Chicago (2002) - 15 questions

Question: How much time supposedly elapses between Roxie's arrest and her being acquitted of the murder charge? I have a hard time with the "fake pregnancy" element. We know Roxie was faking it, but if at least a few months had passed between her arrest and her announcement - much less between her trial and arrest - she was so thin that even a pregnancy of a few months (or lack thereof) would be noticeable to anyone who looked at her.

Answer: Pregnancy or lack therof would have been noticeable you think, but I am a size 8(aust) and gave birth 8 weeks early, still wearing size 10 clothes - unless I told people I was 7 months pregant they did not know.

Question: What does the "pop, six, squish, sisarow, lipshits." or whatever it was? I didn't catch it too good, but what did it mean? It was in the "He had it comin'" song. (I know the pop refered to the gum, six was about his six wives and Lipshits was the name of the boyfriend.) What were the other two???

Answer: Each sound had a significance in the story told by the convict. "Pop" was the sound of the chewing gum. "Six" was the number of wives. "Squish," though not uttered in the story, was probably the sound of her husband "running into" her knife nine times. "Uh-Uh" was the response from the one who was asked "did you do it?" Cicero was the name of the hotel where Velma killed her husband and sister. Lipschitz was the name of the boyfriend who went to "find himself."

Question: I noticed that during the Cell Block Tango, "Pop" shoves the Hungarian girl pretty aggressively. Is this a mistake?

Answer: It is not a mistake, it is choreographed that way. "Pop" is deliberately pushing the Hungarian girl ("Uh Uh") out of her way as she walks to center stage.

Question: What does the Hungarian woman actually say?

Answer: This is already listed under trivia for this film, but the translation of her story is as follows: "What am doing here? They say my famous lover held down my husband while I chopped off his head. But it isn't true, I am innocent. I don't know why Uncle Sam says I did it. I tried to explain it at the police station but they did not understand me."

Question: I know the film is set in the 1920s, but did anyone see a specific year (i.e., 1925) mentioned anywhere in the film (in a newspaper, maybe)?

Answer: According to Wikipedia.com the story takes place in 1924. Link provided to confirm and more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_(musical).

Question: Do you know where I could find the lyrics to all the songs in this film?

Answer: Lyrics on Demand. Link provided: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/c/chicagolyrics/.

Question: Why was it Queen Latifa who sang "I move on" at the Oscar show, when it was Renee Zellwegger who sang it in the movie (during the credits)?

Answer: Because Renee Zellwegger didn't want to perform at the Oscars.

Question: Why is it on all the posters and on the DVD and soundtrack cover, Velma is wearing a silver dress, which is Roxie's costume in the song "Roxie", and Roxie is wearing a black dress, which is Velma's costume in the opening number - "All That Jazz"?

Answer: Roxie wears the black dress briefly, while fantasizing about being on the stage during All That Jazz. Velma wears the white dress in the closing number.

Question: Was Roxie really ever pregnant? She revealed later that she wasn't but the Doctor said she was.

Answer: No she was never pregnant. The doctor only says that she was because she had given him certain sexual favours to bribe him into saying it! If you look, you can see him zip up his trousers when he announces the pregnancy.

Question: The Hungarian woman who is excecuted is referred to by two slightly different names. When she is about to be hung, she is called one name, but everywhere else she is called something else. What IS her name?

Answer: The character's name is Katalin Helinszki but they refer to her as The Hunyak, the Hungarian.

Question: Where can I watch JUST the tap dancing footage without the courtroom scenes interrupting?

Answer: You could tape VCR-VCR and edit out the courtroom scenes. You just aren't going to find a DVD or VHS of any musical with only a few scenes removed to keep dance numbers in one piece.

Question: A friend told me that Catherine Zeta-Jones was pregnant during the filming of Chicago. Is it true?

Answer: No, she had said herself that she didn't get pregnant until just after filming was finished on "Intolerable Cruelty."

Question: Catherine Zeta-Jones' character is always smoking a cigarette. Did Catherine Zeta-Jones really smoke for the film or is the cigarette fake?

Answer: CZJ is a smoker in real life, so it's safe to say that she did smoke for the film.

Question: Does Roxie get back together with her husband at the end? We see him leave, but they don't explain it. Perhaps the stage play explains this.

Answer: Amos wants to reconcile when the trial ends but Roxie walks away. (The end of their marriage is not explained in the stage play, either.) One is led to believe Roxie leaves Amos and goes on to stardom.

Question: What happened to the original poster with Roxy and Velma holding guns behind their backs? In all the more recent ones the guns are gone. Why?

Answer: I have both the DVD and the soundtrack. On the DVD cover they have the guns, however on the soundtrack cover, their arms look like they have been cut out of the picture along with the guns. Possibly somebody thought that it was a bad influence, since many young people enjoy the movie as well.