The DVD Report #49

Nominated for eight Academy Awards and winner of two, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood was rightly last year’s most talked about film. The film version of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil! deserved more than the measly two Oscars it won for Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of oil man Daniel Plainview and Robert Elswit’s rich cinematography, but at least it won those.

On the surface it’s a film about good vs. evil with evil seeming to win out in Plainview’s dealings with preacher Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano. Beneath the surface, however, it’s a multi-layered study of the morally repugnant Plainview who succeeds at business but fails at everything else including his complex relationship with his son, H.W., played by Dillon Freasier. The final confrontation between Plainview and his adult son (played by Russell Harvard) is the most emotionally complex in the entire film, so much so that the film’s final scene seems unnecessary.

The voice Day-Lewis employs for his character has been much compared to the one John Huston uses for his duplicitous character in Chinatown. I think it resembles more John’s father, Walter Huston, particularly the voice he uses in his last film, The Furies, in which he plays a similarly-evil character who destroys everything around him including his relationships with his two grown children.

Voices, funny voices, are front and center in Alvin and the Chipmunks, directed by Tim Hill, an update of the old TV cartoon series about the singing chipmunks. I’d like to provide a review but I really don’t know what to say about it. It’s neither good enough to recommend nor bad enough to warn against. Let’s just say it’s “cute” and leave it at that.

Warner Bros. continues to provide fans of old films with their money’s worth. Their latest compilation, Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory, Vol. 3,consists of nine MGM musicals produced over a 21 year period. The films included in this set, out today, are 1935’s Broadway Melody of 1936, 1936’s Born to Dance, 1937’s Broadway Melody of 1938, 1941’s Lady Be Good, 1950’s Nancy Goes to Rio and Two Weeks With Love, 1954’s Deep in My Heart,and 1955’s Hit the Deck and Kismet.

The first four films in the collection star Eleanor Powell, while the next four star the non-related Jane Powell. Howard Keel, Janie’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers co-star, has the lead in the ninth. All have been re-mastered, the last five in color, the last three with Dolby Digital 5.1 stereophonic sound. As is typical of Warner Bros. classic releases, all contains generous extras including Robert Osborne’s extremely engaging 1995 TCM interview with Jane Powell on the Two Weeks With Love disc.

Nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, Roy Del Ruth’s Broadway Melody of 1936 was MGM’s re-entry into the musical genre after a lapse of several years. Presented mainly as a showcase for tap dancing queen Eleanor Powell, it is the most comedic of the Broadway Melody films as well as one of the best scored. It introduced three songs most people now remember from 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain: “Broadway Rhythm”, “You Are My Lucky Star” and “I’ve Got a Felling You’re Fooling”, the latter winning the Oscar for Best Dance Direction. Robert Taylor (he sings!), Jack Benny (he jokes!), Una Merkel and Buddy Ebsen (they sing, dance and joke!) co-star.

Eleanor, Una and Buddy are back, joined by a singing-and-dancing James Stewart in Roy Del Ruth’s next musical, Born to Dance, nominated for two Oscars including one for Cole Porter’s immortal “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, nominated for Best Song. The other well remembered song from Porter’s score is “Easy to Love” which even non-singer Stewart manages to get through without embarrassing himself. The same can’t be said for his cloddish dancing, however.

Though Eleanor and Robert Taylor are the stars of Roy Del Ruth’s Broadway Melody of 1938, the film is best remembered for feature player Judy Garland’s showcase tribute to Clark Gable, “Dear Mr. Gable”. A second highlight is Sophie Tucker’s rendering of her signature tune, “Some of These Days”. Not bad, but got quite at the same level as the other Broadway Melody films, especially those of 1936 and 1940. George Murphy, Binnie Barnes and Buddy Ebsen co-star.

