By contrast, the actresses who originated Hudson's and Knowles' roles on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph, respectively, were both nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress, with Holliday winning the award. In one scene, Effie saunters into Curtis' office and discusses Rainbow Records' latest LP, The Great March to Freedom, a spoken word album featuring speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. Dreamgirls also garnered Screen Actors Guild Awards for Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson) and Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), as well as a nomination for its ensemble cast. Delivery time is estimated using our proprietary method which is based on the buyer's proximity to the item location, the shipping service selected, the . Crossing Color Lines. Jennifer Kate Hudson was born on September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois to Darnell Donerson (ne Hudson) & Samuel Simpson. We were into, or going into the Vietnam War. [19] Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Terrence Howard were among the other actors also approached to play Curtis. [16] The completed film had a production budget of $75 million, making Dreamgirls the most expensive film with an all-black starring cast in cinema history. [66] Holliday in particular objected to the fact that her 1982 recording of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" was used in an early Dreamgirls film teaser trailer created before production began. That same year, four teenage girls were killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Gordy did work on the Ford assembly line in his early days (the Gordy figure in the movie, Curtis Taylor Jr., played by Jamie Foxx, runs a car dealership), and he worked his way up in the music business starting as a songwriter for Jackie Wilson. [6] The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive. 18 no. [8] With a production budget of $80 million, Dreamgirls is one of the most expensive films to feature a predominant African-American starring cast in American film history. The fantastic wigs look right, too. Later that night, Hudson won the BET Award for Best Actress. [16], While Condon had intended to cast relatively unknown actresses as all three Dreams,[13] R&B singer Beyonc Knowles lobbied for the part of Deena Jones,[22] and was cast after a successful screen test. This was not what Martha Reeves thought of when she sang the song. These grown-up themes contrast with The Shangri-Las singing healsongs about teenage drama. "It's sort of the female corollary to doo-wop at the beginning," says Jacqueline Warwick, author of the new book Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identityin the 1960's and professor of music at Dalhousie University. Sometime later, C.C., who feels Curtis is undermining his songs' artistic merit by making them into disco music, quits the label. The slogan for the movie's Rainbow Records ("The Sound of Tomorrow") comes right from the old Motown Records ("The Sound of Young America"). The film adaptation features an ensemble cast, starring Jamie Foxx, Beyonc Knowles and Eddie Murphy with Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson in supporting roles. In 1962 Detroit, Michigan, young car salesman Curtis Taylor Jr. meets a Black girl group known as "The Dreamettes", consisting of lead singer Effie White and backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson, at an R&B amateur talent show at the Detroit Theatre. 214,187 people follow this. dreamgirls.movie. [23], R&B star Usher was to have been cast as C.C. 5, 537553. [69][70] The resulting positive buzz earned Dreamgirls the status of "front-runner" for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture and several of the other Oscars as well. For American girls to see female groups was something new. She died broke, at age 32, in 1976. ", Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards, Best Actress Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture or Television, Best Song Written for a Motion Picture or Television, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards, "STAGE TO SCREENS: "Dreamgirls" Composer Krieger and Co-Star Rose; Plus David Warren". "That really had never happened before and it really hasn't happened since," says Warwick. Deena Jones is based on the Supremes' lead singer Diana Ross and two former Supremes members Scherrie Payne and Jean Terrell. So they're sitting at home or gathering at a friend's house or they're sitting on the bench during basketball practice at school, and doing the same kind of thingharmonizing and making up songs. "Creative License or 'Sour Grapes'? The plan falls apart, however, as Deena, increasingly angry over how Curtis controls her career, discovers his schemes and contacts Effie, who arrives in Los Angeles with C.C., Marty, and a lawyer. Yet before girl groups, it was easier for a song to cross over than for artists themselves to do, says Warwick. ", "Motown Honcho Makes Up With 'Dreamgirls', Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dreamgirls_(film)&oldid=1141760623, Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners, Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe winning performance, Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance, Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance, Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award, Articles