REVIEW: Broadway on the Big Screen 6-Film Collection

2 days ago 7

You gotta love Warner Archive. They find interesting, thematically linked titles and place them together on an affordable Blu-ray for fans and collectors alike. Among the February releases was this one, an assortment of film adaptations of1950s Broadway smashes, each with their pluses and minuses. Collected on Broadway on the Big Screen are Brigadoon (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955), The Pajama Game (1957), Damn Yankees (1958), Gypsy (1962), and the outlier The Boyfriend (1971). The latter alone makes this an intriguing set to own and watch.

For the record, the other sets now available feature Fred Astaire and Spencer Tracy.

Interestingly, two of these qualify as fantasies, as Brigadoon and Damn Yankees feature magical places and the devil himself. In the former, game hunters Tommy Albright (Gene Kelly) and Jeff Douglas (Van Johnson) encounter the magical town, which exists on our plane of existence once a century for just a day. It is also a wedding day, and the hunters are invited to the party where Tommy falls for the bride’s older sister, Fiona Campbell (Cyd Charisse).

In the latter, middle-aged Joe Boyd makes a deal with the devil, Applegate (Ray Walston), and is transformed into Joe Hardy (Tab Hunter), who joins the Yankees roster but is seduced by Lola (Gwen Verdon), forced to choose between his old life and a soulless one. The original production hasn’t aged particularly well, but Washington D.C.’s Arena theatre produced an updated revival that received terrific notices.

Richard Bissell’s 1953 novel 7½ Cents was turned into The Pajama Game a year later, which was quickly adapted for screens. Here, workers at the Sleeptite Pajama Factory unionize, led by Doris Day. She is confronted by the new superintendent, John Raitt, and of course, they fall in love. The workplace drama goes as one would expect.

Another prose adaptation is Guys and Dolls, turning Damon Runyon’s stories and colorful characters with their unique phraseology into a fun story, Here, cash-strapped gambler Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) best big time gambler Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) that he could not romance the woman of his choice: the Save-a-Soul Mission’s Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons) while Nathan’s seven-year fiancée (Vivian Blaine) pines.

The real-life Gypsy Rose Lee wrote a memoir of her life that became a best-seller, a smash Broadway show, and then a movie, starring the ultimate stage mother, Rosalind Russell, who badgers her daughter, Natalie Wood, into performing as a stripper back in the glory days of burlesque.

The outré director Ken Russell spanned the genres as he experimented with filmmaking and storytelling. Among his lesser-remembered works is The Boy Friend, a movie centered around the world’s most famous model of the day, Twiggy (these days perhaps best remembered only for a small role in The Blues Brothers). He chose a relatively obscure 1953 British musical (instrumental in introducing the world to Julie Andrews) about an understudy (Twiggy) thrust into the spotlight just when a Hollywood director was coming to see about adapting the musical into film. MGM cut 25 minutes from Russell’s finished film, and it went on to receive good notices and profitable box office receipts. Thankfully, the cut material was restored for the disc.

You see some wonderful performances and actors, like Walston, in their prime. You can see casting misfires (Brando, Twiggy) and errors (Russell is good but the part is owned by Ethel Merman). You also see musicals as sheer entertainment, mostly lacking the heavy themes from the Oscar & Hammerstein musicals from this era. There are strong themes, to be sure, but the strongest one here, nascent female empowerment, dissolves when the romance takes center stage. At worst, they are weaker than their stage versions and at their best, can transport you to other times and places.

The discs included here are all previous Blu-ray iterations, with excellent transfers that retain the bright colors of the day. The Boyfriend is the best of the lot. Warner thankfully remastered Brigadoon in 2005, with a new soundtrack and new extras.

Equally strong is the audio quality on each disc, which is particularly important for musicals.

Here is a breakdown of the special features per film:

Brigadoon

Deleted Scenes: Four musical numbers—“Come to Me, Bend to Me,” “From This Day On,” Sword Dance,” and “There for You Go I!”—that were cut prior to theatrical release.
Trailer (3:45)

Guys and Dolls

The Goldwyn Touch (23:54), focusing on the Sam Goldwyn approach to filmmaking
From Stage to Screen (26:41) explores the adaptation process, justifying the exclusion of some Broadway songs (which I miss)
Adelaide (00:51)
Brando Dance Lesson (1:34)
Goldwyn’s Career (2:38)
On the Set (1:12) Tom Mankiewicz discusses being a kid on the set as a kid
Rehearsing Adelaide (1:29)
Theatrical Trailer (SD; 4:53)

The Pajama Game

Song Selection – Jump
Deleted Musical Sequence (3:02) “The Man Who Invented Love”,
Theatrical Trailer (3:17)

Damn Yankees

Song Selection – Jump
US Theatrical Trailer (2:31)
UK Theatrical Trailer (2:32)

Gypsy

Songs: Thought lost, these cut songs were found via a private collector and restored: “Wherever We Go” (2:39) and “You Couldn’t Get Away From Me (3:37)
Trailer (3:36)

The Boy Friend