traditional concert. That impression is soon shattered with the costumes torn, a (fake) piano overturned and well-staged chaos. Thus, the mood is set early for a glorious approach to the material throughout. The only thing missing is an effective body-dumping barber chair.

Of course, even with TV viewings and multiple Broadway revivals, the majority of people’s exposure to this story came via Burton’s 2007 film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Purists offered the expected criticisms. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter can’t hold a vocal candle to the singers who tackled Todd and Mrs. Lovett’s material before them. Major cuts removed significant portions of the score. And what was this doing as a Christmas holiday release?

I’ll admit: I was among them … initially. On its original release, I found the film OK. Relieved that it wasn’t screwed up, I was nonetheless overly familiar with the score and very aware of what was missing not only in vocal power but truncated music and the lack of confrontational energy.

Sondheim, on the other hand, sang its praises. As noted in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: Behind the Bloody Musical Masterpiece— the new book by Rick Pender, former editor of The Sondheim Review — the composer said: “I’m hoping that people will just forget what they know and enjoy the movie or not. But if they go in counting the things that are missing, they will be distracted.”

He’s right, of course.

On rewatching, I was able to enjoy it more for what it is … and thankful that it isn’t the botch that director Richard Lester’s filmed version of Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum turned out to be. It’s not the let’s-hide-it-from-everyone Hal Prince film of his A Little Night Music. And it doesn’t compromise the material in the way that the hit-and-miss film adaptation of Into the Woods does.

As an introduction to the tale for the uninitiated, it’s good.

Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t stress how much stronger the Hearn / Lansbury, the Spanish version or any of the concert takes are over Burton’s film.

But wait … there’s more!

This year (barely) saw the release of Sweeney Todd: Slice and Dice, which is surprisingly serious given the silly title. This Todd (played by Terry Bird, who also produced) is practically a Billy Jack, taking out his violence (at least initially) on people picking on the oppressed. Mrs. Lovett, too, has her reasons. Her husband and son were sent to Australia, and she got a year in the workhouse.

In the words of the musical’s Mrs. Lovett: “Is it good? No.”

But every Todd variation seems to sprinkle in a few interesting ideas. In this case, there’s a squirm-inducing scene where an investigating cop makes Mrs. Lovett eat her own pies.

Just desserts, I suppose.

This article previously appeared in Midwest Film Journal.