Donen, Stanley

Singin' in the Rain (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Decades before the Hollywood film industry became famous for megabudget disaster and science fiction spectaculars, the studios of Southern California (and particularly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were renowned for a uniquely American (and nearly extinct) kind of picture known as The Musical. Indeed, when the prestigious British film magazine Sight & Sound conducts its international critics poll in the second year of every decade, this 1952 MGM picture is the American musical that consistently ranks among the 10 best movies ever made. It's not only a great song-and-dance piece starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and a sprightly Debbie Reynolds; it's also an affectionately funny insider spoof about the film industry's uneasy transition from silent pictures to "talkies." Kelly plays debonair star Don Lockwood, whose leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) has a screechy voice hilariously ill-suited to the new technology (and her glamorous screen image). Among the musical highlights: O'Connor's knockout "Make 'Em Laugh"; the big "Broadway Melody" production number; and, best of all, that charming little title ditty in which Kelly makes movie magic on a drenched set with nothing but a few puddles, a lamppost, and an umbrella. --Jim Emerson

A Hollywood actor who has risen from vaudville to become a silent film star must make the difficult transition to sound.
Genre: Musicals
Rating: G
Release Date: 24-SEP-2002
Media Type: DVD

Essential Classics - American Musicals (The Music Man / Meet Me in St. Louis / Seven Brides for Seven Brothers)

Disc 1: THE MUSIC MAN Disc 2: MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS Disc 3: SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERSFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS UPC: 085391132851 Manufacturer No: 113285

This three-disc set, part of Warner's Essential Classics series, collects three truly classic films--The Music Man, Meet Me in St. Louis, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers--in one inexpensive package. The drawback is you don't get the second disc of either Meet Me in St. Louis or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, so if you're a featurette junky or if you simply have to see the reshot version of Seven Brides, you'll want to stick with the individual releases. But this set does include the commentary tracks and any other material that was on the first disc of those two-disc sets (The Music Man still has everything that was on the one-disc release), and best of all, they have the great remastered pictures of the previous releases. So if you just want the movies looking better than ever with some bonus features thrown in for good measure, the price per movie makes this set an attractive bargain. --David Horiuchi

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Well, bless my beautiful hide! Director Stanley Donen invests this rollicking musical with a hearty exuberance. Howard Keel, with his big-as-all-outdoors baritone, stars as a bold "mountain man" living in the Oregon woods who brings home a bride (plucky songbird soprano Jane Powell) to his six slovenly brothers. Taming the rambunctious brood, Jane proceeds to make gentlemen of them so they can woo sweethearts of their own. But old habits die hard: their flirting gives way to fighting in the film's celebrated barn-raising scene, a lively acrobatic dance number exuberantly choreographed by Michael Kidd. Big brother chimes in with his own brand of advice--an old-fashioned kidnapping! Donen manages to get away with such a politically incorrect plot by investing the boys with a innocent sweetness, most notably the youngest brother played with genial earnestness by Rusty (Russ) Tamblyn (pre-West Side Story). This modest production became a huge hit and remains one of MGM's best-loved musical comedies, an energetic, high-kicking classic. --Sean Axmaker

Howard Keel and Jane Powell are rapturous newlyweds who tame his six rowdy bachelor brothers in the wild Oregon backwoods in this Best Score Academy Award(R)-winning song-and-dance-filled comedy.

Funny Face (50th Anniversary Edition)

Fred Astaire plays a fashion photographer based on real-life cameraman Richard Avedon, in this entertaining musical directed by Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The story finds Astaire's character turning Audrey Hepburn into a chic Paris model--not a tough premise to buy, especially within this film's air of enchantment and surrounded by a great Gershwin score. Based on an unproduced play, this is one of the best films from the latter part of Astaire's career. --Tom Keogh

This filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical Funny Face utilizes the play's original star Fred Astaire and several of the original tunes then goes merrily off on its own. Astaire is cast as as fashion photographer Dick Avery (a character based on Richard Avedon the film's "visual consultant") who is sent out by his female boss Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) to find a "new face". It doesn't take Dick long to discover Jo (Audrey Hepburn who does her own singing) an owlish Greenwich Village bookstore clerk. Acting as Pygmalion to Jo's Galatea Dick whisks the wide-eyed girl off to Paris and transforms her into the fashion world's hottest model. Along the way he falls in love with Jo and works overtime to wean her away from such phony-baloney intellectuals as Professor Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair). The Gershwin tunes include the title song "S'wonderful" "How Long Has This Been Going On" and "He Loves and She Loves"; among the newer numbers is Kay Thompson's energetic opener "Think Pink". For years available only in washed-out flat prints Funny Face was eventually restored to its full Technicolor and VistaVision glory.System Requirements:Running Time: 103 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 097361308449 Manufacturer No: 130844

