The DVD Report #30: November 27, 2007
John Waters' 1988 film, Hairspray, was the director's first mainstream film, albeit one with enough bizarre edges to appeal to his avant-garde following as well as the masses. A hilarious take on the TV dance show phenomenon of the early 1960s, the film catapulted Rikki Lake to stardom as forthright "fat" girl Tracy Turnblad and gave new starts to the flagging careers of Deborah Harry, Ruth Brown, Jerry Stiller, Sonny Bono and Divine, though the latter died before he could reap the benefits of his new-found success. The 2002 Broadway musical revival of Hairspray provided, Marissa Jaret Winoker, Harvey Fierstein and Dick Latessa with Tony awards in respectively the Rikki Lake, Divine and Jerry Stiller roles of Tracy and her parents. The 2007 film version of the musical Hairspray both preserves the fundamental naïve charm of the previous projects and infuses it with a dollop of reality. Whereas the original film utilized outlandish costumes and garish colors to make the era appear more bizarre than it really was, and the Broadway musical maintained a larger-than-life persona in the playing of the lead character's mother by a man obviously in drag, the film version of the musical uses vintage costumes and hairstyles and tones down the playing of the mother to make her seem more like a "real" woman. That I think is the film's only real flaw. John Travolta, hell bent on making the mother as feminine as possible, comes across as too coquettish and smaller than life despite his/her oversized measurements. His wince inducing faux Baltimore accent is totally at odds with the rest of the cast who speak in their natural voices. The character needs to be larger than life, the better to sock it to them in the end. The rest of the cast, however, is pure gold. Nikki Blonsky, the 17-year-old ice cream slinger from Long Island, is a real find. Short, sassy and imbued with a killer singing voice, she is the best Tracy since Rikki Lake, who has a cameo as a talent scout. Christopher Walken, who started out as a song and dance man in the off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward opposite Liza Minnelli, returns to his roots here with ease. Michelle Pfeiffer, singing on screen for the first time since The Fabulous Baker Boys, is marvelously bitchy as the film's chief villainess. James Marsden is wonderfully self-deprecating as the TV show's vain but humane host. Queen Latifah has her best showcase since Chicago or maybe even Living Out Loud. Zac Efron demonstrates why he is considered a heartthrob by the teen audiences of TV's High School Musical. Amanda Bynes, Brittany Snow and Elijah Kelley are also fine in other pivotal roles and original cast member Jerry Stiller has an amusing cameo as the owner of a shop for big girls. The score includes the jubilant opening number, "Good Morning Baltimore", the love song "(You're) Timeless to Me", the civil rights anthem "I Know Where I've Been", the heartfelt "Without Love", and the seemingly never ending "You Can't Stop the Beat". "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now" is sung over the end credits by the three actresses best known for having played Tracy, the original's Rikki Lake, Broadway's Marissa Jaret Winoker and the new version's Nikki Blonsky. There are at least three DVD versions available, the best of which is the two-DVD shake and shimmy edition, which includes documentaries on the original film, the Broadway production and the making of the new film, which was directed by Adam Shankman. Ten years ago, Werner Herzog wrote and directed a documentary called Little Dieter Needs to Fly about German-born American pilot Dieter Dengler who was captured by the Viet Cong when his plane was shot down over Laos in 1966 and escaped six months later when his weight was down to 85 pounds. The film was shown mostly at film festivals, but was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding non-fiction special when shown on TV during the 1998-1999 season. Herzog has now directed a dramatic feature-length film of Dengler's ordeal, called Rescue Dawn. Ranking right up there with such classics of the P.O.W. escape movie genre as Stalag 17 and The Great Escape, the film benefits from Herzog's uncanny eye for detail and his deep appreciation of the environment which is so vivid it ought to get co-star billing. Christian Bale, who became an international star as a child with his acclaimed performance as a Japanese prison camp detainee in Steven Spielberg's 20-year-old Empire of the Sun,has come full circle. In between, he has played everything from child hoofers in Newsies and Swing Kids to Jesus in TV's Mary, Mother of Jesus toa serial killer in American Psycho to Batman in Batman Begins. He dropped 63 pounds to appear almost skeletal in The Machinist. Although his weight loss for this film was not as dramatic, the dedicated actor really did eat maggots and other disgusting things his character does in Rescue Dawn. Complimenting Bale are Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies as fellow captured pilots. Davies is unremarkable playing his umpteenth weirdo, but Zahn is a revelation eschewing his usually smarmy roles to play it close to the heart as a frightened, yet brave fellow escapee. Sequels make lots of money for filmmakers, which is why the studios continue to make them, but shouldn't the producers be required to employ decent enough writers to make the scripts interesting enough to live up to audiences' expectations? While Shrek 2 and Ocean's Twelve were disappointments for fans of the original Shrek and Ocean's Eleven, the filmmakers did manage to give their audiences something better with their third installments, Shrek the Third and Ocean's Thirteen. The producers of the charmingly-made Spider-Man exceeded expectations with the glorious Spider-Man 2, but couldn't sustain the momentum with Spider-Man 3, which while it is certainly watchable it is far from the masterpiece we were hoping for. Then there is Live Free or Die Hard. The first two films in the Die Hard franchise, Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder, were over the top, but fun. The third, Die Hard With a Vengeance, stretched credulity even further but was still engaging. Bruce Willis, who was 33 when he made the first film, and 35 when he made the