Into the Woods & How To Steal a Million

Into the Woods is a Sondheim musical, and as such, has very complicated and well-structured music. I first saw it, I think, 12 years ago, in Manchester with my family. As a much younger person, I didn't realize what Sondheim and James Lapine were trying to do, and while I vastly enjoyed the first act, I didn't care for the second. Now that I've had enough time to become extremely cynical, I realize that they were pointing out how even the "good" people in fairy tales don't always think through their actions and are selfish. And Sondheim has, what I believe to be, his best score ever. Vastly better than the badness that was Pacific Overtures, and better than Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I certainly remembered Into the Woods, but I had forgotten Children Will Listen and No One Is Alone, the two best songs in the musical. And some of the best Sondheim ever did. The entire cast was very good, but Bernadette Peters as the witch and, especially, Joanna Gleason as the baker's wife were standouts. It's too bad that this was such a weak DVD, with no subtitles, which are occasionally needed with Sondheim's music, since he puts a lot of very important words in not that much space. At least he's a hell of a lot better than Andrew Lloyd Crapper.

How To Steal a Million is Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole as a pair of art thieves. Well, sort of, but to say much more about it would spoil the fun. It's delightfully flufftactular. There's a nice Hitchcock reference early on, but all that does it heighten the fact that the movie would have been vastly better had it been done by Hitchcock instead. That's not to say that Wyler isn't talented, even though he made Jezebel, a movie so horrible I can't begin to describe how much I hate it, but it feels like To Catch a Thief, but not nearly as good. About the only real reason to watch it is to see Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn together. Although Hugh Griffith is also good. The movie just never coheres like it should.