The search for "Temptation" (COMPLETED)

The people who saw the film

After three months of more research, with Mrs. Sidney Forest and her husband Jon Taylor at my side, I gathered more and more information. Unfortunately, they had lost contact with the crew a long time ago.
So what else is there? Well, who saw the film? Where do I go to? Internet message boards!!! I found one from people who saw the film, and their reactions from the night, all straight from Broadwayworld.com. Special thanks to "luvtheemcee" for starting the forum. Now I can't post everything they said however here's luvtheemcee's review she wrote on the forum:

"Okay,here I go. I had to write an "actual" review of this for something,so I 'll lift some of my ideas from there, but it' s very... serious. At least here I can have some fun while I get my ideas across... not TOO much fun of course.... we all know that can get a girl into trouble.

Cara 's right. I called her, and I couldn' t even speak;Iwas laughing SO hard. I don 't even know, by the end, what I was laughing AT. The movie wasn' t funny... it was just SO bad that it became funny... I think at that point my laughter was predominantly thanks to Adam. I was trying so hard to give Cara a semblance of a description,and it just wouldn 't happen. I handed TGIF the phone and commanded her to explain what we' d just seen;shecouldn 't do it either.

Anyway, it was really, really nice to see these stage actors whom we love so much get a shot at the big screen - something a lot of them don' t get. It was nice to see their names in huge lettering up there. I was a proud fan. re: Temptation

I 'm not sure where to begin.... the music was definitely enjoyable, but not memorable. I felt like a lot of it sounded too similar, and that after a while it all bled together, with a few varying exceptions. I thought everyone sounded amazing; if for nothing else than the vocal performances in this movie, it was worth it. I was bothered by the fact that the vocals sounded like they were technically altered and toyed with, but that may be partly due to the fact that I was sitting so close that my ears hurt, and that we' re used to hearing these voices in their natural states,completely unaltered when they perform live. It was great to see even the actors who just had small singing roles,namely Anika Noni Rose,Orfeh and Felicia Finley (Aida sentiments, of course). I actually thought Manley sounded good; a lot of people don't like him, but I've always liked his voice. His acting, however, was laughable. He made a lot of really funny facial expressions, but he's pretty, so I couldn't hate him *too* much. Michael Cerveris' performance was so intense - and what a voice on him! I'll admit that for a while, I was terribly anti-Michael because I was convinced that he had "Raul's Tony," but I'm over that now; he's great. I thought Zoe Saldana was great, too. Beautiful voice - and she is gorgeous. I'd never seen Alice Ripley do anything before, but I loved her. Great voice. My only complaint with her was that I felt like her chemistry with Adam didn't exist. When he kissed her, it was just not believable... and I KNOW he can do better. The movie had a lot of sexual energy, and during the more "explicit" scenes with those two, I was just thinking "come on, you can do better." Deven May is adorable; last night convinced me to pick up a copy of the Bat Boy CD, ASAP. He reminded me a bit of Cheyenne Jackson, for some reason. It was nice to see Sebastian Arcelus, even though he didn't do much. I was never a fan of his Roger, but he's a talented guy and he's nice, so I like him. And, here it comes: Adam Pascal. *shakes head* Adam, Adam, Adam. What do I say? I really thought that with he'd outdone his own ability for weirdness with Cabaret, but I was SO wrong. First of all, I think it's going to be a while before I can take him seriously again. Seeing the man in not one, but three sweater-vests, a snake charmer's hat (while playing a flute!) a sparkly-red bowtie, bright yellow pants, a platinum blonde wig, pink pants, a pinstrip business suit, geeky glasses, and (my personal favorite) the cheerleading outfit, complete with pom-poms was entirely too much to handle. Every time he did something outrageous, I couldn't control my laughter, and I'd sink lower and lower into my seat. It was hysterical. On a serious note, though, I was extremely impressed with his acting; like I said before, given the time frame of when they shot this, I didn't expect his acting to be anywhere near how good it was. He played the "bad guy" surprisingly well (and I felt sorry for him when Sabrina left him at the end; he just looked so sad!), though he still did manage to insert more than a few of those "Adamisms" I've come to love: the eye-rolling, the hands ("Let's go SHOPPING!") and the way that he acts with his eyebrows. I thought he sounded amazing, even with the technical processing I was talking about earlier. I love his falsetto, and it was in full force last night. You could see that he really got into the music and that the little bit of rock star he's still got in him had a chance to shine. I was glad he got as much camera time as he did. Those eyes, that smile... even when so sinister, he just made me melt. Okay, enough of my fangirliness. More on the movie...

The animation. The movie would've just worked better without it. I guess that was the thing that was supposed to be "unique" and different about it, but I spent way too much time trying to figure out what half of it was supposed to mean... time that should've been spent paying attention to the plot. Some of it, I'm sure was meant to be trippy and weird like it was, but I'd like to assume that some of it had deeper meaning than that... you know, more meaning than "WTF? It's The Circle of Life!" or bunny rabbits in coffee cups or dancing New York City skyscrapers (which, by the way, dance better than Adam does). A lot of it, aside from being completely nonsensical, just... didn't look good.

Now, allow me to touch on the highlight of my evening: Nicholi's Gospel Bus Revival. I don't think I've ever seen anything so bizarre in my entire life. Ever. What in hell was that supposed to be? Honestly, now. I laughed so hard that I cried, and that made me realize the most logical of the probable explanations for Mr. Pascal's absence last night. I still wonder how they got him to do half of that stuff... but at least he proved that he's got a sense of humor as an actor.

I've written too much, I know. I'll end by saying that it was DEFINITELY a good time. All I wanted out of it was for it to be so bad that I could laugh about it, and I laughed enough to last me three months. Would I see it again? Actually, yes. It was awful, but the cast was amazing. It's a rarity to see so many immensely talented people in a movie, and for that, I was grateful. It is a shame that such talent was all pooled together and shoved into something so utterly strange, but they were together nonetheless... and it was hysterical. I think that's about all I can make of it"

Looking more into the message boards i found one person who basically summed up everything on the board: "I went with two other people and one person didn't like it at all, one person thought it was ok, and i actually liked it alot!" I got a pretty good idea of what the film was like. It just depends on who you ask about it. So their I had it, the pre-production process, the filming, and the biggest audience who saw the film. So that left one burning question; Why didn't it get released?