Damn Yankees

Starring the original Broadway cast this is the musical adaptation of the novel "The Year The Yankees Won The Pennant" with a score by Adler & Ross ("The Pajama Game") and choreography by Bob Fosse. Washington Senators fan Joe Boyd sells his soul to the devil Mr. Applegate to become the greatest baseball player ever and to help his favorite team win the pennant. However doing this means Joe must leave his beloved wife Meg and it's not easy on him. Whenever he poses as a boarder to get closer to her Applegate must enlist the help of his favorite seductive helper Lola. But not even Lola's charms can woo Joe. Soon she finds herself falling for him but pledges to be his friend. Joe and Applegate make a contract allowing him out of the deal at a certain time but the devil makes sure that Joe doesn't get out. When Lola finds out about this she slips him four sleeping pills so he can sleep through the game the next day allowing Joe to help the Senators win the pennant. However Satan awakes and after turning Lola into an old hag turns Joe back into an old man on the field who returns to his wife.Running Time: 110 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 085393197025

America's pastime gets a Faustian twist in this 1958 studio musical, which recounts the ballpark bargain struck by an aging Washington Senators fan obsessed with helping his team trump the Yanks. With echoes of the real-life 1919 Shoeless Joe Jackson scandal, and tart observations on the tradeoffs between youth and experience, Damn Yankees fuses a classic dramatic dilemma with musical comedy to often charming effect.

In transferring George Abbott's Broadway hit to the screen, codirectors Abbott and Stanley Donen are smart enough to retain Richard Adler and Jerry Ross's clever songs, Bob Fosse's sizzling choreography (with Fosse himself on camera for the sultry mambo number), and stars Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon, reprising their devilish turns as the Horned One himself, Mr. Applegate, and his temptress, Lola. Where the team strikes out, unfortunately, is in their concession to marquee politics, handing the pivotal role of Joe Hardy to handsome, vapid, celluloid heartthrob Tab Hunter, whose thin voice and unsteady screen presence argue that he should have stayed in the dugout.

Walston is reliably spry and acerbic as the canny archangel, and Verdon, in one of her rare starring screen turns, confirms the comedic timing and sexy, muscular grace that made her a deserved draw in subsequent stage hits including another Fosse triumph, Sweet Charity. With her combination of feline grace and alternately steely, flirtatious femininity, Verdon makes you believe her when she sings, "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets." --Sam Sutherland

The Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly Collection (On the Town / Anchors Aweigh / Take Me out to the Ball Game)

Includes On the Town Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Anchors Aweigh.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/CLASSICS Rating: NR UPC: 883929011926 Manufacturer No: 1000037406

Blame It On Rio

Welcome to the most exciting and sensual city in the world Rio de Janeiro! The "ultimate naughtiness" (Vogue) of Brazil's hottest town is captured in this "wild and wacky, zany screwball romantic comedy" (Los Angeles) with a red-hot cast that includes Michael Caine (The Cider HouseRules), Joseph Bologna (Big Daddy), Michelle Johnson (The Glimmer Man) and Demi Moore (Ghost).Upon arriving in exotic Rio, longtime friends Matthew (Caine) and Victor (Bologna) and their teenage daughters (Moore & Johnson) barely unpack before this infamous pleasure spot begins to cast its torrid spell. Matthew quickly succumbs to Cupid's arrow, but when guilt gets the better of this married man, he vows to end the affair and keep it a secret even from Victor. But as his white lies grow, so does his libido, and Matthew continues his indiscretions until his wife shows up!

Two for the Road

Best known for light, entertaining musicals such as Singin' in the Rain, director Stanley Donen grew more adventurous (and less successful) in the latter stages of his career, but this edgy romantic comedy from 1967 has proven to be one of Donen's best, most enduring films. Jumping back in forth in time, the film chronicles the marital ups and downs of a stylish British couple (Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn) as they travel on various vacations over the course of their 12-year marriage. The separate vignettes combine to form a collage of joys and pains as the young couple struggles to maintain their fading marital bliss. In this regard, the film is refreshingly sophisticated in its treatment of the difficulties of long-term commitment, and with Hepburn and Finney in the leads, great performances are drawn from the acerbic wit of Frederick Raphael's screenplay. Fashion mavens will also marvel at Hepburn's astonishing wardrobe of late-'60s fashion--she's a showcase for summer couture, looking fantastic in everything from candy-striped bellbottoms to hip sunglasses and outrageously stylish hats. Some of the melodrama clashes with forced comedy (such as tiresome running gags or a cartoonish portrayal of crass American tourists), but that doesn't stop Two for the Road from being timelessly appealing and truthful to the challenge of lasting love. --Jeff Shannon

