As the announcement has emerged that Rob Marshall will be ushering the musical comedy classic Guys and Dolls to the Silver Screen, I have encountered many people who are asking, “why?” Many people consider the 1955 film version directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz to be a classic. I am not one of those people.

I have always found the film version of Guys and Dolls to be an uneven affair, sometimes brilliant, usually when the Broadway stars (who were held over for the film: Vivian Blaine, Stubby Kaye, Johnny Silver), are allowed to take center stage. We are particularly lucky to have Blaine’s daffy and delightful, chronically ill, Adelaide preserved for posterity The other leads, however, feel entirely out of place in this film of colorful characters. Frank Sinatra is too much the straight man to mine all the comedic wealth that is the sleazy-but-loveable con-artist and perpetually engaged gambler, Nathan Detroit. Sure, he sings pretty, but it plays too much into the romantic lead stereotype for us ever to fully embrace him a comic character. Jean Simmons, who was almost always wonderful in anything else that she did, remains too at a distance as the evangelical hard-nose Sergeant Sarah Brown. This role requires her frigid exterior to melt as she is being wooed by the ladies’ man gambler Sky Masterson. We must see this transformation, even if it just for a short instant, to believe he is working his magic.  There is zero chemistry between Simmonds and Marlon Brando, who plays the slick high roller who has taken a bet that he can spark her interest. Brando is, at times, right for the role, at least as far as type goes. Suave, tough, leading man was his specialty. But Guys and Dolls is, after all, a musical, and he simply cannot sing the role (he marginally dances it). Adding to my misgivings are his line readings, which often feel drawn out and missing that flair of the build that comedy requires. What usually comes across as snappy and playful onstage is turgid and slow in Brando’s hands.  Simmons and Brando just don’t seem to be having any fun. And Guys and Dolls SHOULD BE FUN!

More importantly, the original film dropped some of Guys and Dolls best numbers. “Bushel and a Peck” is arguably the most well-known number from the score. It has been sung by parents to children, children to grandparents, lover to lover, for years. Why was it left out of the film and replaced with “Pet Me Papa”? Simple: Hollywood stands to make more money if the studio creates a couple of key songs that can be sold.  The same can be said for the excising of the romantic duet between Sky and Sarah “I’ve Never Been In Love Before,” replaced by the mediocre and anemic substitute “A Woman in Love”. It equates to musical theatre blasphemy. Other songs go by the wayside altogether. Sky Masterson’s raison d’etre “My Time of Day”, easily the most atmospheric song in the stage score, has been eliminated. The wistful “More I Cannot Wish You”, sung by Sarah’s missionary father figure Uncle Arvide, is gone, robbing us of one of the few gentler, tender moments in the musical. “Marry the Man Today” has also been made to disappear, which, though not exactly necessary to the plot, certainly gave audiences the delightful opportunity of watching the two leading ladies sing together. It was also a great second act tension breaker. The most ludicrous of all changes is the interpolation of the song “Adelaide”, a song written expressly to give Frank Sinatra another song to sing. It does nothing to move the plot along, and “Frankly” (pun intended), is a crooners “lovely to listen to” snow job on a character that has been abused once too often.

So, for me, reports of a new Guys and Dolls film are a welcome one. I cannot, however, get around the reporting that suggests that it will be an UPDATED Guys and Dolls. I wish I new better what that was going to mean. Are they changing the time period? It’s a product of its time and place, so moving it really cuts at the heart of what makes Guys and Dolls what it is. It is musical comedy set in the later 40s/early 50s. ‘m not all that interested in seeing it set in the 70s, the 90s, or as a contemporary story. Does updated mean that they are going to try to make it more politically correct or give it a spin with a modern sensibility? Again…It is Guys and Dolls. It is a classic of the American stage. There is nothing wrong with it the way that it is. I realize that films need to reimagine stage shows for the medium, but they shouldn’t arbitrarily reimagine their spirit.

Okay…call me a purist mired in the past. I simply want the Guys and Dolls I had always hoped for. I hope Rob Marshall can deliver on that.