second, appeared agile enough to do the running, jumping, ducking and other stunts required of his character. At 40 when he made the third, a greater suspension of disbelief was necessary to enjoy the film. This time around, the 52 year-old actor's character is as ridiculous as the plot about a disgruntled government worker's plan to bring the country to a standstill. Early on in the film, he and Justin Long (TV's laid back Apple guy) not only manage not to be killed by five assassins who in reality would have killed them ten times over, Willis manages to off most of the attackers. Later on, he outruns a helicopter that blows up freeways and bridges and manages to bring another plane down by making a rocket out of a car in a tunnel. Even the ordinary mayhem that ensues after that is hard to swallow. Timothy Olyphant is totally unbelievable as the arch villain. He's okay barking orders at his henchmen, but when he picks up a weapon himself he looks totally out of place. Director Len Wiseman, who started out in the art department, was in charge of the props for the ridiculous 1998 version of Godzilla in which the props also outclassed the actors. Maybe that's why he was chosen. One series that improves with age is the Harry Potter franchise. The fifth of the five books to be filmed, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is already out in region two and releases in two weeks in region one. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and friends (Rupert Grint, Emma Watson) are a little older, a little wiser this time around and the story they are given reflects their growing maturity. To say more would spoil the fun. As with previous editions, the film is loaded with stalwart British stars, most of whom having less to do than they would normally. The women are especially shortchanged with Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson and Julie Walters apparently pleased as punch just to be asked to do the film, not that Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman have that much to do either. One who does is Imelda Staunton as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Dolores Umbridge. David Yates (TV's The Girl in the CafĂ©) directed. Also out in region two, but currently without a scheduled release date in region one is Oliver! The 1968 Oscar winner, directed by Sir Carol Reed, has been released twice in region one on a double-sided non-anamorphic disc and is more than due for an overhaul. The new region two disc is still non-anamorphic, but it does present the entire film on one side of the disc. It is also loaded with extras including sing-alongs and recently-filmed on-screen interviews with stars Mark Lester and Ron Moody. Lester is now a successful osteopath and looks nothing like his once-adorable self. Moody has aged as well, but can still sing and dance delightfully. Like Yul Brynner with The King and I, he could probably go on playing Fagin in Oliver! until he drops, if only they would ask him. Yet another Sony DVD released in region 2 that doesn't have a region one release date is Hellzapoppin', the zany 1941 Olson and Johnson transfer of their riotous stage show. The first twelve or so minutes of this film are so laugh out loud funny that if you don't find yourself rolling in the aisles you should probably have your funny bone checked out at the nearest emergency room. For one thing you will never look at a game of tic tac toe in the same light again. For another, you'll think twice about telling a cab driver to go to the devil! Changing gears completely, In the Land of Women is a chick flick, albeit a good one, from actor/writer and first-time director, Jonathan Kasdan. Kasdan is the son and younger brother of directors Lawrence and Jake Kasdan. One could say he has connections allowing him to get stars for his film most young directors would not have access to. Adam Brody (TV's The O.C.) stars as a young writer whose actress girlfriend has just dumped him. Against the advice of mother JoBeth Williams he goes to suburban Michigan to spend time with ailing grandmother Olympia Dukakis. There he becomes emotionally involved with mother and daughter neighbors Meg Ryan and Kristen Stewart (Cold Creek Manor). Kasdan's script avoids clichés and provides the actors, especially Brody, Ryan, Stewart and Dustin Milligan, as Stewart's childhood best friend, with memorable scenes and dialogue. Dukakis has one of her most sympathetic roles in years, as well as the film's best line, "I'll be dead soon, and you'll still be alive, so stop complaining." I'll be back next week with a few thoughts on the mammoth Ford at Fox collection. -Peter J. Patrick (November 27, 2007) |
Buy on DVD! |
The DVD Report #29: November 20, 2007
This week is Thanksgiving. Films built around the holiday are few and for the most part, far between. The most famous, of course, is 1947's Miracle on 34th Street, which begins with Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, but is more about Christmas than Thanksgiving. I'll have more about that later. It would be almost forty years before another memorable film about the Holiday and the way we celebrate it would come along. Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) begins and ends with Thanksgiving Day dinners, following the lives of three sisters over the course of the year between the two days. Allen, Mia Farrow, Oscar winners Michael Caine and Diane Wiest, Barbara Hershey, Max von Sydow, Maureen O'Sullivan and Lloyd Nolan are all members of the same dysfunctional family in this very New York movie that is one of Allen's best. It only took a year for another Thanksgiving flick to come along. Unfortunately, John Hughes' 1987 film, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, is a one-note comedy about two very different men played by Steve Martin and John Candy who share the titled means of transportation in their attempts to get home for the holiday. Eight years later came Jodie Foster's Home for the Holidays. The 1995 film is a frantic comedy of ill manners in which divorcee Holly Hunter goes home to Baltimore to spend Thanksgiving with parents Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning, gay brother Robert Downey Jr. and batty aunt Geraldine Chaplin. All, including the director, have done much better work elsewhere. More recently