Bugsy Malone soundtrack poll

This is actually pretty hard for me. I love 'Tomorrow' but mostly cos I came to it via the Boo Radleys' excellent cover version which I prefer to the soundtrack version. Bad Guys, Boxer and Down Down Down are all super catchy too

i love down and out and you give a little love, i don't know if i could listen to the latter right now given that everything is moving in the opposite direction.

I saw this dumb movie back in the day. Voting "Tomorrow" mainly because of the cover.

Yeah, Tmorw, the Rads, etc

Bugsy Malone always bugged me for various reasons now expired, but the remaining one is how jarring I found the adult singing voices over the top of the kids (effectively) miming while dancing. I know there was a danger of it looking like a school production, but during "Down and Out" it's hugely obvious. At least "Tomorrow" could actually be that lad's voice.

In 2011, the film was the most screened film in secondary schools in the United Kingdom.[42]]

Listened to this so much with my kids. It's so experiential I'm not sure I even see them as separate songs. Eck. Maybe Down and Out? Tallulah?

I don't know if it's a dumb movie. It's definitely weird as hell.

I (re)watched it recently after seeing the Boo Radleys do Tomorrow live. And yes, extraordinarily good cover).

My only other time seeing this was being herded into the hall when I was about 6 or 7 on the last day of school. I was really young and hadn't really watched many films outside of animated stuff, Warner Brothers, Disney etc.

So watching this for the first time in pretty much 40 years was a strange nostalgia rush in the way I remember being confused and slightly horrified by this film where kids speak and act like adults. I didn't really know anything about gangsters or their tropes, so watching people shoot each other with whipped cream was a level of violence I'd never experienced before. I remember being bamboozled by the whole thing then, and full of questions now.

I think it's a great film really. And yes, the glaring problem is the adult singing voices- apparently this had something to do with a production reason. Paul Williams was apparently travelling and composing and sending the songs while the whole thing was being made or something.

I dunno, maybe I'd find the songs a lot more annoying if they were sung by kids. They're catchy and well composed, and they're fun too.

There's a few where the songs are more narrative (The title song, "fat Sam's", "we could have been" at the end) which were ok

Tough but Ordinary Fool. Man I love this film and the soundtrack so much. The story goes that Alan Parker pitched the idea to Williams over lunch and he started coming up with tunes *on the spot* that were so good, Parker was terrified that he was going to forget them.

I always thought Stevie's "Sir Duke" (also 1976!) could fit into this.

When I was a kid I found the ballads so boring, but otherwise it was absolutely my favourite and most rewatched movie. I’ve doing think I’ve ever been that bothered by the voice dubbing — in some ways I think the dissonance is what makes the movie the classic it is – it’s weird, and therefore interesting. I’m not sure my life has been left wanting for the absence of Scott Baio’s golden tonsils, so to speak.

On the last watch I was struck by how good the actor playing Fat Sam is.

Pouring one out for Knuckles as ever. RIC, rest in custard.

know there was a danger of it looking like a school production

I had a minor role in a school production, playing one of the journalists in a phone booth who gets splatted. The guns had shaving foam canisters somehow modified to squirt long range.

when i was a kid i thought this was the coolest movie. it still stands up great imo, voted for bad guys cos fond memories of when i could've been anything that i wanted to be

I'm amazed that Fat Sam's actor, who's clearly a natural, never really went on to have much more of an acting career. He steals the show

Goat Girl also did an excellent cover version of Tomorrow

Can't see past My Name is Tallulah. I sing it in the shower most mornings.*

Actually, My Name is Tallulah would be a great replacement for Q Lazzarus as Buffalo Bill's song in Silence of the Lambs.

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I don't want to spoil anyone's memory but when you grow up with kids whose dads were "soldiers" and see a lot of real gangsters, kids shooting each other with shaving cream feels corny. I wish we liked it.

Man I was sure I voted for Ordinary Fool. Musta forgot.

the guns had shaving foam canisters somehow modified to squirt long range

dating myself here, but when I was a kid we used to go "bombing" on Halloween and the trick to the long range shaving cream spray, as I recall, was done with a lighter and a pin of some kind, similar to the way you'd modify a can of Krylon to make a "fat cap"

You Give A Little Love is just a reprise of Bad Guys with an outro tacke don the end, no?

I don't want to spoil anyone's memory but when you grow up with kids whose dads were "soldiers" and see a lot of real gangsters, kids shooting each other with shaving cream feels corny. I wish we liked it.

tbf i did not grow up in an organized crime milieu but i also understood that singing kids shooting each other with shaving cream was not meant to be taken entirely seriously

As someone who was raised in Avalon by knights of Arthur's court, lightsabre duels all felt a little silly and far-fetched

You Give A Little Love is just a reprise of Bad Guys with an outro tacke don the end, no?

'Just' a reprise that completely flips the message, with an 'outro' that takes up nearly half the song and is the most uplifting part of the whole film & soundtrack!