ADLER What I learned immediately is if the critics didn’t like you, you didn’t have long. So at that point, not to spoil any of the excitement of coming out of London and L.A., and about the release of the film, I wanted to close as quickly as possible. If I regret it, I only regret it because I didn’t give it the chance to grow. I don’t know if it could have, but that might have been interesting, too.
CURRY I had to go to the Algonquin Hotel, where I was staying, and tell them that I couldn’t pay the bill. Because the show had been a flop. The manager was incredible and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Curry. We know that you’ll be back — on Broadway, in New York. One or the other. Probably both.” Which was super encouraging and so generous. The next time I was in New York, I went in there and counted out the money in $5 bills.
O’BRIEN I remember standing with Tim outside the Algonquin — well, of the Royalton, actually, where I was staying. The Royalton was 40 bucks a night, which was fantastic. And I’m saying, “Well, I suppose that’s it.” We’d done the movie, and the show had closed. We both agreed that it had been a jolly nice ride.
CURRY But I had high hopes for the movie, and I really wanted it to be wonderful. When I went back to London, there was a screening, and I was very disappointed by the movie and particularly by my performance in it. Because I thought that it could have been a bit more subtle.
SHARMAN An interesting thing did happen because [the musical] lasted, what, a month? There was an audience that was still hungry for it. The film, which didn’t have any names in it, kind of opened and shut like a door. But when the late-night [screenings] started, which was also in New York, at the Waverly, there was an audience that hadn’t seen it that wanted to see it.
And so the same city that had slightly punished it, in a way, on Broadway, became the kernel for what is still playing today, 50 years later. Karma.