The movie about a Broadway play, turned into a Broadway play! Actually named "Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical", this adapts the Woody Allen film of the same name while still keeping most of the plot intact.
No relation to the sequel to the musical murder mystery, The Altos, also entitled Bullets over Broadway.
This play exhibits the following tropes:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: While not unattractive by any means, Dianne Wiest was not her youngest in 1994, and Helen was portrayed as more of an aged beauty. In most productions of the PLAY, though, Helen is portrayed as a younger woman, not much older than David, possibly to avert May–December Romance.
- All Musicals Are Adaptations: Of the Woody Allen film. To be fair, it makes more sense then some other examples.
- Canine Companion: Mr. Woofles to Eden.
- Death Song: "Up A Lazy River (Reprise)" for Cheech.
- Greek Chorus: What the mobsters are mistaken for in the climax. How they came to that conclusion with what the mobsters are saying...
- Kindhearted Dog Lover: Eden walks the line between this and a canine version of Crazy Cat Lady.David: I'll set out a saucer of milk for him.Eden: Oh, you don't have to worry,
I breastfeed him.Eden: Just kidding! - Intercourse with You: The Hot Dog Song.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Olive and Cheech agree on one thing: David is a terrible writer.Olive: For once, the meathead is right.
- Jukebox Musical: Most of the songs, with only a couple exceptions, are all pre-existing popular songs from the late 1910's and 1920's.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Actually less than you would expect, though it still happens. For example, when the mobsters interrupt the play looking for Cheech, the set is turned to face the audience, and when Nick says Cheech is still in the theatre, he gestures out into the real theatre.
- Musical World Hypothesis: It seems to be a mix. A number of the songs, such as "Tiger Rag", "You Rascal You", "Lazy River", and David and Ellen's parts in "Ain't I Good To You", are clearly diegetic. "The Hot Dog Song" seems to be a mix of Diegetic and All In Their Head, with Olive genuinely singing the song to David and Marx while remembering how it was performed back in the day. Some other songs, such as the finale ("Yes, We Have No Bananas"), "Ain't I Good To You", and "Broken Heart For Every Light On Broadway" could just be characters singing songs they heard before while changing some lines to fit their situation-i.e. diegetic. A few songs seem to fall under All In Their Head ("Blues My Naughty Sweetie" seems to go completely unheard by David, and "The Panic Is On" is pretty clearly David having a panic attack), but for the most part, all the others seem to be either Adaptation (appropriately enough) or Alternate Universe.
- Stylistic Suck: In addition to Olive's Bad "Bad Acting", we get the Hot Dog song, which is exactly what you think it is. It's actually LESS subtle than the original, and has some fitting visuals.Olive: Afterwards, I'll explain the Double Entendre. That's French. I think it means intercourse!
- Wrong Genre Savvy: David, and possibly the audience, think he's in a dramatic Love Triangle between Helen and Ellen, and plays it as such. He isn't too far off, but he fails to realize it's played comically and it's actually a Love Square.
