Easter Parade (Blu-ray)

This perennial charmer is as welcome every spring as the first brightly hued crocuses peeking through in the garden. Not mind you that Spring/Easter is the only appropriate time to view this film, it's gratifying year round. For me though it's linked to Easter from when I was growing up in the pre-cable years, when it was telecast annually on the CBS late show movie at 11:30 Holy Saturday evening, which is where I first watched it and loved it. It's become a tradition I've carried over in my own home every Easter.Like "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "Holiday Inn", "Blue Skies" and "White Christmas", this film was built around the Irving Berlin songbook. All in all seventeen numbers are used, ten veteran and seven new songs. The time frame is Easter 1911 through Easter 1912. Don Hewes (Fred Astaire) one half of a very successful dance team is dismayed to find out his partner and girlfriend Nadine Hale (Ann Miller) is leaving him in the lurch to pursue a solo career. Since Don had discovered her, and had polished and groomed her performing and personal style, he's stung by Nadine's callous ingratitude. He claims to their mutual friend the wealthy young playboy Jonny Harrow (Peter Lawford) that he could do the same with any other partner. Spying Hannah Brown, (Judy Garland) a young woman in a chorus line, he picks her to be his new partner. However, Don is still at first carrying a torch for Nadine, and tries initially to make Hannah over in Nadine's image. This proves disastrous for their fledgling partnership until Don recognizes Hannah's own unique spirit and talent and channels it into an outstanding vaudeville act, with the potential for Broadway stardom in their own show. Yet, there are bumps along the road, Hannah begins to fall in love with Don, Nadine is pursuing Jonny, who in turn has meet Hannah and is smitten with her, and is Don still hung up on Nadine?Judy Garland is the only member of the starring quartet that was actually in the originally planned cast. Fred Astaire and Ann Miller replaced Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse who both were sidelined with injuries just prior to filming, and Frank Sinatra was the initial choice for the role played by Peter Lawford. Vincente Minnelli then married to Judy Garland was slated to direct, yet after their tension fraught collaboration on "The Pirate", the MGM powers that be decided a professional break was in order for the couple, and he was superseded by neophyte director Charles Walters. The first script by husband and wife screenwriters, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett was judged to be too somber and dark for a musical comedy and an additional writer Sidney Sheldon who had just won an Oscar the year before for "The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer" was recruited to lighten things up. Astonishingly, after all the pre-production chaos, the filming went relatively smoothly, and the result was a blithe, sunny winner with critics and audiences alike.Berlin's score is splendid with old favorites such as "I Love a Piano", "Shaking the Blues Away" and of course the title song, supplemented with new numbers such as the ingratiating "Happy Easter" which immediately sets the tone for the film, the show stopping comic duet "A Couple of Swells", and the torchy "Better Luck Next Time". Garland, Astaire and Miller all do full justice to this score, even surprisingly Peter Lawford manages to acquit himself persuasively crooning a couple of verses of "A Fella with an Umbrella".Going back to her pre "Meet Me in St. Louis" films, Judy Garland plays the "ugly duckling" at first ignored by the leading man until she transforms into a glorious swan. Ludicrous, since she is so lovely and appealing as always, yet again she makes it work. At times she looks too thin and frail though, as in her previous film "The Pirate", the physical evidence of her personal problems began to appear on screen. But, we the audience, are not shortchanged, she delivers and how! This star is coruscating, acting, singing and dancing the part of Hannah Brown impeccably at the top of her form with a marvelously adroit sense of humor. Her standout songs are: "I Love a Piano", " When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'", "A Couple of Swells", "Better Luck Next Time" and of course "Easter Parade".Thankfully for movie fans, "Easter Parade" ended Fred Astaire's early retirement. Here he's Don Hewes, but well he's really Fred Astaire, and that is more than enough. His big set piece is "Steppin' Out with My Baby", is which he really shines, particularly in his slow motion choreography. He's partnered well in both Garland and Ms. Miller, excitingly so when Garland and he pull out the stops in "When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam", and more lyrically with Miller in "It Only Happens When I Dance with You." The high spot of course for the Astaire-Garland partnership is the delightful "A Couple of Swells" in which they both romp in effortless glee; it's fun to see the usually dapper, immaculate Astaire as a grimy, bedraggled hobo.Nadine Hale as played by Ann Miller, is not the heavy, i.e. the predatory other woman, but rather is amusing in her vapid self-absorption, as when she receives the gift of a puppy, and exclaims she knows just the suit she can wear with him! She's sleek, limber and attractive and scores heavily in her sizzling solo number "Shaking the Blues Away". Lawford as Jonny is earnest and good looking which is pretty much his character. MGM newcomer comic Jules Munshin is given a nice bit of business as a very grand waiter at the restaurant in the Brevoort Hotel. Rounding out the cast is the reliable Clinton Sundberg, a mainstay in MGM musicals of the late 1940's to early 1950's, as Hannah's sympathetic friend Mike the bartender.This version is I believe a new one disc release that does carry most of the extra features of the two disc set, the major exception I think is the exclusion of the American Masters biography "Judy Garland: By Myself". The highlights are: "Easter Parade: On the Avenue", a short but informative documentary on the making of the film featuring Ann Miller, writer Sidney Sheldon, Garland biographer John Fricke and Astaire's daughter Ava Astaire McKenzie, an audio commentary by Fricke and Ms. Astaire McKenzie, that is interesting and entertaining with facts and stories, although there is some overlap with "On the Avenue", the theatrical trailer and a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast of the film with most of the cast. What I found the most intriguing was the deleted musical number "Mr. Monotony" a Garland solo. Unfortunately, musically the song lives up to it's name, it's dull, and deserved to be cut from the film. I read Irving Berlin was stubborn about this number and was bound and determined to use it somewhere, it was cut from his next Broadway show "Miss Liberty", then it was put in "Call Me Madam" Berlin's following show. Ethel Merman it's star, had the song cut after I believe two performances stating flatly it didn't work, and it was out! Finally, Berlin wanted to use it in the 1954 film "White Christmas" but Bing Crosby put his foot down. If Garland, Merman and Crosby, three consummate singers couldn't put this song across, you know it had to be a dog! What is fascinating about this extra are two things, first it's multiple takes, and it makes you wonder about the legendary Garland temperament when you see her uncomplainingly do it over and over again. To my untrained eye, it looked and sounded like she did it perfectly the first time. The second is when you see her come out of the curtains you will get a preview of coming attractions of an iconic Garland image, which was quite the surprise to see.To conclude, this is a marvelous package from the glory years of the MGM musical, chock full of wonderful songs and dances, memorably the one and only time two legendary musical superstars would work together, brightly wrapped in a Technicolor rainbow of color. After the interminable winter that's just passed, this is one way to celebrate that welcome bout of spring fever!

