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The Fantasticks (2000)

Starring Joel Grey, Jean Louisa Kelly, Joe McIntyre, and Jonathon Morris.  Cinematography by Fred Murphy, Ariel Benarroch, and Keith Solomon.  Edited by William S. Scharf.  Produced by Linne Radmin and Michael Ritchie. Written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. Directed by Michael Ritchie.

Louisa (played by Jean Louisa Kelly) and Matt (played by Joey McIntyre) are young adults living with their widowed fathers. They are also next door neighbors in a very rural area.  Though their fathers, Amos (played by Joel Grey) and Ben (played by Brad Sullivan), feign a feud, they secretly wish for the two children to be wed and are stretching the limits of their imaginations to make it happen.  Louisa and Matt meet secretly, believing that their fathers would be upset if they knew the truth.

Little do they know that their fathers are meeting secretly as well, conspiring about their children’s future together.  On one such meeting Amos and Ben walk down to the traveling carnival to enlist the services of a man known only as “El Gallo” (played by Jonathon Morris). He convinces the enthusiastic fathers that for a small fee he can end the fabricated family disagreement and leave a positive impression that will last a lifetime with the young couple.  The plan goes off without a hitch, but the next morning Louisa and Matt already seem bored with each other.  They yearn for more adventure in their lives and El Gallo is obliged to give them just what they want.

The Fantasticks first opened on May 3, 1960 at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, New York City. Despite mixed reviews on its opening night the little show continued to play… and play… and play.  Forty two years (or seventeen thousand one hundred and two performances) later The Fantasticks finally ended its record breaking streak as the longest running musical in the world.  Over its course, the production played in every U.S. state hitting over two thousand cities.  It also toured internationally appearing in nearly seventy countries.

Thousands of actors have portrayed the seven roles in the story including Richardo Montalban, Liza Minnelli, F. Murray Abraham, Elliott Gould, John Carradine, and Glenn Close. In the late 1960’s Hollywood producer Ray Stark proposed the first film adaptation, but the project fell through. The next attempt came in the 1970’s with director Franco Zeffirelli attached, but once again nothing.  Finally in the early 1990’s, with Michael Ritchie at the helm, The Fantasticks had struck and deal and was headed for the silver screen.

The film went into production during the summer of 1995 with a proposed release date of that Thanksgiving.  But then something happened.  The Fantasticks was shelved for the next five years while MGM and United Artists decided exactly what to do with it. Eventually a clause in Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s contract (the original writers of the play), forced the studio to release the film theatrically.

They called upon the editing services of Francis Ford Coppola, a member of the MGM board of directors, and his Zoetrope post-production facilities to tighten the film up and make it theater ready.  Coppola chopped nearly a half hour of footage from the picture, slimming to down to a stealthy eighty six minutes (much of what was cut can be seen as bonus features on the DVD). If you are a fan of the stage show, you have likely already seen the film version of The Fantasticks.  But if you are not, do yourself a favor and watch something else.

Budget: $10,000,000 (approximate)

Total US Gross: $44,757

Genre: Musical

Runtime: 86 Minutes

US Release Date: 9/22/00

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Awards: none

Tagline: One Of Broadway's Legendary Musicals Comes To The Big Screen.

Quote: “All my life I’ve waited for something magical to happen.  Now, at last with you, it will.”

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