Review of Bugsy Malone (1976) by Gareth R — 14 May 2011

If you've ever had kids that performed in a musical, chances are good it was Bugsy Malone. Most musicals can be reworked to star children instead of adults, but Bugsy Malone is the only one where that's intentional. And when you see Bugsy Malone performed often enough by well-meaning junior kids, you forget how completely weird that is. Well, the movie, on which the show is based, is even weirder.

The story of a mob war fought entirely with splurge guns, by kids, it's like The Untouchables Babies. Bugsy (Scott Baio) is an everyman flitting in and out of the story, along with his on/off girlfriend Blousey (Florrie Dugger). They both have dealings with Fat Sam (John Cassisi), the local mob boss who is getting creamed by the competition. Fat Sam's struggle to maintain order is fun to watch, particularly when he makes it look like he's got armed guards by putting cardboard gangsters in his window.

To be honest, this is pretty thin on plot: Fat Sam gets attacked by Fancy Dan (Martin Lev) and his goons, while other subplots mingle in and out. Numerous good things have been said about Jodie Foster, here in an early performance as the vamp Tallula, but she's just not in it very much. She makes a mark, as only Jodie Foster can, in that way where she seems like a full grown adult even if she looks younger. She and Martin Lev give the film's best, most assured performances, with John Cassisi hugely entertaining as Fat Sam and Florrie Dugger communicating a lot with her eyes. Scott Baio doesn't exactly set the film alight as Bugsy, but that's largely because Bugsy is woven so loosely into the plot. His character is deliberately neither here nor there.

The novelty of only having child actors does get in the way, and it's tough to take the story seriously. It's also rather morbid watching kids gun each other down, even if it is euphemistic "splurge" instead of bullets. And if that's distracting, wait until you hear the songs: despite the cast being entirely pre-teen, the singing voices are dubbed by adults. Some of them, paradoxically, sound squeaky and weird. The compounded oddness of child actors playing at gang war, and singing like adults, makes Bugsy Malone almost impossibly odd. Director Alan Parker apparently regrets not using the children's singing voices. Jodie Foster was livid about it, because of course she was.

Parker wanted to make something his kids could watch. It's a fallacy, I think, that kids will therefore want to watch something if they see other kids starring in it. Bugsy Malone never quite decides what it wants to be, and although it's gone on to be a success (mostly for its obvious adaptability), it's still little more than an interesting curio.