Stop the World – I Want to Get Off

Stop the World – I Want to Get Off is a 1961

According to Oscar Levant, the play's title was derived from a graffito.^[1]

The show, set against a circus backdrop, focuses on Littlechap from the moment of his birth until his death. Each time something unsatisfactory happens, he calls out "Stop the world!" and addresses the audience. His progress through school, like his birth, having been briefly portrayed, he first finds work as an office helper performing menial tasks, or tea boy.^[2] A little later, his first major step toward improving his lot is to marry his boss' daughter Evie after getting her pregnant out of wedlock; now saddled with the responsibilities of a family, he is given a job in his father-in-law's factory. He has two daughters, Susan and Jane, but truly longs for a son. He allows his growing dissatisfaction with his existence to lead him into the arms of various women in his business travels—Russian official Anya, German domestic Ilse, and American cabaret singer Ginnie—as he searches for something better than he has. He becomes rich and successful and is elected to public office. Only in his old age does he realize that what he has had all along, the love of his wife, was more than enough to sustain him. But Evie dies. Littlechap comes to terms with his own selfishness while writing his memoirs. As death approaches, he watches his second daughter give birth to a son. When the boy nearly dies, Littlechap intervenes and allows Death to take him instead. In that final moment, Littlechap mimes his own birth, beginning the cycle once again.

Opening originally in

A London revival, directed by Newley, opened on October 19, 1989, at a venue that was then, and may still today be, called the Lyric Theatre. (Today's venue evidently does not acknowledge having let that show go on.) Now starring Newley and Rhonda Burchmore, the show obtained a slight update, but it retained the Nazi-ish Fräulein, the Bolshevik Russian girl, and the Judy-Holliday-ditzy American blonde—all much more distant than in 1961 and thus outside the experience of anyone under 40. It received poor reviews and closed after just 52 performances over five weeks. Newley was very disappointed and bitter about the reviews, as he told the audience after the final curtain.^{[citation needed]}

A 1966 Warner Bros. release was little more than a filmed version of a staged production. Directed by Philip Saville, it featured additional material by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, David Donable, and Al Ham. The cast included Tony Tanner and Millicent Martin. Neither a critical nor commercial success, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Music Scoring. The film deleted the German mistress sequence and substituted a Japanese mistress. Newley, Bricusse and Donable wrote the updated Japanese song. Al Ham and Marilyn and Alan Bergman wrote the finale "I Believed It All", which is not in the original stage version. In the film version, the show ends with "What Kind of Fool Am I?" There is no birth of a grandson, nor of Littlechap choosing to die in his stead and being reborn, as in the original musical play. With the exception of "Typische Deutsche," the original score is transferred complete.

Sammy Davis Jr. and Marian Mercer reprised their Broadway revival roles for Sammy Stops the World, a 1978 television adaptation^[7] taped at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, California. It was theatrically released in a limited engagement in various American cities on September 21, 1979. As with the prior adaptation, this was neither a critical nor commercial success. Dennis Hunt of the Los Angeles Times said that "there are closeups and attempts at creative editing in this film but these elements aren't nearly enough to make it more than a statically filmed play"; he added that "this is a star vehicle but he can't really make it go. Davis, who can be an overpowering presence on stage, doesn't come across vividly and forcefully in this play-movie. It's not totally his fault. His efforts don't add up to much because he has no exceptional material to work with. Putting Davis in this production is like renting a cannon and filling it with blanks."^[8] Tom McElfresh of The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote:

The 103 minutes of film resulting from this ill-advised project are as boring, depressing and irritating an exercise in how not to make a movie as has ever been exhibited for money.

What a waste of Sammy Davis Jr.'s [dynamite] talent!!

It's as though 50 years of progress in filmmaking technique had never occurred. You're yanked out of 1979 and right back to the stilted, artificial days of Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky's "famous players in famous plays." Only Zukor and Lasky paid more attention to production values than did the makers of this disaster.

"Sammy's" sound isn't as good as that you might remember from the earliest Vitaphone short subjects; when you can hear, which is far from all the time, the voices come hollowly from a great distance. It's just good enough to emphasize all the bad notes hit by leading lady Marian Mercer.

It's a musical, folks. You're supposed to be able to hear the music.

Memphis Press Scimitar called it "merely a dumb show with scenes pointlessly juggled and re-jiggered in the editing. Even cut to an hour and 35 minutes, it seems interminable."^[12] Joe Baltake of the Philadelphia Daily News called it "a vanity film for Davis and his fans,"^[13] while Ernest Leogrande of the New York Daily News wrote that "the passage of time painfully emphasizes the show's heavy-handed reliance on national stereotypes and the show, blown up to screen size, is a gassy business. The choppy editing, omitting chunks of action, doesn't help."^[14] Greg Tozian of The Tampa Tribune called it "simply a terrible movie," and noted that only four other people were in attendance of the screening that he saw.^[15]

David Mucci of

The Courier-Journal by Owen Hardy, who also called it "a boring, tasteless, offensive display of almost total non-talent."^[17] Janet Maslin of The New York Times said that "this version of Stop the World features a gaudy set, a few uneasy references to current events, and floppy, ill-fitting costumes on everybody but Mr. Davis, who wears a silky sweater and pants but no jewelry, because he is supposed to start out poor"; she concluded the review by saying that "music, mime and merriment are in abundant supply—all the ingredients of a perfectly nice evening at a dinner theater in a suburb somewhere. Except for the dinner, that is."^[18]

In 1996, a TV movie version was produced starring

A&E Network,^[20]

it adhered closely to the format of the original stage production.

