Hawkstar, perhaps I was someone else when I told you that i am in StormClan!

On second thought. whatever, I'll join under a different warrior name.

You know, Judge Turpin and Sweeney Todd! From Sondheim's musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Um... the title kind of says it all, except it doesn't mention Mrs. Lovett at all.

Well, the Burton movie (which cut out loads and loads of stuff) goes like this: 

Anyhoo, Sweeney used to be Benjamin Barker, married to Lucy Barker, and a very successful barber etc. etc. Judge Turpin, uh, shipped Ben off to Australia for purposes of... yeah... Lucy.... Lucy then poisoned herself and went insane and wandered around the streets of Victorian London.

Ben comes back, fifteen years later, after escaping Australia. Except now he's calling himself Sweeney Todd... Anyway he finds Mrs. Lovett his former landlady, and she recognizes him. She lets him move in to the room over her shop... again... and gives him his (gorgeous silver) straight razors back. Sweeney sings a song about how he's going to kill the Judge with the (gorgeous silver) straight razors, while Mrs. Lovett sings about how she's in love with Sweeney.

Then we see Johanna, Sweeney's daughter, who has been adopted/kidnapped by Turpin... Anthony, a sailor who (unknowingly) helped Sweeney escape Australia, sees her and immediately falls in love. The Judge is ANGRY about that, and has his flunky Beadle Bamford beat Anthony up. Anthony sings a song about how he's going to save Johanna.

Cut back to Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, who are in St. Dunstan's market watching a fake Italian (but really Irish) barber's servant sing about a miracle hair-growth elixer, which, as it turns out, is nothing but, uh, liquid human waste mixed with ink. Naturally, the crowd is very squicked by this.

Sweeney and Pirelli (the fake Italian but really Irish barber) have a shaving contest... Sweeney wins, naturally... Sweeney uses his victory to try to lure the Beadle to his shop so he can, you know, kill him.

Sweeney grows impatient, Mrs. Lovett tells him to be patient... Then Pirelli and Toby (the servant) show up, because as it turns out Pirelli used to be Davy Collins and Benjamin Barker's apprentice... and HE recognized Sweeney too. So he tries to blackmail Sweeney and Sweeney kills him and shoves him in a trunk. Meanwhile Mrs. Lovett decides to hire Toby as a shopboy, and Judge Turpin reveals to Beadle Bamford that he's going to MARRY his sixteen year old adopted daughter, Johanna. I told you he was squicky, did I not? 

The Beadle convinces Turpin to get a shave... at Sweeney's tonsorial parlour, natch. Sweeney is *this close* to killing the Judge when Anthony bursts in, prattling about Johanna... and the Judge escapes. Sweeney is VERY ANGRY about this.

Sweeney then goes completely crazy, decides "they all deserve to die" because "the lives of the wicked should be made brief/for the rest of us death will be a relief" and Mrs. Lovett decides, brilliantly, that in order to get rid of the bodies she's just going to have to bake them into her pies (uh, I guess that's kind of squicky, too). Sweeney is HAPPY about that, and the two of them sing a lively, catchy duet about cannibalism, of all things, earning Stephen Sondheim the title of KING OF LYRICAL DISSONANCE.

Next scene, we see Anthony wandering aimlessly around London, looking for Johanna who the Judge has had locked up in Fogg's Asylum. We see a montage of Sweeney killing a bunch (six, I think) of people and singing about how he doesn't have time to think about his daughter 'cause he's too busy having fun killing people. Um, yes.

And then we have God That's Good, which is a song which shows just how popular Mrs. Lovett's people pies are. Everybody LOVES them. And wants MORE. MOAR!!!! Meanwhile Sweeney is still upstairs murdering people.

Cut to a scene where the murderous pair and Toby the Oblivious Shopboy are having a picnic under some kind of CG-looking tree. Mrs. Lovett sings (again) about how much she loves Sweeney, and how she wants to live by the sea some day (hence, By The Sea). Oddly enough, even in her fantasy Sweeney acts as unresponsive as he does everywhere else in the movie (I think Johnny had, like, ten short spoken lines in a two-hour long movie. On the other hand, he did have like eight songs.)

Then we have a really really sad scene where Mrs. Lovett tries to remind Sweeney that HIS WIFE IS GONE and that the two of them could be relatively happy. Sweeney looks like he's about to say yes and then Anthony (curse him!!!) bursts into the room with news that Johanna is locked in Fogg's Asylum.

Anthony gets set up as a wigmaker, goes in looking for blonde hair like Johanna's, and leaves Mr. Fogg to be attacked by the inmates. Crowning. Moment. Of. Awesome. for Anthony's character.

Toby figures out (finally) that Sweeney has been doing BAD THINGS and is worried about Mrs. Lovett, proclaiming that "nothing's gonna harm you/not while I'm around..." Mrs. Lovett says the same exact thing, and then LOCKS him in her BAKEHOUSE so Sweeney can kill him. To give her (and HBC) credit, however, you can SEE the tears welling up in her eyes as she locks the door.

Then the Beadle shows up, crazy!Lucy shows up, and the Judge show up, and Sweeney kills them in that order. He goes down to the bakehouse... only to realize that the beggar woman he killed was, in fact, his precious Lucy. Naturally he gets mad at Mrs. Lovett... very, very, murderously angry, in fact... and chucks her in the oven. (Wonder how Burton felt about that?)

Then Toby, who has gone mad, sneaks out of the sewers and slits Sweeney's throat.

THE END.

...Ok, I admit there's probably a reason it was rated R for "graphic bloody violence" BUT THE BLOOD LOOKED LIKE KETCHUP!!!!