Sweeney Todd – the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(116 minutes) – directed by Tim Burton
Instead of financiers in the city of London turning the handle of an ‘immense pecuniary mangle’, as Dickens once described the goings on there, Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) and his pale-faced accomplice, Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) turn the handle of a far more gruesome contraption in this odd musical version of the cautionary tale of the legendary 19th century serial killer.
Set in a London Dickens would have been at home in, full of rats, some two-legged ones, and all sorts and grades of filth, Benjamin Barker, later using the alias of Todd, returns from years of exile, fitted up for a crime he didn’t commit, and vows to avenge the great wrong done to him by Judge Turpin (Alan Wickman).
In his absence, wife and daughter left in dire penury, are taken in by Turpin, and later, the Judge decides the time has come to wed the daughter, now his ward, Johanna (Jane Wisener).
Meanwhile, Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), a sailor who alighted with Todd, falls for the Lady of Shallot-like Joanna and treats the audience to one of the best songs in the whole production whilst trying to extricate her from an asylum.
The rest, as they say, is history; Sweeney develops what almost amounts to a production line of ingredients for pies devoured by customers of a newly prospering pie shop. Throats are slit, blood squirts a yard as a line of horrified men meet a grizzly end in Todd’s barber’s chair.
I won’t spoil the ending for you, but you should see it, for the acting, the singing, the appallingly dark sets, the great performances and the music.
Two things I may never do ever again after seeing this film: eat a meat pie, or be shaved by a barber who uses a cut-throat razor.
Robert L. Fielding
Instead of financiers in the city of London turning the handle of an ‘immense pecuniary mangle’, as Dickens once described the goings on there, Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) and his pale-faced accomplice, Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) turn the handle of a far more gruesome contraption in this odd musical version of the cautionary tale of the legendary 19th century serial killer.
Set in a London Dickens would have been at home in, full of rats, some two-legged ones, and all sorts and grades of filth, Benjamin Barker, later using the alias of Todd, returns from years of exile, fitted up for a crime he didn’t commit, and vows to avenge the great wrong done to him by Judge Turpin (Alan Wickman).
In his absence, wife and daughter left in dire penury, are taken in by Turpin, and later, the Judge decides the time has come to wed the daughter, now his ward, Johanna (Jane Wisener).
Meanwhile, Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), a sailor who alighted with Todd, falls for the Lady of Shallot-like Joanna and treats the audience to one of the best songs in the whole production whilst trying to extricate her from an asylum.
The rest, as they say, is history; Sweeney develops what almost amounts to a production line of ingredients for pies devoured by customers of a newly prospering pie shop. Throats are slit, blood squirts a yard as a line of horrified men meet a grizzly end in Todd’s barber’s chair.
I won’t spoil the ending for you, but you should see it, for the acting, the singing, the appallingly dark sets, the great performances and the music.
Two things I may never do ever again after seeing this film: eat a meat pie, or be shaved by a barber who uses a cut-throat razor.
Robert L. Fielding
posted by Justice at 1:23 AM
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