we had Peter Hedges' Pieces of April (2003), another comedy of ill manners about a dysfunctional family. Katie Holmes stars as the title character, but Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson steals the show as her loopy mother. Writer-director Hedges is currently represented on the big screen by Dan in Real Life, but is best known for his wonderful screenplays for What's Eating Gilbert Grape and About a Boy two films worth watching no matter what the season. Faring much better in the movies is the treatment of Christmas. Nothing gets you in the mood better than watching an old familiar film on DVD starting with the aforementioned Miracle on 34th Street. Edmund Gwenn is a total delight in his Oscar-winning role as Kris Kringle aka Santa Claus, and Maureen O'Hara, John Payne and Natalie Wood are almost as memorable as respectively: a career woman, a lawyer and a little girl, all who fall under his spell. We all have our favorite films about the holiday. Here in chronological order a few of my favorites in addition to Miracle on 34th Street. A good portion of George Cukor's 1933 version of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women takes place on a Christmas day during the Civil War. The first and still best talkie version of the beloved classic, with Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Jean Parker and Frances Dee as the sisters, Spring Byington as Marmee, and Edna May Oliver as Aunt March, the film is a good window into the lives, hopes and dreams of impressionable young ladies in the America of almost 150 years ago. MGM gloss shone at its brightest in the 1938 version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, directed by the pedestrian Edwin L. Marin, but executive produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who undoubtedly had a hand in the production. Originally slated to star Lionel Barrymore who had played Scrooge annually on the radio, he was replaced by Reginald Owen when Barrymore's rheumatoid arthritis got so bad he had to be confined to a wheelchair. You would never know Owen was a last-minute replacement by the authority he brings to the role. In fact, the entire cast is pitch perfect, including the Lockharts, Gene, Kathleen and June, as the Cratchits along with Terry Kilburn as Tiny Tim, and Leo G. Carroll as Marley's ghost. Not quite as Dickensian as the 1951 British version with Alastair Sim, but a perfect delight in its own right. Written by Preston Sturges and directed by Mitchell Leisen, 1940's Remember the Night is basically a tale of the redemption of a petty female thief through the love of a good man and his family. It's a pill easily swallowed when the thief is played by Barbara Stanwyck and the good man by Fred MacMurray. He is the assistant district attorney who takes custody of Stanwyck after she is caught stealing an expensive bracelet and must keep her until the courts re-open after New Year's. It also helps that MacMurray's mother and aunt are played by two of the screen's best character actresses, Beulah Bondi and Elizabeth Patterson. Though not exclusively about the holiday, one of the best of many fine moments in Vincente Minnelli's 1944 gem, Meet Me in St. Louis, occurs when Judy Garland sings "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to heartbroken Margaret O'Brien. One of the screen's very best original musicals, Garland, O'Brien, Mary Astor, Marjorie Main, Tom Drake, Lucille Bremer, Leon Ames, Harry Davenport and others skip the light fantastic through such marvelous songs as the title tune, "The Boy Next Door" and "The Trolley Song". Actor-turned-director Peter Godfrey had a long, but rather undistinguished career. His one shining moment was 1945's Christmas in Connecticut, an only-in-the-movies tale of a Good Housekeeping-style writer who must pass for the real thing when her publisher invites himself and a war hero to spend the holidays at the Connecticut home she doesn't exactly have. Barbara Stanwyck is once again at her best as the writer, surrounded by an impeccable cast that includes the affable Dennis Morgan as the war hero, Sydney Greenstreet as the blowhard publisher, S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall as the world-class chef Stanwyck entices to do double duty as her cook, and Una O'Connor as a befuddled maid. A sequel to 1944's Oscar-winning Going My Way only in that Leo Carey once again directs Bing Crosby as crooning priest Father O'Malley, 1945's The Bells of St. Mary's is completely different in tone and style from its predecessor. The focus this time is not on the relationship between Crosby's O'Malley and Barry Fitzgerald's lovable old codger, Father Fitzgibbon, but between O'Malley and the independent Sister Benedict played by Ingrid Bergman at the top of her game. Though the Christmas scenes make up only a portion of the film, the film's message about giving hope as well as presents is very much in the spirit of the season. Bergman is magnificent in what is arguably her finest screen performance. Modestly successful upon its initial release in 1946, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life became a holiday staple in the 1970s after Capra forgot to renew the copyright and the film fell into public domain where it was snatched up by independent TV stations that showed it incessantly over the holidays. Now of course it is considered both Capra's and star Jimmy Stewart's finest film. As the small town banker who sees through an angel's eyes what the world would have been like without him one Christmas Eve, Stewart hits all the right notes. The wonderful supporting cast includes Donna Reed, Henry Travers, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell and Beulah Bondi. Another film about an angel come down to Earth to help us mere mortals at Christmastime, Henry Koster's 1947 film, The Bishop's Wife, is another perennial. Cary Grant was originally to have played the Episcopal bishop and David Niven the angel, but they switched roles at the last minute. Loretta Young has the title role. All three are at their charming best as are such stalwart supporting players as Gladys Cooper, Monty Woolley, James Gleason and Elsa Lanchester. No holiday viewing would be complete without the definitive 1951 film version of A Christmas Carol (released as Scrooge in the U.K.). Brian