Daily Dialogue — July 14, 2014
JUDGE: (blissful) Ohhhhhhh, Pretty women!
TODD: Pretty women, yes…
JUDGE: (straightening his coat) Quickly, sir, a splash of bay rum!
TODD: Sit, sir, sit.
JUDGE: (settling into chair, in lecherous rapture) Johanna, Johanna…
Todd gets a towel, puts it carefully around the Judge, moves to get a bottle of bay rum–
TODD: Pretty women…
JUDGE: Hurry, man!
TODD: Pretty women, Are a wonder…
JUDGE: You’re in a merry mood again today, barber.
TODD: (joyfully) Pretty women!
JUDGE: What we do for —
They sing simultaneously as Todd smoothes bay rum on the Judge’s face and then reaches for his razor:
JUDGE: Pretty women!
Blowing out their candles
Combing out their hair–
Then they leave–
Even when they leave you
And vanish, they somehow
Can still remain
There with you there…
TODD: Pretty women!
Blowing out their candles
Or combing out their hair,
Even when they leave,
They still
Are there,
They’re there…
The music builds dangerously as:
JUDGE: How seldom it is one meets a fellow spirit!
TODD: With fellow tastes — in women, at least.
JUDGE: What? What’s that?
TODD: The years no doubt have changed me, sir. But then, I suppose the face of a barber — the face of a prisoner in the dock — is not particularly memorable.
JUDGE: (a horrified realization) Benjamin Barker!
TODD: BENJAMIN BARKER!
The factory whistle screams a steady, terrible blast as–
Todd brutally SLASHES the Judge’s throat–
Severing his jugular–
The spray of blood drenches Todd–
He pulls the lever and sends the body tumbling out of sight down the chute.
The music continues…
As Todd stands for a long moment, blood dripping from his face, exalted.
Then he sinks to his knees, overcome.
The music stops.
A long beat of silence.
Then Todd looks at his razor deeply:
TODD: Rest now, my friend, Rest now forever, Sleep now the untroubled, Sleep of the angels.
Then silence as he reverently sets the razor on the floor and looks at it.
We focus on his face.
His quest is completed.
His demons silenced.
The ghosts are gone.
— Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), screenplay by John Logan, musical by Hugh Wheeler, musical adaptation by Christopher Bond
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Revenge. Today’s suggestion by blknwite.
Trivia: British playwright Christopher Bond wrote a 1973 play titled “Sweeney Todd” which was the first to give Todd a motive other than pure greed. Bond made Todd a wrongfully imprisoned barber who returned to London after fifteen years in Australia to find that the judge responsible for his imprisonment raped his young wife and caused her suicide. Bond’s play was adapted in 1979 by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler into the Broadway musical which the film is based.
Dialogue On Dialogue: Actually a comment on the scene description: We focus on his face. His quest is completed. His demons silenced. The ghosts are gone. Yet another example of a so-called ‘unfilmable’ to convey the emotional meaning of the moment.
If you have any suggestions for this week’s theme, please post in comments.
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