fshepinc When it was first released, the film was not a box office success. To be fair, though, the studio butchered the film after its debut -cutting more than 40 minutes, including one complete song and parts of several others. Based on the award-winning musical play, 1776 is one of the best-written musicals of all time. Watching the restored director's cut is an entirely different experience from what most people saw in their movie theater.The script humanizes and characterizes the founding fathers in a way never seen before, and seldom seen since. Much of the dialogue is taken directly from the letters and speeches of the characters (written before, during, and after the revolution). There are a few historical inaccuracies and embellishments, but the film by and large tells the true, and often unknown, story of how the Declaration of Independence came to be written.The score, by former history teacher and sometime-popular-songwriter Sherman Edwards is delightful. Contrary to some of the reviews posted here, there are several stand-out songs, including "Yours, Yours, Yours", "He Plays the Violin", and "Momma, Look Sharp". The score and orchestrations evoke the musical styles of the period, and provide a lot of the film's humor. 1776 holds an odd record in the theater world: the longest space of time between musical numbers (over 30 minutes). Some critics have suggested that the show should have been a straight play, rather than a musical, but the songs serve to lighten the mood and energize the storytelling, It would be a lesser show if they were -as evidenced by the very different audience reaction to the highly-edited release version where much of the music was cut. Sadly, the film's soundtrack album was horribly botched, with heavy reverb added to the mix, and has never been available on CD or in digital format. An expanded, remastered release is possible with the remaining sound elements, but not deemed commercial enough to warrant the expense.The cast is uniformly excellent, drawn almost entirely from the original and later Broadway and touring casts of the long-running hit. This is one of the very few times Hollywood allowed most of the principal cast of a Broadway show to preserve their performances on film. William Daniels owns the role of John Adams as few actors have ever owned a role. His scenes with Virginia Vestoff (Abigail Adams) are among the most beautiful and touching ever filmed. Howard DaSilva's Ben Franklin provides a great deal of common sense along with the comedy. He nearly wasn't allowed to do the film, but we are fortunate that he finally got to preserve his wonderful performance. (He had a mild heart attack during the Broadway previews and missed the opening night. Contractually, his understudy, Rex Everhart, got to record the original cast album, while DaSilva actually performed the role during the Broadway run.It is amazing that the film was ever made. 1776 was a virtually all-male musical (there are only two female roles) about history and politics, made at a time when traditional musical films were box-office poison. It had no big names, and no popular song hits. Jack L. Warner is often excoriated for cutting "Cool, Considerate Men", when really he should be lauded for preserving a classic American musical in what must be considered the most faithful film adaptation ever made.

David S. Several highly reputable web sites (eg Netflix) falsely state that the musical "1776" (upon which this film is based) won a Pulitzer: https://dvd.netflix.com/Search?oq=&ac_posn=&search_submit=&v1=1776 https://www.overstock.com/Books-Movies-Music-Games/1776-Blu-ray- Disc/9967177/product.html I am quite familiar with the Pulitzer canon and I can assure you it did NOT! I have no idea how this false idea got started, but the truth is easy to find. The complete list of Pulitzer winners with "1776" in the title can be found here: http://www.pulitzer.org/search/1776 As of 2017 there are exactly three matches and the musical "1776" is NOT one of them. I would appreciate any useful information on how to pursue correcting this misinformation on Netflix and other sites.

MissSimonetta It's easy to see why 1776 (1972) has attained and kept its cult following throughout the years. One of the last big Hollywood musicals, it is also among the best of that period.If you thought a musical about the creation of the Declaration of Independence would be sleep-inducing, then you would be wrong. The well-drawn characters, witty dialogue, and good humor will keep your interest throughout.Of course, there's also drama and romance. The film never lets you forget the consequences of war and the looming threat of the English. The signing of the Declaration at the end of the film is not pictured as a moment of total triumph; the bell tolling in the background and the music lend a gravity to the moment. In fact, there is a lot of poignancy in this otherwise delightful film: Martha Jefferson's song "He Plays the Violin" has lyrics which foreshadow her premature death by childbirth and "Mama Look Sharp," sung by a shell-shocked young soldier, is heartbreaking.The songs are mostly fantastic and catchy ("Till Then" is a little too sappy for me) and the performances are mesmerizing. How can one even pick a favorite? Howard Da Silva makes a funny Benjamin Franklin and I never failed to laugh when Ron Holgate's Richard Henry Lee showed up. But like most people, my favorite performance is that of William Daniels as John Adams. He was just perfect, literally perfect (or maybe, literal-Lee perfect... ha ha).There are a few things in this film which are not so perfect though: at two hours and forty-five minutes, it does drag sometimes. There are moments where the film goes 30-40 minutes without any musical numbers, which feels jarring. Overall though, this is a fine musical, well-produced and acted.

