The film follows Arthur Parker, a Depression-era sheet-music salesman with big dreams who seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent school teacher.
A bit of filmmaking as film criticism to be respected and admired above and beyond its relationship to the legendary miniseries that it pushed out of print for more than 20 years.
Almost as if he were directing Pinter, Herbert Ross has actors speak a line, then wait two beats before delivering the next phrase. Technique smothers such ordinarily lively performers as Martin, Peters and Harper.
O ótimo conceito deste musical torna-se ainda mais fascinante graças às belas coreografias, aos ricos figurinos, à impecável direção de arte e, é claro, à magnífica fotografia de Gordon Willis.
Chicago Reader
January 01, 2000
he point is made endlessly, though it's in the film's favor that it's made with seriousness, consideration, and a certain amount of imagination.
The movie, though, is not easy to respond to. It's chilly without being provocative in any intellectual way.
Film4
May 24, 2003
Potter adapted his immensely successful British TV series into a Hollywood script that maintained most of its intelligence as well as the musical numbers.
