oscaralbert Review of The Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera (1953)

When movies jumped the shark in the 1960's . . .

[7/10 · 28 August 2020]

. . . no one could legitimately claim that "They hadn't been warned." As early as 1953, the always eponymous Warner Bros. crammed in nearly every deplorable aspect of Sixties Excess into THE BEGGAR'S OPERA. A decade before there was an egregiously boring misfire called TOM JONES, the prophetic prognosticators of Warner tricked HAMLET into crooning mindless ditties in the mode of a singing cowboy on a runaway horse! But like Cassandra of old, the Warner seers' lampooning of the Coming Deluge of campy dross did NOT have the effect of nipping it in the butt.