Customer Reviews

Doris Day Collection 1 (Billy Rose's Jumbo / Calamity Jane / The Glass Bottom Boat / Love Me or Leave Me / Lullaby of Broadway / The Pajama Game / Please Don't Eat the Daisies / Young Man with a Horn)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Part one of my review(I looked at the moviesin order of the oldest date on the back).....Looked at Young man with a Horn(B&W)...if for anything get this movie for the spectacular shots of New York City....with the (trains running above ground)...but this was my first time seeing this movie & it's a great script...not a big fan of Douglas but he was great in this part......and Doris can't do no wrong in any part....here she plays a very good friend of Douglas & gets to sing about three songs...great movie & you get Lauren Bacall thrown in as the viper
......then I looked at Lullaby of Broadway.i had seen this before but on my new flat screen TV...it's so amazing.love it

....then i looked at Calamity...I have over the years seen bits & pieces of this movie..I sat & watched it in it's entierty.....Doris is SO amazing in this role

got Love me or leave me in the DVD player now(but have seen this one....it's one of my favorite Doris movies

I lived long enough to see these movies..I guess i was very young to actually see them in the movie(the earlier ones)...but you look at Doris Day & she's utterly amazing in her talent.she dances, she sings,she acts......but she can do just one of those things and she would be a star..but that voice of hers is heavenly!!!!!

No star was brighter than Doris Day, and it's about time that more of her movies were released on DVD! Every movie on this set is fabulous and you get to see that Doris Day can do anything, and do it better than anyone else. Comedy, drama, musical you name it it's on these movies. I have two wishes, one is that April 26 comes fast, and that more of Doris's gems will be coming out on DVD, soon!

If there is any question in anyone's mind as to why Doris Day is ranked by the distinguished annual Quigley Poll of top ten box-office stars, as the number one female star of all time, it will be put to rest by this great collection.
There is something for everyone contained in this beautiful set, complete with a nice array of extras.
Contained herein are films produced over a 16 year period and clearly showing that Miss Day could do it all - sing, dance, act in dramas or show a comic skill that few if any have come close to rivaling.
"Young Man With a Horn" featuring Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall gives Miss Day a great chance to emote skillfully and to render perfect renditions of several great band tunes. It's a well-made drama and her first film to play New York's famous Radio City Music Hall. In "Lullaby of Broadway" she sings, dances and dazzles as only Doris can with a wonderful cast of great character performers. She also gives the best rendition of the title tune ever recorded.
"Calamity Jane" allows Miss Day to let loose with a brilliantly executed performance as the famed woman of the wild west. She makes it her own, singing the Oscar winning "Secret Love" as well as delivering a powerhouse portrayal in a near perfect film co-starring Howard Keel, on loan from MGM. It's as good as anything Metro put out during their "Golden Age".
"Love Me or Leave Me", opposite James Cagney, is one of the most raw, real and no-holds barred biographical films ever turned out. Miss Day should have not only been nominated for an Oscar for her unforgettable performance as 20's singer Ruth Etting but should have won the prize. Her first film at MGM enabled her to dazzle the critics and the public with a first-rate acting job by any standard as well as rendering more than a dozen songs as only she can.
"The Pajama Game" is a near perfect screen version of a Broadway hit and Miss Day and much of the original Broadway cast perform at a breathless rate, breathing new life into some well-loved tunes. A great couple of hours of sheer entertainment.
Direct from her Oscar-nominated turn in "Pillow Talk", Miss Day played a mother of 4 in the screen version of Jean Kerr's hit, "Please Don't Eat the Daisies". How many other actresses of the time at the peak of their game would have played a mother role times 4? Miss Day and co-star David Niven are completely believable in this delightful, heartwarming and completing winning romp. "Billy Rose's Jumbo" took 27 years to reach the screen but it was worth the wait. The 1962 musical featuring some of Rodgers and Hart's best tunes is given the lavish MGM treatment. Miss Day, Stephen Boyd, Jimmy Durante and Martha Raye etch memorable performances in one of the last of the great MGM musicals. Finally, Miss Day had one of her biggest hits with the 1966 "Glass Bottom Boat". It's a wonderful slapstick comedy featuring an amazing cast of actors and comics, all set aside the background of California's Catalina Island. There are non-stop laughs and Miss Day secures her place as one of the funniest lady in film history, all the while maintaining her femininity and the endearing qualitiea that have made her an American Icon. "The Doris Day Collection" is a value at any price. It'll make your "Day"!