Desmond-Hurst directs the superb Alastair Sim in the most faithful rendering of Dickens' classic ever mounted. It may sounds like a cliché, but this film really is too good just to be seen at Christmas. A huge hit in its day, White Christmas is a quasi-remake of Holiday Inn with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen singing and dancing to a hit parade of Irving Berlin tunes. These included the title song that won an Oscar when Crosby first performed it in the aforementioned Holiday Inn and "Count Your Blessings", the Oscar-nominated song this time around. Michael Curtiz directed a cast that also includes Dean Jagger and Mary Wickes. The beautifully-wrought All Mine to Give was barely released by RKO at the tail end of 1957, but has enjoyed tremendous popularity as a TCM staple over the years. Glynis Johns and Cameron Mitchell are deeply moving as a couple enduring great hardships in 1850s Wisconsin. Two of the best child actors of the era, Rex Thompson ( The King and I) and Patty McCormack ( The Bad Seed) co-star in this very poignant film with a terrific Christmas finish. If two excellent versions weren't already enough, Leslie Bricusse added music and lyrics to Dickens' timeless Christmas classic, and Ronald Neame directed it. Albert Finney had the title role of Scrooge with a veritable who's who of British actors in support, including Alec Guinness, Edith Evans, Kenneth More, Laurence Naismith and Kay Walsh. The sparkling score includes the jaunty "Thank You Very Much" and Scrooge's 11th hour lament, "I'll Begin Again". Standing out among the myriad of TV dramas about the holiday are two films, one revered as something of a classic, the other sadly not remembered quite as well. First broadcast in 1977, The Gathering is an Emmy-winning production about a woman who gathers her estranged family together for her husband's last Christmas. Sensitively directed by Randal Kleiser and beautifully acted by Maureen Stapleton, Ed Asner, Stephanie Zimbalist, Gregory Harrison, Bruce Davison and John Randolph among others, it was followed two years later by The Gathering, Part II in which the family comes back together to "protect" their now-widowed mother from the advances of the new man in her life. Not as well known is 1998's The Christmas Wish in which Neil Patrick Harris stars as a Harvard-educated yuppie who comes back to his old home town when he inherits his grandfather's real estate business. Debbie Reynolds is his grandmother and Naomi Watts the young divorcee with a precocious kid. What sets it apart is the mystery surrounding a diary entry of the grandfather's that uncovers a secret not revealed until the very end. All three stars are excellent with Watts especially fine in a throwaway role. Diane Keaton gives one of her finest performances as the mother of a large modern brood in Thomas Bazucha's 2005 film, The Family Stone. The touching film about a family's last Christmas together was poorly marketed as a farce starring Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker. It is not a farce, though it does contain farcical moments. Nor is it a Sarah Jessica Parker film as she is but one member of an ensemble that also includes Dermot Mulroney, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson, Ty Giordano, Brian White and Craig T. Nelson, all of whom outshine Ms. Parker. There are many other films I could cite, but this is enough to point you in the right direction. Happy Thanksgiving and happy viewing! -Peter J. Patrick (November 20, 2007) |
Buy on DVD! |
The DVD Report #28: November 13, 2007
Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a big fan of cartoon movies, but every once in a while one comes along that is so hyped up it's hard to ignore. Ratatouille is one that is worthy of the hype. The film from Disney Pixar ( Toy Story, Cars) is beautifully lit, so much so that the lighting director is credited over the cinematographer in the end credits, the first time I've been conscious of that. The story, which revolves around a rat who dreams bigger than life, is about lots of little things, but mainly it's about how the rat succeeds in a world of humans thanks to a willingness to suspend disbelief by just a few people with really big hearts. Well, all great fairy tales are supposed to have messages, aren't they? This rat's dream takes him to a world class French restaurant where he becomes its secret chef. Peter O'Toole ( Venus)supplies his considerable charm and wit as the voice of an acerbic food critic named Monsieur Ego. Michael Moore's ( Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11) latest high profile documentary, Sicko, like his previous efforts, basically preaches to the choir, and is unlikely to change anything soon, but one can hope. The film illustrates the horrors of the failed U.S. health system juxtaposed with the virtues of universal health care in countries like France, England, Canada and even Cuba. It expels the myth that free health care in other countries is of lesser quality and the even bigger myth that socialized medicine is the first step in turning a country to Soviet style Communism and the subjugation of human rights. England has had socialized medicine since 1948. Marion Cotillard ( A Good Year) gives one of the year's best performances as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. The DVD, out today, includes a documentary called Slipping into Character on Cottliard's amazing transformation into the Little Sparrow. Part standard biography, part stream of consciousness wandering back and forth between various periods of her short, sad life, Collilard's inspired performance is the reason to see it. It's directed by Olivier Dahan ( Crimson Rivers 2) and the best known actor amongst the supporting cast is Gerard Depardieu ( Cyrano de Bergerac) in a blink-and-you'll-miss-him performance. A musical biography from another era is With a Song in My Heart, subtitled The Jane Froman Story. One of the most requested video titles for more than 25 years, it is finally available. Though Criterion and Warner Bros. are routinely praised for their restoration of old movies, Fox's restoration department is usually right up there with them. They really had their work cut out for them on this one. Even the best TV prints have looked faded over the years. Now you can see the