Original Cast Album: Company (1971)

On the first Sunday in May, the cast and musicians of the just opened Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical COMPANY gather to record the cast album. The exhausting marathon session goes into the wee hours of the following Monday. Directed by D.A. Pennebaker, this superb documentary serves as a record of not only a groundbreaking musical but of what it was like to record these albums in the era before musicals began using pre-recorded tracks. For lovers of the Broadway musical, this documentary is indispensable. The behind the scenes tension and drama, the exhausted performers struggling to perform as their tired voices are on the verge of failing them are all on display. The film's highlight is Elaine Stritch's performance of The Ladies Who Lunch just before dawn and try as she might, her voice gives out and she just can't do it so she is forced to return a couple of days later when her voice is refreshed and she knocks it out of the ballpark. In addition to Stritch, the COMPANY cast includes Dean Jones (who would leave the show 30 days after it opened), Barbara Barrie, Donna McKechnie, Charles Kimbrough, George Coe, Beth Howland, Teri Ralston, Charles Braswell, Susan Browning as well as its creators: composer Stephen Sondheim, director Harold Prince and the book's author George Furth.