cinema obscura: James L. Brooks' "I'll Do Anything" (1994) - The Musical Version

James L. Brooks' notorious musical-turned-romantic comedy is a DVD candidate in its orignal form, something that has evaded the work.

For more than 15 years now.

You remember. The film started life as a full-fledged original musical, featuring
nine songs written by Prince, Sinead O'Connor and Carole King, with choreography by Broadway's Twyla Tharp, but when test audiences complained that some of the musical numbers interfered with the movie, Brooks methodically started to remove them, one by one.

By the time he got through, all of the songs were gone, except for a snippet of one King song sung by little Whittni Wright in the movie.

The weird thing is, "I'll Do Anything," which stars Nick Nolte (in photo below), is all about Hollywood and its test screenings, and how principles are sacrificed for the bottom line - namely to please audiences. In short, the film ironically turned into exactly what it's about.

Brooks apparently has closely guarded the deleted songs, making sure no one sees or hears them, although the laser disc version of the movie included a "making of" documentary which provides glimpses of co-stars Albert Brooks and Julie Kavner performing.

Back on February, 20th, 1994, the reliable Chris Willman wrote an article for The Los Angeles Times, titled "Princely Bootleg: Some People'll Do Anything to Hear These Songs," about bootleg CDs of the soundtrack songs from "I'll Do Anything" that were making the rounds at the time.

Willman wrote:

"Albert Brooks croons two songs: 'I'll Do Anything' (lyric: 'What good is a captain if he ain't got a crew / What good is a me if I AIN'T . . . GOT . . . A YOU!') and 'There Is Lonely.' Brooks' singing voice has been described charitably as gravitating toward the Jimmy Durante or Tom Waits end of the gravelly scale, and less charitably as an Oscar the Grouch affectation.

"There are two more torturous tunes that draw the greatest winces from illicit listeners. One is Julie Kavner's 'My Little Pill,' a sort of update of 'Mother's Little Helper' related to the truncated drug subplot, and recited in a maddeningly childlike sing-song voice. The other is Whittni Wright's rendition of Sinead O'Connor's mopey 'This Lonely Life' that won't have anyone comparing her to the other singing Whitney."

Apparently, Prince wrote something called "Wow!," for which Willman printed the lyric in its entirety. Not good. Still, I'd give anything to see and hear Nolte's singing debut on a song called "Be My Mirror."

Maybe one day...