I can only rave about the care taken by WB Home Video to ensure that this set had wonderful picture and sound quality. The newly restored "Love Me Or Leave Me", and "Jumbo" not only have spotless picture quality with stunning colors but also have restored sound that will have you thinking you are watching a current movie rather than films made so many years ago. "Lullabye of Broadway" and "Young Man With A Horn" are excellent as well (but don't have the full fidelity sound of the other two). "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and "Glass Bottom Boat" are gorgeous on the screen (and we project an eight foot picture!). "Calamity Jane" and "Pajama Game" are identical to the previous releases of these titles. They are very, very good if a tad lesser in picture quality. I had hoped that they would have received the first rate sound restoration of the first two mentioned above, but this would have required more expense and I feel this set is a bargain. There are many nice extras, too. Here's hoping other musical stars...like Mario Lanza...will receive this top notch treatment in DVD releases from WB.

This is a truly beautiful 8 dvd set, of 8 of Doris Day's best films. Warner Brothers did a beautiful job restoring the movies to their origional glamour and wonder.

And they also have awesome special features. I hope that Warner Brother releases more of Doris Day's films in this kinda of quality, and design.

This is a wonderful collection to own for any Doris Day fan. I bought it for my mom and she loves it.

THE DORIS DAY COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE is huge and includes some of the lady's greatest, and most underrated, movies. Let us examine them in chronological order.

LULLABY OF BROADWAY (1950) is a dreamy Technicolor musical that takes place all over a studio-set Manhattan, including a Greenwich Village nightclub and a Washington Square townhouse. Doris Day has an off-again, on-again romance with Gene Nelson, but sings the Oscar-winning title song with him at the end. Doris and alcoholic singer Gladys George (superb performance) have a mother-daughter relationship. George does a memorable "An Old Shanty in Old Shanty Town." Nelson has a solo of "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart." There are literally ten songs in 92 minutes of running time. Doris has a solo of "You're Getting to be a Habit With Me." Providing fun support are S. Z. Sakall as a beer tycoon and Florence Bates as his wife. S. Z. keeps running into debt bankrolling actresses and shows. The ending is a happy show-stopper with the exhilarating title song. David Butler directed. Minimal bonuses include a Doris Day trailer camp for six of her early movies.

Though it is in a Doris Day DVD boxed set, Michael Curtiz' YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN (1950) is really one of Kirk Douglas' best early films. It is narrated by Hoagy Carmichael at a piano and goes back to Douglas' Rick Martin as a child addicted to jazz music and a school runaway. He grows up to be a man obsessed with playing the trumpet (dubbed by Harry James) better than anyone else in the world. Worldly intellectual Amy (Lauren Bacall) cannot stand that, but likeable singer Jo Jordan (Doris) can and becomes his friend for singer/trumpet duets. Juano Hernandez is unforgettable as a likeable black musician Kirk idolizes. Gorgeously photographed in high gloss B&W by Ted McCord (TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE SOUND OF MUSIC) and directed with his usual authority by Curtiz, the movie includes smoky jazz renditions of "Too Marvelous For Words," "Someone to Watch Over Me," "With a Song in My Heart" and a dozen more. This is a jazz lover's paradise, and I think Doris' fans will love it as much as Kirk's fan club. The only bonus is a theatrical trailer.