mark.waltz O.K., that is if you are descendants of the original 13 colonies and not descended from a a slave and not a woman who during this time and was still treated like a second class citizen. So America's first several centuries certainly had its faults, the most obvious of which was its European explorers who claimed to have discovered it yet basically banished or enslaved the natives who were already here and had already discovered it. But as the American colonies grew, so did the desire for those under British rule to form a new nation, and the congress congregated in Philadelphia were even divided about that. These long-ago patriots included famous inventors and future presidents, several state governors and notorious rebels. Here, the focus is on three of these men with others given moments in the spotlight to share their history. Future presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who have had their own more truthful tales revealed through T.V. and movies, and Benjamin Franklin, inventor extraordinary who has had more controversy revealed yet remains one of our greatest non-presidential figures ever in the American history books.The Broadway musical shocked everybody with its success, most theater people convinced that a musical about a basic High School History lesson would bomb quicker than the Americans over Hiroshima. But the way in which the story was told, passionately, elegantly and quaintly, surprised even the most cynical of critics, and the show ran for years, producing this motion picture as a result and later a successful revival that managed to extend past its intended limited run. The secret to the success of the show is the passion put into each of these characters, not simply American folk heroes whom we've only seen paintings of, but flesh and blood men and a few women who had dreams, passions and ideals, even if some of them have been a bit soiled over the years.William Daniels heads the pack as John Adams, the future "second president" (and first V.P.) who realized he was too obnoxious and disliked to write the Declaration of Independence. Adams may not be the most popular man in the congress (which he considers three or more useless men to be considered), but as you see his intentions and his desperation (told with sweet vignettes concerning his wife, seen in dream sequences describing their letters to each other), you can't help but like him. Benjamin Franklin, as played by Howard da Silva, is a lovable rascal, a bit perverted (although history has insinuated it to be more so), and every inch the "bigger than life" man his legacy has made him out to be. Future "White Shadow" Ken Howard is the soft spoken Thomas Jefferson, and while his controversial life as father to one of his slaves' children has since been revealed, here, it is his silent love for writing and his beautiful wife (Blythe Danner in one of her earliest roles) that makes him get down to write the most famous document in American history. Virginia Vestoff is tender as the feisty but loyal Abigal, and her singing several romantic duets with Daniels is one of the film's many highlights.For Daniels, Da Silva and Danner, there is the show-stopping "He Plays the Violin" where Danner confides the quiet Jefferson's secret of lovemaking to them. It leads into a lively dance sequence that proves you don't need tons of chorus people to make you tap your feet. Daniels and Da Silva are joined by Howard for "The Egg" in which they seemingly fictionally imagine what bird will be made the symbol of their hopeful new nation. In spite of its obvious falsity, the sequence is a symbol of hope that probably every patriot of a new nation felt as they stepped forward to change the course of history.The other congress people are a magnificent bunch of Broadway and Film actors, especially Ron Holgate as Richard Henry Lee, repeating his Tony Winning role with the show-stopping "Lee's of Old Virginia", theater legend John Cullum as Edward Ruthledge who is determined to keep slavery alive in spite of objections of the northerners in congress, Roy Poole as the drunken Stephen Hopkins, William Hansen totally moving as the seemingly dying Cesar Rodney, original "Annie Get Your Gun" co-star Ray Middleton as the very Scottish Thomas McKean, David Ford as Congressional President John Hancock (the first man to sign the declaration, hence the slang term "give me your J.H.") and John Myhers as the portly Robert Livingston. Along with Rex Robbins, Daniels, Da Silva, Howard and Mhyers sing the rousingly unforgettable "But Mr. Adams" in which the declaration committee argues over who will actually write it. Also memorable is William Duell as the feisty Andrew McNair, the congressional custodian who gets his own moment when he sings a bit of the moving "Mama, Look Sharp", an obviously anti-war song about what was going on at the time in Vietnam with young innocent men being killed or maimed. Future "Benson" governor James Noble is obviously recognizable as one of the New Jersey delegates. Fans of the 1984 Academy Award Winning Best Film "Amadeus" will recognize a few of the smaller roles here from that later masterpiece which ironically took place at the same time yet many thousands of miles away. You can't call all of this "the truth" although many of the lines have been proved to have been actually spoken by the men who say them on screen here. Beautifully photographed and scored with an opening credit scene that reminded me of paintings of Charles Dickens novels, "1776" is a must see, not only for theater fans and history students, but practically everybody else who loves what America stands for.