It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
The Beggar’s Opera (1953) – Musical #656

Studio:
British Lion
U.S. Distribution: Warner Bros.

Director:
Peter Brook

Starring:
Laurence Olivier, Hugh Griffith, George Rose, Dorothy Tutin, Mary Clare, Stanley Holloway, Eric Pohlmann

Plot:
A beggar (Griffith) is thrown in jail and is carrying an opera he’s writing about Captain Macheath, a dashing real-life character and highway robber who has multiple wives. The beggar meets the real Macheath (Olivier) in prison, who reads and sings the opera. The opera is told in a retrospective story of how Macheath ended up in jail.

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