faces clearly, although the vibrant 55-year-old color film, which is 50% music and 50% drama, has a slight grainy look to it. Three documentaries accompany the film, including a remembrance by her 89-year-old former husband, the army pilot who saved her life in a near fatal plane crash. The film won an Oscar for scoring and was nominated for four others including Best Actress for the luminous Susan Hayward and Best Supporting Actress for Thelma Ritter, their third each, while Robert Wagner's two scenes made him a huge star. Also out today from Fox are two lesser known screen musicals, Bloodhounds of Broadway with accompanying featurettes on author Damon Runyon, star Mitzi Gaynor and featured player Sharon Baird; and The Girl Next Door with accompanying featurettes on the film, star Dan Dailey and featured player Billy Gray. Kevin Costner ( The Upside of Anger) has one of his best roles as Mr. Brooks, a small town businessman who is also a serial killer, but he is the whole show. The novel premise may sound interesting but the film has nowhere to go. It's filled with all kinds of absurd characters, such as Demi Moore's ( G.I. Jane) wealthy policewoman who works a dangerous job just to prove to her father that she's as good as any man, and Costner's alter ego, played by William Hurt ( A History of Violence), that recalls Ed Harris' character in A Beautiful Mind. Even more ridiculous is Marg Helgenberg ( CSI) as Costner's wife who is so clueless she doesn't even notice something is wrong when it looks like her daughter is following in her father's dastardly footsteps. Most bizarre of all, though, is Dane Cook ( Waiting) as a witness to one of the killings with an agenda of his own. This was director Bruce A. Evans' ( Kuffs) second film, his first in fifteen years. John Hurt ( The Naked Civil Servant) provides another of his splendid performances as a world-weary priest and Hugh Dancy ( The Sleeping Dictionary) is properly naïve as an idealistic teacher in Beyond the Gates, a harrowing tale of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Scenes of raped and murdered nuns, machete killings of young mothers and their babies, and emaciated dogs feeding on fresh corpses in the streets are not for the faint of heart, but they are not the worst aspects of the horror. That would be the U.N., with its power to intervene, not only standing by and doing nothing, but eventually abandoning the European-run school, leaving more than 2,500 Rwandan refugees to face certain death. The film, originally titled Shooting Dogs, unlike the similarly-themed Hotel Rwanda, was filmed in the actual locations of the massacres. Directed by Michael Caton-Jones ( This Boy's Life, Rob Roy), the film co-stars Clare-Hope Ashitey (Kee in Children of Men) as a young Rwandan runner. Based on the true story of a con artist who impersonated the reclusive director in the early 1990s, Color Me Kubrick is meant to be a comedy, but doesn't really succeed as such unless you find stealing from the less fortunate to be something to laugh about. John Malkovich ( Ripley's Game) doesn't help with his unsympathetic performance. Sometimes he's soft-spoken. Sometimes he's loud and boisterous. But he's always calculating. He also speaks in a strange accent that is vaguely British tinged with broad Texas affectations and Brooklyn style 'dese', 'dems' and 'dose'. Luke Mabry ( The Prince and Me) and Richard E. Grant ( Withnail and I) are among his victims. It was directed by Brian Cook, who was an assistant director to the real Kubrick on Barry Lyndon and The Shining. An effective tearjerker, The Ultimate Gift is the Crystal Heart Award-winning screen version of the best-selling novel of the same name. Drew Fuller (TV's Charmed and Army Wives), James Garner ( The Notebook), Abigail Breslin ( Little Miss Sunshine), Bill Cobbs ( A Mighty Wind) and Lee Meriwether (TV's Barnaby Jones) star in the story of a wastrel who must perform a series of life affirming tasks before he can inherit his grandfather's fortune. It goes mostly where you'd expect it to, but Fuller makes his journey of self discovery an easy pill to swallow and the always-good-to-see Garner is an added treat. Ed Asner ( The Mary Tyler Moore Show) received his umpteenth Emmy nomination for playing the little old matchmaker in the TV movie, The Christmas Card, about a soldier stationed in Afghanistan (John Newton) who receives a Christmas card from a small town do-gooder (Alice Evans) and spends his next leave tracking her down. It turns out the young woman has a traveling wine salesman boyfriend (Ben Weber) who is slowly getting around to pop the question, but it's OK because her dad (Asner) takes an instant liking to the soldier. Although it's supposed to be a contemporary piece, it plays like something out of an earlier era where everyone in town goes to the same church, nobody cusses or has premarital sex, and grown women blush and run away when they kiss a guy for the first time. Still, if you're looking for something with nice scenery you can watch with your Great Aunt Tillie, this is your ticket. It was directed by actor/drama coach Stephen Bridgewater. Your time might, however, be better spent on Image's brand new release of the 1980 TV miniseries version of A Tale of Two Cities. It compares favorably to the 1935 classic with Chris Sarandon ( Dog Day Afternoon) acquitting himself quite nicely as both Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay. The cast also includes Alice Krige as Lucie, Peter Cushing as Dr. Manette, Kenneth More as Dr. Lorry, Barry Morse as St. Evermonde, Flora Robson as Miss Pross and Billie Whitelaw as Madame Defarge. All are as good as the cast of 1935's A Tale of Two Cities except for Whitelaw who has the impossible task of trying to match Blanche Yurka's career-high performance as the epitome of evil. If that's not enough to keep you busy until my next article, Columbia is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Barbara Stanwyck's birth by releasing a restored edition of GGolden Boy, the film in which she generously allows newcomer William Holden to steal their scenes together. Extras include 1930 footage of Stanwyck at play as well as a Ford Theatre episode entitled Sudden Silence in which she made her TV debut in 1956. -Peter J. Patrick (November 13, 2007) |
Buy on DVD! |
