"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," (2007) is the latest collaboration of that imaginative young director Tim Burton, and one of his favorite stars, the versatile Johnny Depp. It costars the beauteous Helena Bonham Carter, currently the director's main squeeze. It won two Golden Globes, one for Depp as Best Actor, one as Best Picture, Musical or Comedy. It also won two Oscars, to Dante Ferretti for art direction, another to Francesca Lo Schiavo, for set decoration. It is based on the 1979 Broadway musical of the same name, which was written by Hugh Wheeler, with music by the celebrated Stephen Sondheim, and was directed by Hal Prince. That entertainment starred Len Cariou as Todd, and Angela Lansbury, as Mrs. Lovett. I clearly remember having seen it, and loved it, but I must say, although theater has the advantage of intimacy, what Prince could do on that stage can't hold a candle to what Burton achieves in the filmed version. Of course, many viewers, and reviewers, have complained about the buckets of blood in which Burton has bathed the story, but he has also filmed it with great sweep and visual flair; he has created a believable 19th century London, England, in which the action takes place; and he has gotten superb performances from his actors.



Depp plays Sweeney Todd, who once was naïve; he was the simple barber Benjamin Barker, had a beautiful wife and a lovely infant daughter, and was unlucky enough that they should catch the eye of the unscrupulous Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman, and is there a rule that 1/3 of movies made in England must star him, or is he just that valuable an actor?) Turpin has the barber transported to Australia, a place from which convicts are forbidden to return, but return Barker does, as Todd, determined to find his wife and child, and/or to have his revenge. Bonham Carter plays his former/future landlady, Mrs. Lovett, whose shop sells the worst meat pies in London. Barber and landlady will get caught up in a mad, murderous scheme that will ultimately prove disastrous for them.



Timothy Spall turns in a strong performance as the oily, corrupt Beadle Bamford, Turpin's henchman. Sacha Baron Cohen ("Borat") does very well as Davey Collins, AKA Adolfo Pirelli, rival barber. Jamie Campbell Bower plays Todd's young shipmate Anthony Hope. And 15-year old Edward Sanders gives a remarkable performance as the boy Toby, Pirelli's helper.



Toby and Mrs. Lovett duet on "Nothing's Going to Harm You, Not While I'm Around," and produce a song of unearthly beauty. Todd and the judge also duet, on "Pretty Women," a taste in the first act and the full number in the third, and it's just gorgeous. There may be too much recitative for some viewers, but the score has Sondheim's typical wit and edginess, and is never less than enjoyable. And who knew all these actors could sing so well?



Burton's filmed tragedy has great intensity and impact; surely, to some degree, because Depp and Bonham Carter are both such beautiful, magnetic, sensual performers. Cariou is an excellent stage actor/singer, and was about Depp's current age when he created the part of Todd; however, let's just say he is no Johnny Depp. When Angela Lansbury created Mrs. Lovett, she was more than a decade older than Bonham Carter is now, and Lansbury has always photographed older. She's a highly competent actress/singer, perhaps best known today for her long television run as Jessica Fletcher, in"Murder, She Wrote." And she began her film career, in 1944 and-5, with two Oscar-nominated turns as saucy, sexy servant girls in "Gaslight," and "The Picture of Dorian Gray." But she'd been playing mothers for decades.



Both play and movie are based on the 19th century legend of Sweeney Todd, with which parents scared their disobedient children. Some records appear to show that he really existed, but their authenticity is disputed. Fleet Street is an old and famous street. It first appears on maps in the 14th century, connecting the City of London with the City of Westminster, running alongside the river Fleet. The river became heavily contaminated with sewage, girdled in and bridged by wooden structures, so contaminated it actually exploded(as, more recently, did an Ohio river), and burnt its wooden surroundings. A character in play and movie keeps complaining about the terrible smell from Mrs. Lovett's Fleet Street chimneys at night, but I rather suspect the street smelled day and night in the 19th century. Even more so, as we are given several glimpses of the sewer beneath the street and the water can only be running in the old river bed.



Nevertheless, printers and publishers located on the street from the 15th Century; more recently, for more than a century, England's most famous newspapers were headquartered there, and "Fleet Street" still serves as a synonym for the English newspaper industry, and the kind of hectic, celebrity-mad journalism it practices. The last major paper left Fleet Street in the 1980's; Reuters left in 2005. The street's much quieter these days, mainly the site of numerous respectable law offices. You'd never know it once was called home, at least in legend, by Sweeney Todd, the demon barber. Not if you ate your veggies, at any rate.