with dead external links from October 2011, Articles with dead external links from September 2017, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles with dead external links from June 2016, Articles with dead external links from October 2010, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2017, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, African-American Film Critics Association Awards, Breakout Performance of the Year On Screen, Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards, Mariah I. Wilson as Magic White, Effie's daughter, Paul Kirby as Promo Film Narrator (voice), This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 17:27. As much as Deena Jones, Beyonc Knowles' character in "Dreamgirls," was modeled on Diana Ross, the film's main character, Effie White, was based on Etta James, according to composer Henry Krieger. [19][22], Dreamgirls musical supervisors Randy Spendlove and Matt Sullivan hired R&B production team The Underdogs Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas to restructure and rearrange the Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen Dreamgirls score so that it better reflected its proper time period, yet also reflected then-modern R&B/pop sensibilities. Their songs employed a lead voice with backup harmonies, and the music was a hybrid of soul, rhythm and blues, pop and 1950's doo-wop. "[60] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was less enthusiastic, stating that while the film was "a damn good commercial movie, it is not the film that will revive the musical or win over the world". Devine was a regular cast in stage plays, before landing a big role in the 1981 musical, Dreamgirls. Deena and Effie reconcile, with Effie telling her that Curtis is Magic's father. Khylah Eure, Mariah Goiran, Clara Alford and Kayla Carrington are tremendous as Featured Dancers. Schumacher planned to have Lauryn Hill[18] portray Deena and Kelly Price play Effie. "There are girl group songs that are based on blues progressions But there's also some that sound more like Tin Pan Alley songsalmost like Broadway numbers.". [63], Many reviews, regardless of their overall opinion of the film, cited Hudson's and Murphy's performances as standouts, with Travers proclaiming Murphy's performance of "Jimmy's Rap" as "his finest screen moment. In any case, neither Franklin nor James ever belonged to the Supremes. Advertising Notice The connection between the fictional Dreams and the real-life Supremes is underlined by costume designer Sharen Davis, whose magnificent creations accurately echo the outlandish outfits Ross, Wilson and Ballard used to wriggle into. Wake Me Up from this 'Dreamgirls' nightmare! ", Even when girl groups didn't set out make political statements or songs, the politically charged times came to them. [16] That same year, Geffen, who ran his Warner Bros.-associated Geffen Pictures film production company at the time, began talks with Broadway lyricist and producer Howard Ashman to adapt it as a star vehicle for Whitney Houston, who was to portray Deena. By comparison, Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio remained open and active during Detroit's 12th Street Riot in July 1967. As much as Deena Jones, Beyonc Knowles ' character in "Dreamgirls," was modeled on Diana Ross, the film's main character, Effie White, was based on Etta James, according to composer Henry Krieger. Release Dates She is an Academy Award-winning actress, Grammy Award-winning recording artist and best-selling author. [17], When Geffen co-founded DreamWorks in 1994 and dissolved Geffen Pictures, the rights to Dreamgirls remained with Warner Bros. Warner planned to go ahead with the film with director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Tina Andrews[7] in the late 1990s, following the success of Touchstone Pictures's Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. He feels Effie's plus size figure and distinctive, soulful voice will not attract white audiences, (as Deena's voice, although more basic and generic, is more marketable). Wilson's own film double, character Lorrell Robinson played by Anika Noni Rose, is nothing like her, she says. In casting Hudson, Condon recalled that he initially was not confident he'd made the right decision, but instinctively cast Hudson after she'd auditioned several times because he "just didn't believe any of the others. [27], Anika Noni Rose, a Broadway veteran and a Tony Award winner, won the part of Lorrell Robinson after an extensive auditioning process. They force Curtis to nationally distribute Effie's record to avoid being reported to the FBI. By 1965, however, Effie begins acting out, particularly when Curtis' affections also turn towards Deena. Knowles, Hudson, Rose, and Robinson performed a medley of the three Dreamgirls songs nominated for Best Original Song, although all three songs lost the award to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth.