Singin in the Rain on DVD
By Jim Bray
What a Glorious DVD!
Warner Brothers has given this classic musical a wonderful deluxe
Special Edition DVD treatment and its terrific in almost every way.
Gene Kelly and Donald OConnor star as a pair of silent movie
types learning to cope with (and exploit) the advent of movie sound, with a
young and luminous Debbie Reynolds as an up and coming performer who becomes
the object of Kellys affection and the source of his co-stars (Jean
Hagen) angst. The title song and OConnors Make em
Laugh number are worth the price of admission alone.
Its a witty script lovingly filmed and featuring exuberant
performances all around, especially the three stars and Hagen (whose role as
the screechy-voiced starlet is highly thankless and highly entertaining). The
songs and dances are wonderful, too, and it isnt hard to see why this
movie is considered one of the all time great movie musicals.
Its also a fun insider look at Hollywood during
that time of transition.
But its as a DVD that this particular release shines. In
2002, Warner Brothers restored the film digitally using, according to the box,
state-of-the-art elements - and it shows. The picture is magnificently
glorious. I love the look of the old Technicolor features, and it positively
shines in this new transfer.
Alas, it isnt anamorphic widescreen, so owners of 16x9
TVs will have to stretch and/or zoom the picture to fit their rectangular
screens, but thats okay because instead of the movie being
Panned&Scanned, or cropped its shown in its original 4x3 composition.
Widescreen TV owners will lose a little resolution, unfortunately, but the
restoration is so good that you wont mind too much - and better to live
with that than to have the movie compromised.
Audio is billed as Dolby Digital 5.1 and while theres a hint
of surround very, very occasionally, its really straight monaural - but
thats how the film was originally recorded and that makes it tolerable in
this age of surround effects. Audio quality is pretty good all things
considered, though I wonder how it would have sounded if theyd managed to
re-record the orchestra. Possibly that would have been difficult, though, since
there are so many vocals that couldnt be re-recorded.
Anyway, for what they had to work with, they did a wonderful
job.
The two disc set is also chock full of interesting extras. Disc
one includes a great gang commentary hosted by Debbie Reynolds and
featuring Donald OConnor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, co-director
Stanley Donen, screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, filmmaker Baz
Luhrmann (who made Moulin Rouge), and
author/film historian Rudy Behlmer. They combine to give some great insight and
some terrific anecdotes about the movie.
The studio has also included "What a Glorious Feeling," a new
documentary about the film's making and its impact; its very good. Even
better is Musicals Great Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit at MGM, a
full length documentary about the career of producer-songwriter Arthur
Freed
And theres some interesting stuff you dont normally
get to see, such as scoring session music cues, an outtake of Reynolds doing
You Are My Lucky Star, and some excerpts from other movies in which
Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown songs (including the title song)
originated.
You also get a stills gallery and the theatrical trailer.
Well done, Warners. Id love to see many more of these
special Special Editions coming.
Singin in the Rain, from Warner Home Video
103 min. full screen (not 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital 5.1
Starring Gene Kelly, Donald OConnor, Debbie Reynolds
Produced by Arthur Freed,
Written by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley
Donen
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