Musical Fans (1 Viewer)

[Brook K]

Definitely will buy Broadway Melody of 1940 but still waiting on Yankee Doodle Dandy, Footlight Parade, Swing Time, and Golddiggers.

Also would love Meet Me In St. Louis, Lil Abner, and remasters of South Pacific and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

 

[Brian Kidd]

I just want a DVD of SWEENEY TODD before the video master goes bye-bye. My VHS is still in great shape, but for how long?

 

[Mark Fontana]

Wouldn't it be great if KISS ME KATE were to have a field-sequential 3D version on it as well as the regular flat version? Also, let's hope this film is transferred from the recently restored elements including the 4-track mag soundtrack.

 

[jonathan_little]

Does anybody know if The Jolson Story (1946) is coming to DVD anytime soon? My granddad would like to see this one. He wrote a letter to Columbia-Tristar Home Video requesting it and they just responded with a list of places where he could buy CTHV releases.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I second the call for Sweeney Tood.

 

[John Gilmore]

I third the call for Sweeney Todd

According to the boards at sondheim.com the rights to the video release for Sweeney Todd reverted some time ago to Warners.

Hopefully, with the renewed interest in musicals that Chicago is generating, as well as the recent sucesses of the televised remakes of Annie and South Pacific (and, hopefully, The Music Man), Warners will see fit to bring this back.

 

[Greg_M]

Just to keep track, "CHICAGO" opens wide this month and is already doing excellent business in theaters in select cities. As a results some of the studios have announced a batch of musical promotions:
Universal Sweet Charity/Thoroughly Modern Millie/Best little Whorehouse/Blue Skies/Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court/Benny Goodman Story/Glenn Miller Story)
MGM/UA West Side Story/A Chorus Line/ plus a bunch of 80's musicals (Beat Street, Absolute Beginners) :star: although where is "Man of La Mancha" ??? which is currently playing Broadway
Warner (Cole Porter musicals: Kiss me Kate (Flat)/Silk Stockings/Les Girls/Broadway melody of 1940/High Society/Gay Puree
Columbia : Pennies From Heaven
FOX has been dangling "All That Jazz" under the noses of HTF members for a few years now, but has said it will appear when "Chicago" does.
That leaves Paramount. Last fall they gave us the 80's dance films but so far no real musicals (Grease excepted)
"Li'l Abner"
"Half a Sixpence"
"On a Clear Day You Can See Forever"
"Oh What a Lovely War"
"Darling Lili"
"Scrooge"
"The Little Prince"
This May they are releasing 8 more westerns, it would be great to see a musical promotion. Maybe if "Chicago" wins the "Best Picture" Oscar....

 

[Thomas T]

To your list of Paramount musicals in limbo, you can add the underrated 1956 version of Anything Goes with Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor and Mitzi Gaynor.

 

[Joe Caps]

Since we are asking Parmaount for On a Clear Day - please remix the songs for stereo - Miss Streisand kept the master music tracks MINUS that awful album reverb. These certainly can be used.
Please Please do Half a Sixpence - or at least rerelease that damn VHS with the stereo track found in 1993!!!

 

[Kelly V]

Does anyone kjnow about a great musical about the life and music of Jerome Kern - I believe the title is actually The Jerome Kern Story and it has some great performances in it, including a nightclub scene with Van Johnson and a big "movie musical" medly finish featuring Frank Sinatra in a very rare performance of "Old Man River" that sends chills up your spine! I don't know who the studio is, but I would pay anything to have this on DVD.
I second all of the titles listed before. Especially the "golden age" stuff. And a Big fourth for Sweeny Todd. It doesn't get better than that!

 

[Thomas T]

Kelly, the Jerome Kern biography you are referring to is the 1946 MGM film, Till The Clouds Roll By. As part of the early MGM library, the rights have reverted to Warners but for some reason this is one of several MGM titles that went public domain and you can find Till The Clouds Rolly By, Royal Wedding, The Last Time I Saw Paris and Father's Little Dividend all on DVD in public domain copies but I can't vouch for the quality of the pressings.

 

[Jefferson]

These public domain copies you mention are horrible quality prints. A friend was given a bunch of them for Christmas and we cringed our way through them. Even the title on one of the cases was wrong, renaming the movie "Till the Clouds Roll OVER", instead of "BY".
Gave me a giggle, anyway.

 

[Greg_M]

I'm just glad that MGM/UA is releasing it on DVD (and in Widescreen of course) but check out the cover art for "A Chorus Line" on DVD at Amazon.com This has to be the worst cover ever for any video. Talk about cheese! :p) The art looks like it was inspired by "Moulin Rogue" and makes the feature look like it should have been called "A Chorus Girl"

 

[Roger Rollins]

It's fitting that MGM created awful cover art for A CHORUS LINE. Truly one of the worst films ever made, only made even more horrible when one considers how great the stage original was.

 

[Rick Blaine]

I have seen

And Warners has added the animated musical "Gay Paree"

Several times in this thread.
It is GAY PURR-EE!
Yes, animated cats. Featuring the voice of Judy Garland.
Rick

 

[Thomas T]

A voice of dissent here, Mr. Rollins. A Chorus Line got a movie better than it deserved. Tony awards and Broadway-shows-can-do-no-wrong groupies aside, it ranks as one of the most overrated pieces of manipulative, sentimental and self serving cheese ever served on Broadway.
I used to think I was the only musical buff on the planet who felt this way but through the years I've met an amazing amount of theatre people who are less than enchanted with this musical than I ever thought possible.
Yes, the movie is schlock but the camera only exposes the rot that was disguised much better under a proscenium arch.

 

[Roger Rollins]

Thomas T, you may be right about the show....I am prejudiced by having seen it at NY's Public Theater, as a small show, with its original company, the people who helped create it. Before the hype.....

I never saw any subsequent stage companies or productions because that original experience, I knew, could not be duplicated. In the intervening years, I have had little interest in listening to the score, or seeing any other productions. So, perhaps indeed, the show itself is overrated.

That being said, I still maintain it has to be one of the worst films, no less musical films, ever made.