h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This article is really well-written and informative. I have CDs of the soundtrack, as well as the original cast version of the Broadway adaptation. I am not sure which one I like the best, as both are excellent. The movie has a wonderful scene near the beginning, in which a starving Victoria is wandering the streets and staring longingly through the window of a restaurant where a man is eating a rich pastry. You can just feel her hunger!

A bit off-topic: when the musical was being readied for Broadway, Mancini was at the end of his life. I'm not even sure that he lived long enough to finish the score, and there were those who sniffed that his music for the show was not his best work. [Of course, there were also those who sniffed that Mancini sometimes wrong jingles for commercials. You just can't please some people! ]

Julie Andrews' vocal problems became legendary when she had surgery on her vocal cords not long after the end of the show's run. As I listen to recordings of her singing from the mid-50s on, I can't help noticing that she had hard time keeping the brilliant edge on her voice after the early 1980s. Filming "Victor/Victoria" was a brilliant move, as it legitimized her use of her lower range, which showed very few signs of losing tone quality. Amazingly [to me, at least], her singing in the Broadway production of "Victor/Victoria" was very nearly at the same high standard as in the 1982 movie, not bad after a gap of more than a dozen years! But again, it was very smart to focus on her excellent low range.

Thank you

That scene of the pastry is very memorable, and is well done to really emphasise her hunger, the way the camera lingers... Cleverly disturbing

I do enjoy Mancini's music - the pieces on my CD of his popular tunes are very evocative and recognisable as his style

That's interesting that you could hear her voice changing over the years before the surgery. I'm not much of a connoisseur of sound to be able to tell myself, but I was very sorry to learn of her vocal problems after the surgery. I was pleased to see her in films after that, though, as she does have an authoritative presence (for want of a better phrase) that few others can match...

'Victor Victoria' really did show off her amazing range to perfection, though