Holiday Inn (Special Edition)
- CHRISTMAS
- Run Time: 101
- Release Date: 8/22/2010
- NR
- BING CROSBY MAJORIE REYNOLDS
Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire sing and dance their way into your heart in the sensational musical comedy Holiday Inn. Nominated for 3 Academy Awards, this special edition features 13 holiday songs by famed composer Irving Berlin, including “White Christmas” – one of the biggest-selling recordings in music history! Crosby plays a song and dance man who leaves showbiz to run an inn that is open only on holidays. Astaire plays his former partner and rival in love. Follow the two talented pals as the
List Price: $ 3.99
Price:
The Definitive Presentation of a Holiday Classic!,
The audio as well is crisp and clear with rich bass and treble tones. If you watch the film with the audio commentary on, you’ll hear the dulcet tones of Ken Barnes relating some fascinating tidbits about the making of the film, the songs (one particularly interesting part concerns the verse to White Christmas), the cast, etc. All is enhanced by sound bites from Bing and Fred Astaire themselves in archive audio material from the 1970’s. As an example, Bing speaks of the continuing sales of his recording of White Christmas as late as 1974, how he felt it was due in part to people giving the record as a Christmas gift.
The real gems are the bonus features, particularly the 45 minute long mini feature A Couple of Song & Dance Men. Ken Barnes is joined by Fred Astaire’s lovely daughter Ava sharing biographical memories of both Bing and Fred, along with trivia tidbits. Ava shows and reads some of the letters Fred Astaire wrote to his wife while on a USO tour in England with Bing in 1944, and telegrams to Fred from Bing, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin are also shown on screen. All is pieced together nicely with song excerpts from Bing’s films, coming attractions trailers, and newsreel footage, including Bing opening the Stage Door Canteen in 1944.
The other, shorter bonus feature runs 7 minutes and is titled All Singing – All Dancing. Ken shares some rare behind the scenes photos and techniques of how musical numbers were filmed, beginning with the early talkies. He shows how the orchestra and singer were together on the set and recorded as one.
The original theatrical trailer for Holiday Inn is also included.
All is wrapped up nicely with a slip-cover that goes over the DVD case. When compared with the two-on-one DVD of Holiday Inn and Going My Way that’s been out for many years now, the difference in quality is plainly visible. The Holiday Inn print looks somewhat fuzzy or “muddy” in quality when watched after seeing the brilliance of the newly restored print used on this Special Edition.
In short, this is a DVD that’s well worth having. If you want the definitive presentation of this classic Holiday film, this is it! Bravo Ken & co.
Was this review helpful to you?
|The definitive edition!,
If you haven’t seen the film for a while, the very high points are the song “White Christmas” and its reprise and two of Fred Astaire’s more unforgettable numbers: a solo dance with firecrackers and a falling down drunk number that has to be seen to be believed. But to be fair, all the numbers are memorable, from the classic “You’re Easy to Dance With” to the 18th Century-influenced “I Can’t Tell a Lie” and the blackface hommage to Abraham Lincoln, “Abraham”, one of Irving Berlin’s best “unknown” songs. The two underrated female counterparts (Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale) are also quite nimble and copacetic.
This edition has kept all the extras of the 2006 Special Edition: “A couple of Song and Dance Men”, a 50 min double biography of Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire that has a lot of exciting footage from many of their movies not yet on DVD, hosted by record producer Ken Barnes and Ava Astaire; “All Singing – All Dancing”, a 7 min demonstration of how the dance numbers were filmed and put together (dancing to a pre-recorded soundtrack + live recording of the tapping sound with hidden microphones); a very thorough multiple commentary with input from vintage Crosby and Astaire interviews; and a well-preserved theatrical trailer.
It also includes a 12-band CD collection of the film’s songs with Crosby and Astaire (from Geffen Records) presented in a cute miniature cardboard 78-RPM sleeve – a genuine collector’s item, and a 7 min making-of docu of the color version with Barry Sandrew.