The DVD Report #27: November 6, 2007
Back in September, I mentioned With a Song in My Heart and I'll Cry Tomorrow as part of my report on movie musicals from 1927 through 1955. Both, starring Susan Hayward, are finally being released on DVD. I'll Cry Tomorrow, the musical biography of Lillian Roth, releases today as part of Warner Bros'. Leading Ladies Collection Volume 2 along with A Big Hand for the Little Lady (Joanne Woodward), Rich and Famous (Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen), Shoot the Moon (Diane Keaton) and Up the Down Staircase (Sandy Dennis). With a Song in My Heart, the musical biography of Jane Froman,releases next week. 1955, as I mentioned in the September report, was the year the presentation of the movie musical changed. In order to lure TV watchers out of their homes and into theatres, movies were becoming bigger and more spectacular, and what could be more spectacular than big screen versions of Broadway mega-hits? Tentative steps toward the bigger and better began with the 1954 Cinemascope presentations of such original screen musicals as There's No Business Like Show Business, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and A Star Is Born and the VistaVision presentation of White Christmas, as well as more modern Cinemascope remakes of old standbys such as Rose Marie and The Student Prince, but it was 1955's Oklahoma! that really raised the bar. Oklahoma! was filmed in Todd-A-O, an ultra wide screen process that not all theatres were capable of presenting. Consequently, it was also filmed in Cinemascope, the separate processes requiring actors and crews to shoot the film twice. The highly anticipatedfilm was the first of Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musicals to reach the screen. Presented as an event, the film seen today seems a bit clunky - it's too long and stage-bound - but audiences of the day ate it up. Fox's 50th Anniversary Edition DVD, which is also part of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection, features both the Todd-A-O and Cinemascope versions. The Cinemascope version, filmed with a 35 mm camera is the clearer, easier to watch version than the Todd-A-O which was filmed in 70 mm. The highlight of the film is the score, which includes "Kansas City", "The Surrey With the Fringe on the Top", "People Will Say We're in Love" and the rousing title song. All are given spectacular presentations and are well sung by Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Gene Nelson, Gloria Grahame, Eddie Albert and Charlotte Greenwood. Another hit musical of 1955 was Guys and Dolls, which was also given the lavish Cinemascope treatment and a cast of superstars including Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and repeating her sensational Broadway triumph, Vivian Blaine. Brando actually does quite well for a non-singer, but the obviously stylized sets keep reminding us that we are watching a filmed version of a stage show rather than a full bodied movie. Again, the highlight is the score and "If I were a Bell", "Luck Be a Lady" and the rest are all given their due. As if one Rodgers & Hammerstein per year wasn't enough, Fox gave us two in 1956, Carousel and The King and I. The film version of Carousel was treated shabbily by Fox from the get-go. The look of the film is rather dull, and in fact, prints faded so fast that by 1960 the film was virtually unwatchable until it was restored for laserdisc in the 1990s. To add insult to injury, Fox executives were concerned that the film ran too long and cut out two of the film's best sequences, featuring the songs "You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan" and "Blow High, Blow Low". The music, though, is once again the highlight, with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones leading the cast. The score includes "If I Loved You" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". The King and I, on the other hand, was given the royal treatment by Fox. Released as Fox's prestige film that year, it was nominated for 9 Oscars including Best Picture, Actor (Yul Brynner repeating his Tony award-winning role as the King of Siam), Actress (Deborah Kerr) and Director (Walter Lang). It won five including Best Actor. The King and I was the first of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals in which the story was given as much importance as the music. It had, in fact, been successfully filmed ten years earlier as a straight drama by Fox, called Anna and the King of Siam with Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison. Audiences of the day expected the musical version to be no less thrilling than the original. They were not disappointed. Among the songs moving the story forward are "Getting to Know You", "Hello Young Lovers" and "Shall We Dance?" I talked about the films of 1957 in an August report, including the year's four hit musicals, Funny Face, The Pajama Game, Silk Stockings and Les Girls, and won't dwell on them here. By 1958 Broadway to Hollywood transfers were practically guaranteed to make money and all three of that year's major musicals did so in spades. The film version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific was well cast with Mitzi Gaynor, Rossano Brazzi, John Kerr, France Nuyen, Ray Walston, Juanita Hall and others, most of whom could sing, though some such as Hall, Broadway's original Bloody Mary, were dubbed anyway. Fox wanted the best voices coming out of the best physical representations of the beloved characters. The film's only flaw is the pinheaded acquiescence to director Joshua Logan's idea of presenting numerous song sequences in changing hues that obscure the beauty of the scenery. The great score includes "There Is Nothing Like a Dame", "Younger Than Springtime", "Some Enchanted Evening" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair". Tab Hunter, who received top billing in Adler and Ross' Damn Yankees was the only member of the cast not in the original Broadway production. While he acquits himself quite well, he is no match for either Ray Walston as the Devil or Gwen Verdon as the Devil's helper, Lola. The immortal score includes "Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets)" and "(You've Gotta Have) Heart". The year's crowing achievement was the sophisticated Gigi, an original screen musical from the composers of Broadway's then-most-successful musical, My Fair Lady. Itwas nominated for nine Oscars and waltzed away with all of them including Best Picture and Director (Vincente Minnelli). Though none of the actors were nominated, Maurice Chevalier was given an honorary award "for his contributions to the world of entertainment for more than half a century." Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdan and Hermione Gingold also bring their considerable charm to the film which includes such delightful tunes as "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore", "The Night They Invented Champagne", "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and the Oscar winning title song. Two years later Minnelli directed Judy Holliday in a reprise of her Tony Award-winning role in the Jule Styne-Betty Comden-Adolph Green musical, Bells Are Ringing, where once again the songs were the highlight. They included "Just in Time", "I'm Going Back" and "The Party's Over". A mere three years after Gigi's triumph, West Side Story was nominated for 11 Oscars and won 10. Warner Bros.' Collectors Set DVD is a treasure trove befitting the film's place as the most awarded musical of all time. It includes a booklet featuring Ernest Lehman's complete screenplay as well as a vivid transfer of the film and numerous documentaries. Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer were not singers, but their voices were seamlessly dubbed. Among the film's ten Oscars were those for Best Picture, Director (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins), Best Supporting Actor (George Chakiris) and Best Supporting Actress (Rita Moreno). The film's score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, includes "Maria", "Tonight" and "Somewhere". Considered somewhat of a lesser Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, Flower Drum Song is the only one of their Broadway-to-Hollywood transfers that was not produced by Twentieth Century-Fox. Universal finally released a DVD version last November filled with bells and whistles belying its long-held lowly status. Stars Nancy Kwan and James Shigeta provide insightful commentary including speculation on the disappearance of co-star Miysohi Umeki whose whereabouts were divulged only after she died this August. The delightful Juanita Hall and Benson Fong co-star. The score includes "A Hundred Million Miracles", "Chop Suey" and "I Enjoy Being a Girl". One of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time was Meredith Willson's The Music Man. The 1962 film version proved just as popular, garnering six Oscar nominations and winning one for adapted score. Robert Preston reprised his Tony Award-winning role as Professor Harold Hill to great acclaim and Shirley Jones successfully replaced Broadway's Barbara Cook as Marian the Librarian. Young Ronny Howard is her little brother. The rich score includes "76 Trombones", "Till There Was You" and "Gary, Indiana". The bells and whistles DVD includes an introduction by Jones. An even more enduring stage musical is Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's Gypsy. The original Broadway version was a highlight of Ethel Merman's career and subsequent versions with Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and Bernadette Peters proved equally popular. There was even a 1993 TV production with Bette Midler. The 1962 film version got a bum rap from the get go as partisans of Miss Merman spread rumors before the film was even released that Rosalind Russell's singing was a joke and her performance inept. Actually her performance is quite good and her singing voice is blended with that of Lisa Kirk obscuring any deficiency in that department. Russell won her fifth Golden Globe as Best Actress, her third in a Musical or Comedy, and the film itself was nominated for three Oscars. Natalie Wood and Karl Malden co-star. The immortal score includes "Everything Is Coming Up Roses", "Let Me Entertain You" and "Rose's Turn" which Russell performs in spectacular fashion. Ann-Margret burst onto the scene as Bette Davis' convent-educated daughter in Pocketful of Miracles but audiences really took note of her at the 1961 Oscars in March of 1962 when she sang the nominated title song from Bachelor in Paradise in provocative fashion. She had a starring role later that year in the remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein's State Fair opposite Pat Boone, but was relegated to playing the ingénue in the film version of Strouse and Adams' Bye Bye Birdie. To take advantage of her status as Hollywood's newest sex symbol, Columbia had the composers come up with a new title song which they then had Annie perform at the opening and end of the film provocatively, reminiscent of her Oscar appearance that had nothing to do with her character in the film. Though the film was an all-around success, that opening number is basically what people still remember about the film which stars Janet Leigh and Dick Van Dyke and includes such songs as "Put on a Happy Face" and "One Boy". 1964 was a good year for movie musicals. Ann-Margret teamed with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas,The Beatles proved charming naturalistic actors playing themselves in A Hard Day's Night and Debbie Reynolds won a richly deserved Oscar nomination for Meredith Willson's The Unsinkable Molly Brown, but the most anticipated musical that year was Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady. Jack Warner's dream cast for his pet project film version of My Fair Lady included Cary Grant as Henry Higgins, Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle and James Cagney as Alfred Doolittle. He got Hepburn, but Cagney declined and Grant went a step further, telling the producer that not only would he not play Higgins, but if anyone other than Rex Harrison played the part he wouldn't go to see it. Warner took Grant's advice and cast Harrison as well as veteran character actor Stanley Holloway who originated the role of Eliza's father in the Broadway production. Gladys Cooper replaced Broadway's Cathleen Nesbitt as Harrison's mother, overtime on the film necessitating her dropping out of the screen version of her own Broadway triumph, The Chalk Garden, in which she was replaced by Edith Evans who played the part in