Movie Musicals That Got It Right: Sweeney Todd
Now I've done it. It's bad enough that I put Mamma Mia! on the Right list, but a Burtonized Sweeney Todd ? Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), directed by Tim Burton, was well-received upon its release , but has apparently received mixed reviews from fans of the stage musical. The stage musical was written by the legendary Stephen Sondheim and premiered on Broadway in 1979, then in the West End in 1980. Based on 19th Century legends, Sweeney Todd is the tale of a London barber who just finished serving a long sentence for a crime he did not commit. He was sentenced by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who lusted after his pretty young wife. After Todd -- then known as Benjamin Barker -- was shipped off, Turpin invited his wife, Lucy, to his home under false pretenses and then raped her. Lucy took arsenic afterward, and the judge took her and Barker's young daughter, Johanna, as his ward. Flash forward 15 years, and Todd returns to his old home to fin