When Richard Attenborough directed A Chorus Line (1985), starring Michael Douglas, he was taking on a legendary property. The story of dancers desperate to win spots in a chorus line began as a Broadway show that opened at the Shubert Theater on July 25, 1975. Directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, the play featured music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban. It was a smash hit with audiences and critics, earning twelve Tony Award nominations and nine wins. The play ran for 6,137 performances, making it the longest-running Broadway show until Cats. It also won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures bought the rights for a film adaptation (at a cost of $5.5 million), and agreed to wait to make the film until five years after the Broadway production had completed its run. In preparation, Embassy teamed up with Columbia and brought on producer Cy Feuer, a Broadway director-turned-producer, responsible for Cabaret (1972). Getting a director was difficult. Several turned down the project and Feuer decided that he wanted an unknown, which made financing problematic. When Attenborough agreed to make the film, Hollywood wondered if a British director could understand an American play.

Attenborough's film had a screenplay by Arnold Schulman, based on Michael Bennett's original show concept and the book of the musical by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante. Schulman made one significant change from the play, in which the choreographer is never seen, only heard. For some, this represented a God figure. Schulman allowed the audience to actually see him, which author Marc Eliot believed "destroyed the show's mystical and metaphorical reach, where all its power lay; these kids were auditioning not just for the show of their lives but to show off their lives."

Michael Douglas called Zach "closer to a prick than what I usually play," but admitted he took the role "for the joy of it." Filming began in January 1985 at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York City (with additional location work at the Helen Hayes Theater). Douglas was a hot property at the time he shot A Chorus Line , having just come off of a box office smash with Romancing the Stone (1984) and was doing double duty on this film while in preproduction for the sequel, Jewel of the Nile (1985). Rather than go home at night, Douglas preferred to remain in his office at the Hellinger where he could work on the Jewel shooting schedule.

Joining Douglas in A Chorus Line were Alyson Reed, Michael Blevins, Yamil Borges, Jan Gan Boyd, and Audrey Landers, best known for her role on Dallas . It was a film was plagued with problems, mostly Attenborough's inability to fully understand the dancer's characters. According to Eliot, Attenborough tried to flatter Douglas into helping him, but Douglas saw this as only an acting job; he had no intention of being an unofficial producer or co-director. He had his hands full.

Jewel of the Nile and A Chorus Line opened within days of each other in December 1985. Jewel did respectable box office, bringing in more than $95 million but A Chorus Line barely made $14 million. Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times that it was "a fizzless adaptation by Richard Attenborough that misses the whole point of the Broadway show -- i.e. the dancing and the dancers. Instead, the dancers become a limp Greek chorus for the dead love affair between a choreographer, Zach (a pre-Gordon Gekko Michael Douglas) and his old flame, Cassie (Alyson Reed) the star dancer." Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times disagreed. He understood that Attenborough's film "may not please purists who want a film record of what they saw on stage, but this is one of the most intelligent and compelling movie musicals in a long time - and the most grown up, since it isn't limited, as so many contemporary musicals are, to the celebration of the survival qualities of geriatric actresses."

Actress Kelly Bishop, best known for her work on The Gilmore Girls won a Tony Award for her role of Shelia in the original Broadway production. She was one of those purists who were not pleased by the film. She complained of Attenborough's talk show jaunt, in which he called the film "a story about kids trying to break into show business." Bishop nearly tossed her television out the window in anger because in her opinion, Attenborough completely missed the point of the show. "It's about veteran dancers looking for one last job before it's too late for them to dance anymore, No wonder the film sucked."

By Lorraine LoBianco

SOURCES:
Ebert, Roger A Chorus Line Retrieved from www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-chorus-line-1985
Eliot, Marc Michael Douglas: A Biography
The Internet Movie Database
Life imitates art as cast members for A Chorus Line are chosen from open auditions Retrieved from https://www.londontheatredirect.com/news/1109/Life-imitates-art-as-cast-members-for-A-Chorus-Line-are-chosen-from-open-auditions.aspx