I believe CALAMITY JANE (1953) is one of Doris Day's personal favorites among her movies. She gets to do an old-fashioned western, wear cowboy duds and no makeup, and sing exuberant songs like "I Just Blew In From the Windy City" and the Oscar-winning "Secret Love." We are in the Old West and the so-called Windy City is Chicago. Howard Keel is Wild Bill Hickok, Allyn McLerie plays a saloon singer named Katie Brown, and Philip Carey makes it a foursome for romance. This is a colorful and tuneful western/romantic musical with songs by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster. For a comparison, rent Cecil B. DeMille's THE PLAINSMAN (1936), with Gary Cooper as Wild Bill and Jean Arthur as Calamity. It is even better than CALAMITY JANE.

LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (1955) is a curious film in the Doris Day filmography. She is downright brilliant as Jazz Age torch singer Ruth Etting, dynamically singing song after wonderful song in reprocessed stereo. But the movie itself, nominated for six Oscars and a winner for Original Story, is so unpleasant because Oscar nominee James Cagney is so vicious and loathsome as her boyfriend/manager/later husband Marty Snyder. I love Cagney, but not here. There is so little to like about Marty that I kept threatening to turn off my DVD. But then Doris came back on stage to sing a good dozen era songs, including "It All Depends on You," "You Made Me Love You," "Shaking the Blues Away," "My Blue Heaven," 10 Cents a Dance," the Oscar-nominated "I'll Never Stop Loving You," and the title song as the film's finale. Something doesn't ring true about early feminist Ruthie letting a violent gangster control every step of her life and even being willing to marry him. The restored color is beautiful, the CinemaScope compositions are outstanding, and the Oscar-nominated soundtrack is enthralling. But Cagney's unredeemed viciousness derailed the movie for me. Excellent bonuses include 1955 at the (MGM) Movies and two Vitaphone shorts featuring the real Ruth Etting.

THE PAJAMA GAME (1957) is a neglected musical masterpiece about labor conditions in the Sleep Tite pajama factory. Labor wants a 7 ½ cent raise, and management refuses to budge. Representing labor is Doris Day at her best as Babe Williams; for management there is John Raitt as Sid Sirokin. They fall in love, of course. The costume design is some of the most colorful of the entire 1950's and should have won the Oscar; a young Bob Fosse did the choreography; and this sparkler of a musical was co-directed by Stanley Donen and George Abbott. The stupendous songs include "Hernando's Hideaway," "There Once Was a Man," "Small Talk," "Hey There," and especially the exuberant "Once a Year Day." Doris is at her very best, Raitt burns a hole through celluloid with a dynamic performance, and the supporting cast includes Carol Haney and Eddie Foy, Jr. This film is as good as film musicals get and should have a much stronger reputation. Maybe its inclusion in this huge boxed set can help.

PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES (1959) has Doris Day as a Connecticut interior decorator married to fussy, cynical Broadway drama critic David Niven, who never met a play he liked. It's a good comedy that should have been a great one, and I'm not sure why. Niven keeps trying to stay friends with actors and writers, particularly Janis Paige, whose work he keeps panning in print. Richard Haydn has a great supporting role as a playwright whose work Niven pans. This critic reminds me of vicious critic John Simon, whose drama reviews could open or close a play. Directed in CineaScope by Charles Walters (BILLY ROSE'S JUMBO upcoming), the source here is a book by playwright Jean Kerr. Doris even gets to sing two songs, including the title number, and the final scene is uproarious. I still remember the wonderful mid-1960's TV sitcom version of this, starring Patricia Crowley, with great fondness from my adolescent years. It would be lovely to have it on home video also. Bonuses are skimpy, just a theatrical trailer.

BILLY ROSE'S JUMBO (1962) is a most pleasant and nostalgic trip to the circus, based on the 1935 show that Mr. Rose staged at the long-demolished Hippodrome in New York City. Starring in the movie are Doris Day and Stephen Boyd as circus performers (and one can only hope they did not do their own stunts), with Jimmy Durante (from the 1935 show) and Martha Raye for comic relief. The wonderful songs, by Rodgers and Hart, include "My Romance," "Stardust, Spangles, and Dreams" and the incomparable "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World". In fact, I like the musical numbers more than the circus acts. Director Charles Walters and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon collaborated earlier on EASTER PARADE (1948), and the circus action was choreographed by Busby Berkeley. This Panavision production restores the original roadshow overture and also includes a hysterically funny "Tom and Jerry" cartoon and a 1933 Vitaphone romantic short.