Great love old movies

Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, what's not to love? Great singing, great dancing, just a great movie all around. I am beginning to build my movie collection to include the classic musicals like this and more. I have a Shirley Temple set arriving tomorrow and I just can't wait, I can't wait to pop the disc into the player and let little Shirley take me back to yesteryear! I will be adding this to my collection as well, loved this movie, loved it so much. I was born in 1980 so this type of movies were already overwith by that time. I saw these cross many TV screens in my childhood, but never really cared for any that weren't Shirley Temple or Judy Garland. They always just caught my attention and had me in awe of the talent they held, Shirley so young, and Garland just absolutely stunning in every role she was cast in. I recently discovered Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Dean Martin, and realized how many movies I just have to add to my collection. I think Lewis and Martin are my favorite duo as I love comedy the most. The talent they all hold is seriously lacking in today's cinema, few have the ability required to do what these performers did and mad it look so easy. Easter Parade was one of those movies that required Judy Garland to act as if she couldn't dance at all, that had to be difficult for her with the talent she had when dancing. Don't get me started on her voice either, just amazing every time she opens her mouth to sing. I just adore these classic musical films and look forward to seeing many more, definitely adding Easter Parade soon!

I am 75 years old . My husband and I, excluding the talent which was so abundant and polishedin "Easter Parade", as did many of our friends lived lives in which those things intimate wereextremely private and where vulgarity was almost totally absent as shown in the movie. I remembernearly every new hat that I got for Easter from the time I was a young girl until women did not wearhats to church any longer. Easter church services were something like flower shows with womenin their colorful dresses and hats providing moving floral displays. There was a saying back then:"I wouldn't wear that to a dog fight." My God. most everything I see young women wearing todayincluding the clothes worn by my granddaughters look to me as if they qualify for attendance at adog fight even if I have no idea what people wear to a dog fight. Life was ever bit as tough and rawwhen I was young as it is today. Certainly harder. However, neither we nor the movies we watchedwallowed in the ugly and obscene. Now we are drenched by the ugly and the obscene. We madeevery effort as did Hollywood to show the bright side and beauty of life and real love. Hardly ever doyou see a movie so well crafted as "Easter Parade". You can easily understand every word of dialoguebecause the actors were so articulate and aware that people were out there wanting to hear what theysaid. Dare say, the mumbling breathing and grunting discourse displayed in today's movies at best isonly partially conveyed to human ears, especially if they are old ears. And why are today's moviesnearly always in poor focus? Every scene of Easter Parade was so clear that I felt as if I could reachinto the TV screen and touch things. We grew up in a small western Pennsylvania steel townsurrounded by coal fields and farmland. What a thrill to have the cultivated talent possessed bythe likes of Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Anne Miller, Irving Berlin, etc. regularly brought to town ina reel of film. Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to bring true talent and craftsmanshipalong with the sunny side of life right into our living room. I have to admit, the technology of todayis absolutely wonderous. Too, bad so much of it is devoted to presenting us with junk!

Great movie.