Universal Musicals

[mntwister]

Hello. I am hoping to find out just what interest there is in movie musicals on dvd. I have been nagging Universal for some time now to release THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE with Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, Beatrice Lillie and Mary Tyler Moore (what a cast). The time has never been better, the musical is now on Broadway and just walked away with most musical Tony's including Best Musical. Yet Universal does not seem to give much attention to their pre-1980 catalog titles unless they are Frankenstein or Hitchcock. Other musicals like FLOWER DRUM SONG (the only yet unreleased Rogers and Hammerstein film), SWEET CHARITY, ect...remain unreleased, and have awful transfers on VHS (which no one wants anyway at this point). Other musicals from Universal, PIRATES OF PENZANCE, BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS (a stereo version for the first time PLEASE),ect...also remain unreleased.

Thanks for writing, and you can go to Universalstudios.com and click "contact us" on the top bar and then dvd dept, and write them with these requests..the more the better chance they will pay attention to their great catalog titles instead of liscensing them to GOODTIMES.

Rob

[Hendrik]

...ahh... Star is Fox... Hit The Deck (the 1955, CinemaScope version) is MGM (and would therefore now be in the hands of WB)... to name just two musicals of those listed in your poll that are definitely not from Universal... perhaps you should delete "Universal" from this thread's heading - yes? - no?...

...otoh One Touch Of Venus (1948), starring the lovely Ava Gardner and featuring the music of Kurt Weill, is indeed a Universal film...

...also, slyly including Song Of The South (which, unless you've been living on the moon, you should know will not appear on DVD in these too, too PC times!), as I started out to say in my usual, long-winded manner, including this title under the heading "Musicals" is stretching things a bit - yes? - No?...

(signed) Passing Pedant

. . . . . .

[fischerj]

La Mancha!

My destiny calls and I go...

[BubbleGumUK]

Not only is PETE'S DRAGON a Disney movie, but it's also already out in a pretty cool restored edition, with a few extras.

I WANT Altman/Williams' POPEYE (1980)!!!!!

[LeonardShelby]

I would love an SE of West Side Story (MGM). I also wouldn't puke at the thought of a real nice SE of "Singin' in the Rain" (also MGM I believe).

Seems many of the older classics usually don't have much in the way of extras for obvious reasons...but how great would some footage of Bernstein directing the orchestra in the studio during the making of West Side Story be? Its actually too bad that they don't take advantage of the "still living" stars of some of these classics for the DVD releases. I'd love to hear Rita Moreno and some of the other members of the WSS cast do some commentary on the making of the film. The studios should really start taking better advantage of these situations before its too late and the memories die along with the stars.

Could you imagine if Hitchcock were alive now...getting him to do commentary for his films...there's something I wouldn't mind paying top dollar for...

Sorry to go OT there for a minute...just a film buff dreaming.

[mntwister]

Ok dvd fans, I originally wrote the post thinking I was going to discuss only Universal musicals, then saw a poll available so I added other studios. How about some comments on the musicals you would like to see released rather than the criticism? Thanks all for posting to my question. ps: I don't know how to change the title of the poll Hendrik

[mntwister]

I consider any movie where actual singing is done in a musical fashion a musical which is why I added Song of the South but I understand your view on the subject. Also I goofed when adding Pete's Dragon, it is available. An interesting notation on Song of the South, of all the musicals I listed so far it has the most votes. With all of the sex and violence in film today, it really seems sad that Disney has taken the approach they have on Song of the South, which is really tame as a film. It would seem Disney would oppose any film with a minority as a household servent then?

I do have an inside contact at Universal who is the one that told me to get people to write in for its release, and interestly enough, I talked to him today and things look good, they have been awamped with requests since the new musical play of the film won the Tony Award for best musical. Hope it will be a special edition.

Regarding one other comment regarding the lack of materials for special editions of these films...my belief (and it's only my opinion) is that the material does exist, but as you can see by how many classic musicals are yet unavailable, the studios don't think it worth the time to find this material. When they make up their minds to do it, we get such wonderful special editions as SOUND OF MUSIC and even BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS. Too bad Hollywood doesn't think enough of a major movie catagory to treat it as special as these releases. I think more effort went into CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC restoration than some that are available hehe. Also, THE SOUND OF MUSIC had 2 cut scenes recently shown on an E special, plus other rare material that was not on the dvd. They could still have added more, well maybe in 2005 for the 40th anniversary in HDTV DVD? We can only hope so!

You will notice I did not add GREASE...only because I wanted to see which of the other musicals got more votes, we all want GREASE!

Thanks
Rob