London. Both Evans and Cooper were nominated for Supporting Actress Oscars. My Fair Lady was nominated for a total of 12 Oscars, including Best Picture, Director (George Cukor), Actor (Harrison) and Supporting Actor (Holloway). It won 8 including Best Picture, Director and Actor. Ironically, the film's biggest draw, Hepburn, wasn't even nominated. Julie Andrews, who Warner snubbed for having no film experience, won for her performance in the year's other big hit musical, Mary Poppins. Disney's most honored film, Mary Poppins beat My Fair Lady by one nomination, garnering 13 nods, eventually winning five. Dick Van Dyke, Glynis Johns, David Tomlinson, Elsa Lanchester, Hermione Baddeley and Jane Darwell were among the players surrounding Andrews as the perfect nanny. The score includes "A Spoonful of Sugar", "Feed the Birds" and the Oscar winning "Chim chim Cher-ee". Helping to secure Andrews' Oscar was the release of The Sound of Music in which she also starred, during awards season. The most successful film of all time until Jaws came along ten years later, the last Rodgers & Hammerstein musical was also the last to hit the big screen. Andrews' irresistible performance as the postulant nun-turned-governess-turned-wife and stepmother, the gorgeous cinematography and a score that included "My Favorite Things", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" and the title song were the chief reasons for its immediate, as well as its continuing, popularity. The film was nominated for ten Oscars including Best Picture, Director (Robert Wise), Actress (Andrews) and Supporting Actress (Peggy Wood). It won five including Best Picture and Director. My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music have been released numerous times on home video, the most recent DVD editions of each being the most pristine. Avoid at all costs any VHS version of My Fair Lady as well as the first laserdisc pressing, all of which are quite hideous. In the wake of these mega-hits came disappointing film versions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, How to Succceed in Business Without Really Trying, Half a Sixpence and Camelot as well as a spate of lackluster original musicals such as Thoroughly Modcern Millie e and Doctor Dolittle. The one interesting film musical released between The Sound of Music and Funny Girl and Oliver! four years later, was The Happiest Millionaire. The last film personally supervised by Walt Disney, The Happiest Millionaire was based on a non-musical Broadway play about the early life of heiress Cordelia Biddle Duke. The film had an eclectic cast headed by Fred MacMurray, Tommy Steele, Greer Garson, Gladys Cooper, Geraldine Page, Lesley Ann Warren and John Davidson, and a score by the Sherman Brothers, the composers of Mary Poppins. Highlights of the score include "Fortuosity", "We Are Dancing", "I'll Always Be Irish" and "There Are Those", a counterpoint of waspish one-upmanship sung by Cooper and Page. If Julie Andrews' phenomenal success in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music came as a surprise, the success of Barbra Streisand in Jule Styne and Bob Merrill's Funny Girl was highly anticipated. She was, after all, reprising her portrayal of Fanny Brice in the film version of the highly successful Broadway musical. The film was nominated for 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Actress and Supporting Actress (Kay Medford), but won only one, Streisand as Best Actress, an award she had to share with Katharine Hepburn, who won her third for The Lion in Winter. Even more successful was the beautifully imagined film version of Lionel Bart's Oliver! The film was nominated for ten Oscars including Best Picture, Director (Carol Reed), Actor (Ron Moody) and Supporting Actor (Jack Wild). It won six including Best Picture, Director and an honorary award for choreographer Onna White. Also released in 1968 were a long overdue screen adaptation of Finian's Rainbow which proved to be Fred Astaire's last musical, and a biography of Gertrude Lawrence with Julie Andrews called Star! Both were enjoyable, but ultimately disappointing. The next few years brought an onslaught of Broadway adaptations including Hello, Dolly!, Paint Your Wagon, Oh! What a Lovely War and Sweet Charity (all 1969), On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), and Fiddler on the Roof and The Boy Friend (1971) as well as two originals that were eventually adapted for the stage, 1969's Goodbye, Mr. Chips and 1970's Scrooge. All have something to recommend them. Kander & Ebb's Cabaret, which arrived in early 1972, is arguably the last great movie musical to date. The film of the Tony Award-winning musical jettisons much of the libretto of the stage version and goes back to Christopher Isherwood's source novel, I Am a Camera. The brilliant mix of personal tragedy, on-coming national and international tragedy and ever-present music is unforgettable. The film was nominated for ten Oscars including Best Picture, Director (Bob Fosse), Actress (Liza Minnelli) and Supporting Actor (Joel Grey). It won eight, missing only two biggies, Best Picture and Screenplay. Two other high profile musicals were released the same year. The film version of 1776, which I discussed at some length in July, is a superb stage-to-screen transfer. Man of La Mancha, on the other hand, is a dreary, misguided mishmash. That, combined with 1974's dreadful screen version of Mame and 1978's equally dreadful screen version of A Little Night Music, ended the era of bigger-than-life film versions of Broadway musicals for decades. Sporadic original musicals such as 1981's Victor/Victoria and several animated Disney features were to come along, but it wasn't until 1996's Evita that another attempt was made to transfer a successful stage musical to the screen. It wasn't enough to revive the genre, but 2002's Oscar winning Chicago gave fans of the genre some hope of resurgence. I will have more on post-1977 musicals next month when Sweeney Todd opens theatrically. -Peter J. Patrick (November 6, 2007) |
Buy on DVD! |
- ©1996-2010 - Written content and Logos are copyrighted by Wesley Lovell
- © ® ™ Academy Award(s), Oscar(s) and the Oscar statuette are registered trademarks and service marks of A.M.P.A.S.
- © Film images are copyrighted by the individual studios