The Legend Films color version, in my opinion, reaches yet another summit in verisimilitude, the skin tones having been somehow improved upon and the indoor/outdoor sets and costumes being handled with the same level of maniacal authenticity as in “It’s a Wonderful Life”. It actually looks better than a lot of color films of the era and really strives for that saturated Technicolor look, but in a somehow more “relaxed” presentation, as B&W films obviously didn’t have to try as hard to dazzle the eye in every department and every second. Still, I had to gawk and stare at a scene where Astaire is hurriedly packing a tangled bunch of vari-colored neckties, wondering at the complexity of the colorization process involved in such a puny but mind-bogling detail. The whole film – with the nicely contrasting exception of a patriotic B&W documentary montage of the USA’s entry into WWII shown at the Inn – is bathed in the warm glow of intimate indoor lighting alternating with more gaudy flood-lit and heart-stopping dance numbers. You have absolutely no idea what “oomph” means until you’ve seen Virginia Dale’s sequined night-blue dress shimmy and shake in the “You’re Easy To Dance With” number. I found it really hard to come back to the B&W version after that, except for the commentary and the other extras on Disc 1. Yes, I am that shallow.
Both versions are pretty much at the maximum bitrate throughout. The whole experience can only be described as sheer, unadulterated joy and an unparalleled time-travel piece.
Was this review helpful to you?
|A National Treasure Now In Glorious COLOR!!,
Universal digitally remastered the classic b/w film for it’s 2006 release, with pristine picture and sound quality. They augmented it with bonus features including a video interview with Fred Astaire’s daughter Ava conducted by Crosby & Astaire record producer Ken Barnes, a making of documentary, and archive audio commentary featuring the stars Bing Crosby & Fred Astaire recorded in the 1970’s.
Now, Universal has gone a step further and made it a 3-disc box set, featuring the original b/w version complete with the bonus features aforementioned, an audio CD housed in a nifty ’40s retro-looking paper sleeve of the commercial soundtrack recordings by Crosby and Astaire, as recorded for Decca Records in 1942 (including Bing’s original hard-to-find 1942 recording of White Christmas), and now, finally, a striking new COLOR version of the film! Legend Films has done justice to this perennial favorite by painstakingly colorizing the film, utilizing the help of Jan Mucklestone, who was the personal sketch artist for Paramount costume designer Edith Head. This was obviously a labor of love, and Legend’s attention to detail makes for a stunning visual.
Colorization has always been a controversial subject, with those for and against it equally passionate in their beliefs. However, colorization has come a LONG way since it’s inception in the early 1980’s. The late 1980’s colorization of another of Bing’s classic films, The Bells of St. Mary’s, was a slop-shod embarrassment enough to turn anyone off to the process. So it was with a bit of apprehension when I first heard of someone daring to tamper with a national treasure like Holiday Inn. I quickly learned that this was different, something special, after viewing Legend Films’ 2007 colorized version of the 1946 Frank Capra masterpiece It’s A Wonderful Life. Then came a small screen video trailer for Holiday Inn on the Legend Films website. This in itself was impressive, but by no means does justice to the brilliance of Legend Films work.
The colors on Holiday Inn are vibrant and full, without being garish or obtrusive. The visual impact is breathtaking, particularly on the Easter Parade number, with Bing’s sea-blue eyes all aglow in the close-up. This is how the film was meant to be seen, in all it’s color glory. After decades of viewing it from grainy b/w prints on the late show, it’s like seeing the film for the very first time! The colors in your mind come to life on the screen, just as you imagine them to be. Bing’s corduroy sport jacket during the White Christmas scene is, as you would expect, a rich shade of beige. The curtain behind Bing during the 4th of July production number is spectacular in red, white and blue, as it should be. Not to mention those firecrackers glowing in orange and red hues during Fred Astaire’s dance-ode to Independence Day! Once you see this film in color, you’ll never want to watch it in b/w again!
You can’t go wrong with this DVD set. Those who prefer the original b/w print, can have it, and those who prefer seeing it in color have that too, all together in one attractive package. It’s a win-win situation. And to all those purists and nay-sayers who are dead-set against the colorization process, give Holiday Inn a chance. If seeing this wonderful film, in all the rainbow of colors each scene portrays, doesn’t change your mind to what colorization can do, then chances are you’d rather not see ANYTHING in color, if it can be viewed in b/w! Bravo Universal Home Entertainment, and Bravo Legend Films! Let’s see more of Crosby’s classic films done up right in color!
Was this review helpful to you?
|