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Over the years Midler saw the Russell film and Lansbury and Daly on stage. She never saw Merman. Yet it was Merman, whose voice and manner were as brassy as Midler's own, who haunted her. "It was one of those legendary performances I'd always heard about. Her spirit and the history of the part were always looming over me." There are moments when she seems inhabited by Merman's ghost, either in vocal inflections or in her movements, which are occasionally as corseted and semaphoric as the Merm's. Yet for the most part, Midler makes the role her own. She conveys much less anger than most predecessors, and rather more romance. Her relationship with manager-paramour Herbie (Peter Riegert) is convincingly sexy, which atones for the mediocrity of Riegert's singing. In contrast to the battleship that Daly made of the role, Midler is devastated, almost fragile, when her younger daughter June elopes and breaks up the family vaudeville act.
The most significant innovation comes in Rose's Turn, an outpouring of Rose's bitter longing for the spotlight. Where Daly played the scene in a fury, Midler gradually enters into the fantasy and smiles, flaunts her bosom, coyly sells herself to an imaginary audience. At the end, she and her daughter reach a reconciliation more convincing and complete than in most interpretations.
A few Midlerisms creep in, especially the ironic Sophie Tucker/W.C. Fields drawl. "A lot has to be played for laughs," Midler insists. "I thought she had to be very winning.Otherwise, how could she get all those people to do all those things for her?" Textually, the production is faithful, word for word and as Midler says, note for note and tempo for tempo.
Every scene has a rich period look without diminishing the threadbare tawdriness in which Rose and her touring children are forced to live. The cast is a nice mix of high-profile TV faces (Ed Asner and Evening Shade's Michael Jeterin throwaway cameos) and theater veterans (Christine Ebersole as the heart-of-gold stripper Tessie Tura and Anna McNeely reprising her Broadway turn as the rival ecdysiast Miss Electra).
The film was shot during eight weeks in Los Angeles, and more than half the soundtrack was recorded live rather than added in a studio. At the end of seven weeks of rehearsal, the company mounted the show on a soundstage for the original show's prime mover, librettist Arthur Laurents. "That was the scariest thing we did," Midler recalls. "It was like performing for God. At the end, he was very, very thrilled. That was the high point of the whole production." Maybe so for Midler. For America's once and, one hopes, future fans of the musical, the high point will be on the screen.