Finally, THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT (1966) is an unexpectedly uproarious blend of romantic comedy, mistaken identity, and mid-1960s spy spoof from Looney Toons cartoon genius director Frank Tashlin. Doris Day plays a NASA employee (the movie was filmed all over Cape Canaveral) who is pursued amorously by her boss, Rod Taylor. (I think he's her boss.) Doris' father is Arthur Godfrey, who runs a glass bottom boat tourist attraction in Catalina Island harbor, where Doris spends her summers as a mermaid. (Could I make this up?) She and Godfrey and Taylor sing the catchy theme song over tropical drinks. Anyway, Day is mistaken for a Russian spy because she has a dog named Vladimir, whom she keeps calling on the phone. ("She you tonight, Vladimir. I love you.") The dream comedy supporting cast pursuing our heroine includes John McGiver, Paul Lynde, Dom De Luise, Edward Andrews, Eric Fleming, and Dick Martin. Watch for a wild party scene where one of them plants an electronic phone bug inside an hors d'ouvre that someone eats; Lynde in drag to bug the ladies' room; and conservative Andrews and Martin at sex objects in bed together. Watch what sweet and hilarious revenge Doris plays on all of them when she realizes they falsely think she is a spy. The legendary Leon Shamroy (the 1945 STATE FAIR, THE KING AND I) photographed in Panavision; the script is by Everett Freeman, who also produced. Everyone looks as if they had a wonderful time making THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT, and you will have a wonderful time watching it. DVD bonuses are generous: a tour of NASA, a travelogue on Catalina Island, a 1966 beauty contest winner tours 1966 MGM studios, there is the Oscar-winning cartoon "The Dot and the Line", and finally the theatrical trailer.

THE DORIS DAY COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE is a must rental and a feast to invest in on DVD if you have the money and love the lady's work as much as I do.

If you are too young to have sat in one of those grand movie palaces and watched Doris Day grace the screen, you don't know what you missed. She lit up the screen and made millions fall in love with her.

I loved the extras for "Love Me or Leave Me" with Doris and James Cagney on the set waiting for the director to call "action!" They showed it from the standpoint of the camera and crew in the dark with the lights blazing, ready to shoot.

The inclusion of the song especially written for "The Pajama Game," "The Man Who Invented Love," was a special treat. We, her fans, had heard of the song, but had no idea that they had actually filmed the scene, which was eventually cut and shelved. It had been sitting in the vaults for over 40 years and then some brilliant researcher found it and included it as a DVD extra. Thank you!

Doris has made so many great films, she needs a couple more boxes on the market. Until then, I'll cherish this one. For all of the Day fanatics, it has been a great year with the release of all this Day material. Please, bring us more!

Every film is the Doris Day Collection is worth owning, especially "Love Me Or Leave Me". Day is superb and the soundtrack (remastered) is great. Doris Day is such an awesome performer, singer, comedienne, dancer, dramatic actress...she does it all. WB could have included some more extras on these DVDs, such as still galleries, interwiews with Doris herself, out takes, wardrobe tests, etc. Get working on volume two!!
Now, where is the Susan Hayward Collection with "With A Song In My Heart" and "Back Street"?

Wow this is great. Thanks for the release, but why has it been so long in coming? AND where are the others, On Moolnight Bay, I'll See you in My Dreams, just to name a few. There is and will never be another Doris, what an actress, singer and comedian she is. Thank you Doris for bringing joy, smiles and laughter into this world. You cannot go wrong with this set. Buy this and show the kids today what they missed by not growing up in the innocent times of the 50's and 60's. These are classics in every sense of the word. This will keep me entertained for days, weeks and years to come. And thank you Amazon.