Canned Theater

Stop the World--I Want to Get Off.

The house lights dim, a pit orchestra plunges into the overture, the curtain goes up--and then? Well, what follows cannot be properly called a movie musical. It is a sound-staged version of the London-Broadway musical by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, reproduced before an audience of attentive cameras. The result might easily be mistaken for a show's out-of-town run-through on a night when most of the original cast have been laid low by a virus; yet the film has a certain economy-style charm and a cheeky spirit of what-the-hell-have-we-got-to-lose--for even on stage, Stop the World was never more than a flimsy improvisation on which to hang a saucy, tuneful score.

The hero is a clown-faced, baggy-trousered petit-Marceau named Little-chap, who sings, mugs and mimes his way up into the British Establishment. Replacing Newley in this role, Comedian Tony Tanner plays it with the same cockney assurance. Quadrupling as his wife and his Russian, American and Japanese sweethearts, Millicent Martin is a model of cool English efficiency. The rest of the world's population, grouping and regrouping on a semicircular set, is portrayed by 23 exquisite Greek-chorus girls. Fortunately, every attempt at social significance disappears on the instant behind a frieze of smiles, swiveling hips and inch-long eyelashes.

Confronted by a work that seems rich in cinematic impossibilities, Director Philip Saville audaciously flaunts the problems he cannot solve, often to amusing effect. Rickety scenery, stage lights, characters waiting in the wings are casually made part of the show. Occasionally, though, the camera goes so far as to leave the cinemagoer in limbo while actors turn their backs to acknowledge a theater audience's applause. Even more distracting is the restless search for new camera angles--a sure way to fragmentize those subtle lines of communication that weld the viewer's attention to a stage performer putting over a song. And when its sprightly tunes are muted by the simple, episodic story line, Stop the World becomes merely a nervy novelty and looks like the brand of canned theater that might better have been disposed of after a single use.

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