[79]. [citation needed]. The movie, based on the 1981 Broadway play, tells the story of a small black record label and its star singers whose success crosses over to the pop charts. But because of our performance, one of our teacherswhen it came time to audition for Motownbecause that was a part of what your winnings would be, to audition for Motownshe recommended that they take the top five. But for many girls, fame also offered an array of new opportunities. [19] The two had dinner with Geffen and successfully convinced him to allow Condon to write a screenplay for Dreamgirls. [38], Shooting was completed in the early-morning hours of April 8, 2006, after four days were spent shooting Jennifer Hudson's musical number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", which had purposefully been saved until the end of the shoot. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. Did an Ancient Magnetic Field Reversal Cause Chaos for Life on Earth 42,000 Years Ago? ", "Musically, the girl group soundand popular music at the time in generalwas drawing on a lot different sources," says Warwick. Gordy, like his counterpart in the movie, had aspirations of making movies. A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials. [86][87], To give the story more exposure for the upcoming film release, DreamWorks and the licenser of the original play, The Tams-Witmark Music Library, announced that they would pay the licensing fees for all non-professional stage performances of Dreamgirls for the calendar year of 2006. As much as Deena Jones, Beyonc Knowles' character in "Dreamgirls," was modeled on Diana Ross, the film's main character, Effie White, was based on Etta James, according to composer Henry Krieger. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Dreamgirls (Blu-ray, 2006) Jamie Foxx , Beyonce Knowles at the best online prices at eBay! [100] On the other hand, Mary Wilson attended the film's Los Angeles premiere, later stating that Dreamgirls moved her to tears and that it was "closer to the truth than they even know". In New York, Phil Spector produced girl group songs using his famous "wall of sound," a production technique that employed a huge amount of instruments and layered track after track on top of each other. They sang to mixed audiences about courtship, boys, parties, parents and parents not letting them go to parties to court boys. [4] Upon its release, the film garnered positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised Condon's direction, the soundtrack, costume design, production design, and performances of the cast (in particular of Hudson and Murphy). Another Dreams LP seen in the film, Meet the Dreams, is represented by an album cover derived from the designs for the Supremes LPs Meet The Supremes, More Hits by The Supremes and The Supremes A' Go-Go. [19] After sending Geffen the first draft of his screenplay in January 2005, Condon's adaptation of Dreamgirls was greenlit. With Tom Eyen having died in 1991,[7] various lyricists were brought in by Krieger to co-author the new songs. [101], However, Smokey Robinson was less than pleased about the film's allusions to Motown history. In Dreamgirls, Eddie Murphy plays James "Thunder" Early, a character who's part James Brown, part Little Richard, and all Eddie Murphy. And the same non-threatening, pure quality that was letting black girl groups cross over into white culture was giving young women force in the civil rights movement. They were able to transition into becoming adults with greater ease.". Everywhere they went on tour that summer, there were riots. Rated PG-13 for language, some sexuality and drug content. Learn more about the full cast of Dreamgirls with news, photos, videos and more at TV Guide . Based on his/her attributes, we recommend you consider these audition pieces! Some might even remember the 1981 Broadway production with Jennifer Holliday. Schaffner of The Marvelettes talks about the song's political significance in Marc Taylor's book The Original Marvelettes: Motown's Mystery Girl Group. Bill Condon Tells the Story Behind 'Dreamgirls', Oscar file: 'Dreamgirls' Director Isn't Lost in Award-Buzz Dream World, After 'Dreamgirls', Geffen says goodbye to movies, "Fugees' Lauryn Hill Eyed For "Dreamgirls", After Conquering Chicago, It's On to Motown, Andre '3000' Benjamin has turned down a role in, 'Dreamgirls' Film Cast Finally Shaping Up; Usher and Fantasia Are Out, Keith Robinson and Jennifer Hudson Are In, 'American Idol' finalist Jennifer Hudson gets lead role in 'Dreamgirls' movie", "Risky Business: Directors Guild Meet the Nominees Panel", Musical Movies: 'Dreamgirls' choreographer brings hip-hop moves to Motown, "Condon, Bill: Legendary Motown Musical Destined for the Top of the Charts (1/07)", 'Dreamgirls' Takes No. In any case, neither Franklin nor James ever belonged to the Supremes. How true is Dreamgirls? . And it wasn't only menRuth Brown's "Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean" was number one on the R&B charts in 1953, and number 23 on the pop charts. Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture soundtrack album was released on December 5 by Music World Entertainment/Columbia Records, in both a single-disc version containing highlights and a double-disc "Deluxe Version" containing all of the film's songs. He signs a trio of young women, the Dreamettes, gets them a job backing an R&B performer, James "Thunder" Early, establishes his own record label and starts wheeling and dealing. Of course, some of the girls were so young that chaperones accompanied them on toursometimes their parents. , there were riots not what Martha Reeves thought of when she sang the song she is an Award-winning! 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