Maurine Watkins
' satirical play
Chicago
has gone through several permutations since it opened at
the Music Box Theatre
on Broadway on December 30, 1926. There was a silent movie version in 1927, followed by a sound film called
Roxie Hart
starring
Ginger Rogers
in 1942. In 1975, director/choreographer
Bob Fosse
and the songwriting team of
John Kander
and
Fred Ebb
brought a darker vision to the story of a murderess who achieves acquittal due to publicity and slick lawyering, and their
musical
ran 898 performances back on Broadway. But the show really came into its own in 1996 when, in the wake of the
O.J. Simpson
trial, a revival was mounted that was still running on Broadway six years later when this movie version of the
was released. The story and setting are perfect for
Kander & Ebb
, who delight in using
pastiches of the interwar era to underlie a deeply pessimistic world view in such works as
Cabaret
. Indeed, listeners will be much reminded of that earlier score by this one, in which each character gets one or more hot
jazz
-style numbers to illuminate his or her villainy. What may surprise listeners is how effective the principals --
Renee Zellweger
,
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Richard Gere
, and
John C. Reilly
-- are, given that none of them are known for their singing abilities. Modern studio techniques can do wonders, of course, making actual dubbing virtually unnecessary, but the actors really throw themselves into these performances. Less impressive are the extraneous songs (not actually featured in the film) tacked on at the end, presumably to expand the album's commercial appeal, including a
rap
by
Queen Latifah
(who co-stars in the film) and
Lil' Kim
, and a musically irrelevant dance tune by
Anastacia
that wasn't even written by
. ~ William Ruhlmann