The Oscar-winning “The Last Time I Saw Paris” by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, as sung by Ann Sothern, is the highlight of Norman Z. McLeod’s Lady Be Good. A rather lackluster story about the marital problems of songwriters Sothern and Robert Young provides the backdrop for this film in which Eleanor gets top billing but has little to do outside of her three tap routines. Red Skelton, Virginia O’Brien, Dan Dailey and Lionel Barrymore co-star.

Goodbye, Eleanor, hello Janie! With Eleanor now married to Glenn Ford and retired, and Dick Powell no longer singing on film, MGM decided it was time for another Powell, Jane, so named after the character she played in her first film, 1944’s Song of the Open Road.

A remake of the Deanna Durbin-Kay Francis musical, It’s a Date, Robert Z. Leonard’s
Nancy Goes to Rio was an amiable showcase for both Janie and Ann Sothern, who plays her actress mother unwittingly competing for the same man. Powell gets top billing in print ads and the trailer, but Sothern gets top billing in the opening credits. Not surprisingly, Carmen Miranda almost steals the show in support. Barry Sullivan, Louis Calhern and Scotty Beckett co-star.

A charming turn-of-the-last-century look at family dynamics, Roy Rowland’s Two Weeks With Love was allegedly Janie’s favorite film despite the fact that it is all but stolen by 18-year-old Debbie Reynolds as her younger sister. Debbie’s “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” singing and dancing duet with Carlton Carpenter is the highlight of the film which also stars Ricardo Montalban and, direct from their joint triumph in The Magnificent Yankee, the estimable Louis Calhern and Ann Harding.

The last, and arguably the best, of MGM’s composer bios, Stanley Donen’s Deep in My Heart benefitted greatly from a strong performance by Jose Ferrer as composer Sigmond Romberg. It featured a simple, but credible life story and those glorious melodies (“When I Grow Too Old to Dream” and “Seranade” from The Student Prince, as well as songs from Desert Song, New Moon and Maytime) sung by some of MGM’s brightest stars including Jane Powell, Vic Damone, Gene Kelly, Rosemary Clooney, Helen Traubel, Howard Keel, Tony Martin, Ann Miller and others. Merle Oberon and Doe Avedon co-star.

The play Shore Leave, filmed straight in 1925, was the basis for two musicals, Vincent Youmans’ Hit the Deck, filmed in 1930, and Irving Berlin’s Follow the Fleet, written directly for the screen in 1936. MGM revived the Youmans version in 1955, embellishing it with additional songs from Youmans’ canon. Directed by Roy Rowland, it was Janie’s last film for MGM. She, Debbie Reynolds and Ann Miller are the girls involved with sailors Vic Damone, Russ Tamblyn and Tony Martin, respectively. Walter Pidgeon is Janie’s father, the admiral. Kay Armen, J. Carroll Naish and Jane Darwell co-star. Shout “Hallelujah!”

The venerable Arabian Nights play Kismet has been filmed many times beginning in 1914. The most famous version came in 1944 directed by William Dieterle with Ronald Colman as Hajj the beggar and Marlene Dietrich as the seductress Lalume, wife of the dastardly Wazir. Music and lyrics were added for the 1953 Broadway musical version of Kismet by Robert Wright and George Forrest based on themes of Alexander Borodin with Alfred Drake as Hajj, Doretta Morrow as his lovely daughter Marsinah and Richard Kiley as the young, romantic Caliph who falls in love with Marsinah.

Howard Keel, who successfully played Drake’s role in the film version of Kiss Me, Kate, was given Drake’s role in Vincente Minnelli’s film with Ann Blyth as Marsinah, Dolores Gray as Lalume and Vic Damone as the Caliph. Rounding out the cast were Jay C. Flippen and Monty Woolley in his last film.

MGM spared no expense in its eye-popping presentation of such well-remembered songs as “Night of My Nights”, “Not Since Nineveh”, “Baubles, Bangles and Beads”, “Stranger in Paradise” and “The Olive Tree”. It’s definitely worth seeing at least once as are all the films in this collection.

Next week I take a look back at the films of 1958.

-Peter J. Patrick (April 8, 2008)