On their third identical voyage from London to the Riviera, Joanna Wallace (Audrey Hepburn) and husband Mark (Albert Finney) explore their 12-year marriage in a series of wry and illuminating flashbacks. They reminisce about the glorious beginning of their love affair, the early years of marriage and the events that led to their subsequent infidelities. As they try to understand their relationship, they must accept how they have changed if they are to rekindle their original love.

The Pajama Game

This 1957 version of the Tony-winning Pajama Game is one of the finest film adaptations of a hit Broadway musical. The story is simple enough: Babe Williams, the head of a pajama company's grievance committee, falls for an exec--the new superintendent--Sid Sorokin (John Raitt). Doris Day, as Babe, has never been so efficiently cute. Raitt starred in the Broadway version, as did much of the film's cast (Day replaced original stage star Janis Paige). The Pajama Game is filled with recognizable, classic songs, done so well and danced so athletically that this musical can engage an action-film fan. Bob Fosse's trademark choreography shines.

Check out two numbers danced by the late, underused, and underrated Carol Haney, who performs amazing feats for "Steam Heat" and "Hernando's Hideaway." Both Day and Raitt deliver lovely renditions of "Hey There." They're also supported by a great cast that includes, in addition to Haney, a slyly coy Reta Shaw and a dynamic Eddie Foy Jr. --N.F. Mendoza

Labor and management at the Sleeptite Pajama Factory aren't getting much sleep lately: a proposed 7-1/2-cent hourly wage increase is the reason and a job action just may be the result. But not to worry: negotiating strategies here involve snappy stars terrific tunes and dynamic dances all part of one of the most infectiously joyful stage/screen musicals ever. Doris Day and a Broadway-seasoned supporting cast play The Pajama Game the lighthearted nimble-footed movie that whips the unlikely musical-comedy subject of a labor/management dispute into a buoyant romantic delight. Day is Babe Williams head of the employees' grievance committee who strikes sparks with shop superintendent Sid Sorokin (John Raitt in his only opportunity to play on of his stage triumph on film). And where there are spark "Steam Heat" results. For the songs by Damn Yankees duo Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and the choreography by Bob Fosse (Cabaret Sweet Charity) are too combustible to pass up all under the direction of two musical masters of stage and screen George Abbott and Stanley Donen. Besides "Steam Heat" (showcasing the quirky brilliance of dancer Carol Haney) catch "Hey There" "I'm Not at All in Love" "Hernando's Hideaway" "Small Talk" "Once-a-Year Day" "There Once Was a Man" and other all-time greats.Running Time: 101 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS UPC: 012569705999

Bedazzled

When the Devil (Peter Cook) offers suicidal short-order cook Stanley (Dudley Moore) seven wishes, Stanley easily surrenders his soul. All of his wishes are granted, to the letter. Unfortunately, as each wish comes to life, the Devil--cheeky sod!--manages to slip some unexpected problem into the mix, ruining everything in a deliciously funny way. Bedazzled was made long before 10 and Arthur made Dudley Moore an unlikely movie star. It's a much purer expression of the off-kilter British humor that Moore and his writing partner Cook pioneered, humor that would lead to Monty Python's Flying Circus and other absurdist goofballs. Moore is charming enough, but what really makes Bedazzled work is Cook, who combines upper-class arrogance with a cheerful, even casual lunacy. Though he played character roles in movies like The Princess Bride and Black Beauty, he was never able to parlay his sneaky sense of humor into starring roles. Bedazzled is his outstanding triumph. Not only does the movie offer some sly commentary on Christian morality, it has a cameo with Raquel Welch as the embodiment of Lust. A classic. --Bret Fetzer

Stanley (Moore) is a hapless short-order cook who is hopelessly in love with a waitress named Margaret (Eleanor Bron) - although she barely knows he's alive. Enter George Spiggott (Cook), a.k.a. Satan, who grants Stanley seven wishes in order to win Margaret over, but his efforts are hilariously hampered by the Seven Deadly Sins - including the insatiable Lilian Lust (Raquel Welch)!