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I've seen the Broadway show twice, and the movie six times. Yes, I enjoyed it immensely. The costumes in the 1995 Broadway revival for all the characters was basically underwear, particularly for the dance numbers. They were more covered up in the movie. The show has the entire orchestra in the middle of the stage in bleachers. There are virtually no props.

The 1975 show was based on the 1943 movie called "Roxie Hart" starring Ginger Rogers and Adolph Menjuie (sp). The story is based on a true story of two murderesses in the 1920s. Reporter Maureen Watkins wrote a stage play in 1927 based on her coverage of the crimes. (I own two copies of the original play.)

It is interesting to see how the show has changed in each incarnation, but a great deal of it has remained the same. (In the 1943 movie, Roxie gets divorced and marries one of the reporters.) By reading the original play, you can see the inspiration for many of the songs, most of which I thoroughly enjoy.

I dragged my reluctant husband to see it yesterday. He hates musicals, and didn't like this one either, calling it a "chick flick." I asked a number of other men exitting the theater their reactions, and the ones I spoke to really enjoyed it.

I don't see any of the characters coming across as particularly sympathetic, except for the husband Amos. So what? Does it show decadence? Sure it does - that was what the jazz age was about. Decadence led to crime, even though it was used as a false excuse, in a sense, it really was the reason for the crimes.

The seeming temporary celebrity of the murderesses was shown to indeed be the celebrity of freaks, as Roxie said. The public in the film were not so taken with the women because of their criminality but because of the sensationalism and novelty, and they proved quite fickle.

I avoid many films for moral reasons, but this one just doesn't strike me as deserving approbation.

Nice post. People take this stuff far too seriously. As for the "plot a 5 year old could've written" - here's the chronology taken from a story in the Seattle PI:

The story line has been around forever: Originally filmed in 1927, it was remade in 1942 as the Ginger Rogers comedy "Roxie Hart," turned into a moderately successful 1975 stage musical and revived in 1996 in a smash version that won six Tonys and is still running.

and another from culturevulture.net:

The current release of Chicago reaches the big screen by a circuitous route. Its origin was in a true story that was the basis for a 1926 play by Maureen Dallas Watkins, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. The play was made into a silent film in 1927 and made into another film in 1942 called Roxie Hart, a vehicle for Ginger Rogers. When John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Bob Fosse turned it into a Broadway musical in 1975, they returned to the Watkins play (and the original title) as their source. It had a moderately successful two year run. The musical was revived in a stripped down production but with an extra-hard edge to its satire in 1996, a production that is still running in New York six years later.