Notícias

New superlatives are needed to express just how good is this wonderful Americana musical from the 1950s boom years. The Broadway creator tapped Hollywood’s most qualified (and creative) director of musicals for the stage to screen conversion, retaining much of the original New York talent. Doris Day is a sensation as Babe Williams, whose romantic and labor problems play out at a sleepwear factory. The color design is a delight, every song is a keeper, and the talent on view makes one want to clap, sixty-five years later.

The Pajama Game

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1957 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date January 26, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Doris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy Jr., Reta Shaw, Barbara Nichols, Thelma Pelish, Jack Straw.

Cinematography: Harry Stradling Sr.

Film Editor: William H. Ziegler

Art Direction: Malcolm C. Bert

Choreography: Bob Fosse

Musical Supervision: Ray Heindorf

Songs by: Richard Adler,...

A bigger and brighter film debut couldn’t be imagined … Doris Day became America’s sweetheart in Michael Curtiz’s peppy production, graced with a witty script and several catchy, radio-ready song hits. And the color is better than new in this impressive Blu-ray remastering job — Woody Bredell’s Technicolor hues are literally eye-popping. It’s great fun seeing Ms. Day invent her natural, fresh-faced screen persona right before our eyes.

Romance on the High Seas

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1948 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 99 min. / It’s Magic / Street Date June 16, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Doris Day, Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Don DeFore, Oscar Levant, S.Z. Sakall, Fortunio Bonanova, Eric Blore, Franklin Pangborn, Sir Lancelot, Barbara Bates, George N. Neise, Maila Nurmi, Grady Sutton.

Cinematography: Elwood Bredell

Film Editor: Rudi Fehr

Art Direction: Anton Grot

Special Effects: Robert Burks, Wilfrid M. Cline, David Curtiz

Original Music: Ray Heindorf, Oscar Levant

Written by Julius J. Epstein,...

Hollywood’s allure, insatiable ambition, and the price of fame are at the center of one of the most oft-told stories in show-biz history: “A Star Is Born.” The latest edition, with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, is the fourth to be made, and the third to be music-centric. Variety has already written many articles about that one, which is released today — read Owen Gleiberman’s review here — but how do the previous renditions stack up?

1937

Producer David O. Selznick’s original rendering won Oscars for its cinematography and its original story. While the story was written by director William A. Wellman and novelist Robert Carson, many of its sharpest and most cutting lines are believed to have been penned by famed writer Dorothy Parker and husband Alan Campbell (who were nominated in a separate Oscar category but didn’t win).

Janet Gaynor played Esther Blodgett-turned-Vicki Lester, a starry-eyed...

As a musical it’s excellent — fine tunes and lyrics, great singing and dancing by the ever-youthful Fred Astaire, the glorious songbird Petula Clark, and the impishly weird Tommy Steele cast appropriately as a grimacing Leprechaun. The update of what was a politically acute Broadway hit in 1947 is awkward but the show is a melodious pleasure — great color, fine voices and peppy direction by Francis Ford Coppola on his first big studio feature.

Finian’s Rainbow

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 145 141 min. / Street Date March 7, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Tommy Steele, Don Francks, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Hancock, Al Freeman Jr., Ronald Colby, Dolph Sweet, Wright King, Louis Silas.

Cinematography: Philip Lathrop

Film Editor: Melvin Shapiro

Original Music: Ray Heindorf

Written by E.Y. Harburg, Fred Saidy

Produced by Joseph Landon

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Finian’s Rainbow is a unique musical with a strange history.

Royal Albert Hall, London

For those of us who know our musicals from DVDs and Christmas TV, John Wilson's Hollywood Prom delivered a pleasurable shock. His orchestra, with its nine-piece percussion section and full-blown jazz big band, blasted out a surround-sound version of music that is usually squeezed through the tiny speakers of a telly.

Without the tap dances, chorus girls and (often flimsy) plots, the music had to stand up for itself. Wilson, who has brought a passion for authentic performance to movie soundtracks, shone a glittering spotlight on arrangers such as Ray Heindorf, Conrad Salinger and Lloyd "Skip" Martin. They were Hollywood's invisible men, who toiled behind the tinsel to stretch three-minute ditties into extended suites (This Heart of Mine) or craft subtle tone poems that became huge hits (Secret Love, sung beautifully by Clare Teal).

A tag team of vocalists interpreted familiar songs from movies made between...