Songs

Act I The A.B.C. Song I Want to Be Rich Typically English A Special Announcement Lumbered Welcome to Sludgepool Gonna Build a Mountain Glorious Russian Malinki Malchik Family Fugue Typische Deutsche Nag! Nag! Nag!

Act II All-American Once in a Lifetime Mumbo Jumbo Welcome to Sunvale Life Is A Woman Someone Nice Like You What Kind of Fool Am I?

Cast

Role	Original London production	Original Broadway production[21]	1963 US national tour[22]	1978 Broadway revival[23]	1989 London revival
Littlechap	Anthony Newley		Joel Grey	Sammy Davis Jr.	Anthony Newley
Evie, Anya, Isle, Ginnie	Anna Quayle		Julie Newmar	Marian Mercer	Rhonda Burchmore
Jane (Littlechap's Daughter)	Jennifer Baker		Janet Allman	Shelly Burch
Susan (Littlechap's Daughter)	Susan Baker		Jennifer Allman	Wendy Edmead
Greek Chorus	Amanda Bayley Barbara Halliwell Gloria Johnson Carole Keith Virginia Mason Vivienne St George Marti Webb Robert O'Leary	Rawley Bates Bonnie Brody Diana Corto Jo-Anne Leeds Karen Lynn Reed Sylvia Tysick Stephanie Winters Mark Hunter Paul Rufo	Mark Month Michael Month Karen Hopper Karen Johnson Sherry Lambert Geri O’Gorman Shelley Payton Audrey Saxon Beverlee Weir Brooke Winsten	Dennis Daniels Karen Giombetti Patrick Kinser-Lau Edwetta Little Donna Lowe Debora Materson Joyce Nolen Charles Willis Jr.	Fiona Alexandra Dollie Henry Julia Howson Samantha Hughes Kim Ismay Victoria Lynson Emma Priest Wendy Schoemann Martine Mccutcheon Denis Outen Chase Marks Melissa Farmery Laura Tristram Rowan Logan

London replacements

Littlechap: Tony Tanner

Evie, Anya, Isle, Ginnie: [Thelma Ruby

Broadway replacements

Littlechap: Joel Grey, Kenneth Nelson

Notable national tour replacements

Littlechap: Kenneth Nelson

Awards and nominations

Original Broadway production

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Result
1963	Tony Award[24]	Best Musical		Nominated
		Best Author	Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley	Nominated
		Best Composer and Lyricist		Nominated
		Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical	Anthony Newley	Nominated
		Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical	Anna Quayle	Won

References

1. ISBN 0-671-77104-3
   .
2. ^ Wikipedia's disambiguation page for "Tea boy" adds some interesting context about the phrase.
3. ^ "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off (Original London Cast)". Cast Album DB.
4. ^ "Playbill Vault's Today in Theatre History: July 20". Playbill. 20 July 2021. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
5. ^ "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off (Original Broadway Cast)". Cast Album DB.
6. ^ "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off (Broadway Revival Cast)". Cast Album DB.
7. ^ "Sammy Stops the World (1979)". IMDb.
8. ^ Hunt, Dennis (24 September 1979). "Sammy Davis Jr. as Littlechap". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
9. ^ McElfresh, Tom (24 September 1979). "'Sammy' Bombs On All Fronts". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
10. ^ Clark, Michael (27 September 1979). "Movies clean house, and viewers get the junk". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
11. ^ Trussell, Robert C. (26 September 1979). "Sammy Davis Film Dull In All Respects". The Kansas City Star. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
12. Memphis Press Scimitar
    . Retrieved 19 November 2023.
13. ^ Baltake, Joe (24 September 1979). "'Stop' is Bad Screen Show". Philadelphia Daily News. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
14. ^ Leogrande, Ernest (21 September 1979). "An unnecessary rehash of 1961". Daily News. New York City, New York, United States. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
15. ^ Tozian, Greg (25 September 1979). "'Sammy' Stops the World; Viewers Get Off". The Tampa Tribune. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
16. The Lexington Leader
    . Retrieved 19 November 2023.
17. The Courier-Journal
    . Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
18. ^ Maslin, Janet (21 September 1979). "Screen: Sammy Davis". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
19. ^ "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off (TV Movie 1996)". IMDb.
20. ^ Horowitz, Lisa D. (7 March 1996). "Review: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off". Variety. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
21. ^ "Stop the World – I Want to Get Off – Broadway Musical – Original". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
22. ^ "Stop the World – I Want to Get Off – Broadway musical – Tour". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
23. ^ "Stop the World – I Want to Get Off – Broadway Musical – 1978 revival". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
24. ^ "Nominations / 1963". TonyAwards.com. Retrieved 12 August 2022.

External links

• ​Stop the World – I Want to Get Off​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Stop the World – I Want to Get Off at
  IMDb