Movies

About This Movie: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

By The Editor
December 20, 2007 - 16:25

DreamWorks Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures Present
A Parkes/MacDonald Production and A Zanuck Company Production
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
DIRECTOR: Tim Burton
WRITER: John Logan (based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler; originally stage by Harold Prince)
PRODUCERS: Richard D. Zanuck, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, and John Logan
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Dariusz Wolski, ASC
EDITOR: Chris Lebenzon, A.C.E.
MUSIC/LYRICS: Stephen Sondheim
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Dante Ferretti
COSTUME DESIGNER: Colleen Atwood

 

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener, and Edward Sanders

Opening date: Friday, December 21, 2007
Running time:  117 minutes
Rating:  MPAA – R for graphic bloody violence

From the dark, Gothic imagination of the absolutely, brilliant visionary director, Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Batman), comes the big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring frequent Burton leading man, Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Helena Bonham Carter.

Arriving back in London after escaping from 15 years of false imprisonment in Australia, Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) vows to kill the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) and his nefarious henchman, Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall), who shipped him off to the other side of the world on a trumped-up charge in order to steal his wife, Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly), and his baby daughter from him.

Adopting the guise of Sweeney Todd, Barker sets up shop in his old Barber Shop above the pie-making premises of Mrs. Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who tells him that his wife poisoned herself after Judge Turpin took advantage of her.  But when a rival barber, the flamboyant Italian Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), threatens to expose Sweeney’s real identity, Todd kills him by cutting his throat.  Not knowing what to do with the body, Mrs. Lovett sees this crisis as a potential solution to her ailing business, and suggests using human flesh as the filling for her pies.

Sweeney discovers that the Judge has turned his amorous affections towards Johanna (Jayne Wisener), Sweeney’s now teenaged daughter, who has become Turpin’s ward.  Imprisoned in his house, Johanna is noticed one day by Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower), a young sailor who rescued Sweeney from the sea.  Hopelessly in love, Anthony vows to rescue Johanna and marry her himself.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Lovett’s pies soon become the talk of London, and as business booms, she dreams of respectability and a life at the seaside with Sweeney as her husband and her young charge, Pirelli’s former assistant Toby (Edward Sanders), alongside as her adopted son.

But Sweeney has only revenge on his mind – to the detriment of anyone or anything else.

Visit the film site.

 

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12