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The String of Pearls, or Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

posted by Matt Knicl at 7:00 pm.

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Cut It Out

I’m a comic book guy, so why am I giving my two bits about a movie? Well, many people know that Sweeney Todd the movie is based on the Stephen Sondheim Sweeny Todd musical from the late 70s and 80s. What fewer know is the musical was based on an obscure 1840 penny dreadful titled The String of Pearls.

Wikipedia attributes the creation of Sweeney Todd to Thomas Peckett Prest, a hack writer that plagiarized the works of Charles Dickens among writing other penny dreadfuls. The original String of Pearls was published by Edward Lloyd, a man constantly on the run for plagiarism and other illegal enterprises. When Lloyd published a book, according to Dick Collins in his introduction to the Wordsworth Edition, he would buy a story cheap from the original writer and then have his hacks, Prest and J.M. Rymer (supposed creator of Varney the Vampire) creatively edit the work so they could pass it off as their work.

What I’m saying is Sweeney Todd was a part of this shady penny dreadful marketing culture, the culture that eventually morphed into the sci-fi dime novels of the early 1920s and ultimately become today’s comic book industry.

I read the book and listened to the original soundtrack to prepare myself for the movie, but I didn’t need to. The musical took the book, which was overly wordy and veered at points, and synthesized it into a coherent, refined story. The movie went one step further in adapting the musical for the screen and I would argue the movie’s Sweeney is a better Sweeney than the book and, as weird as it may sound, his actions make more sense.

The only thing that I didn’t like about the movie, and I would say is the reason you don’t need to see it, was the lack of a big musical number. I’m a musical buff and the coolest moments are the show-stopping numbers. Sweeney Todd had none. I’m told they didn’t want to strain Todd actor Johnny Depp’s voice as he isn’t a singer, but a big musical number wouldn’t need him per say. In the stage musical, the song “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” is a number with extras. But in the movie this scene is replaced by the beginning boat scene for some reason. This wouldn’t have bothered me as much, but the melody from “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” was played sporadically in the background, if I recall correctly, and I expected them to sing it. They never did.

The whole movie was a series of solos and duets. It got old after awhile and not even director Tim Burton’s emo-style images could save the film for me.

I mean, I’ve already seen a Burton film starring Depp about haircutting.

Matt Knicl: My name is Matt Knicl. I'm a U of I alumn and one of those unemployed English majors Garrison Keillor likes to make fun of. I've been reading comics since high school and one day I would like to write them. My goal is to expose readers to what is out there in the world of comics and using my English powers, show what is worth reading or not. I can be reached at buzz.comics@gmail.com.