Customer Reviews

Fabulous Dorseys [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I remember watching this movie as a child at my grandparent's house.
I loved the music. The acting was so-so but let's face it. The Dorsey's are not known as actors.
The premise of the movie is quite believable and the music is so typical of the 40's. I love all the movies from that decade.
It's just a good film. Enjoyable and will leave you with a smile on your face. A far cry from today's horrible and violent films. They don't make them like this any more and they should.
If you get to see it, just sit back and enjoy.

This is a great movie that actually features the Dorsey's themselves. The movie tells the story of Jimmie and Tommy Dorsey growing up and their start to the music business. The story is good and the music is, of course, great. My only complaint is that I wish the story would have featured more about their career and less about how the two couldn't get along and so they went their separate ways until their father died when they made up. It's still a good movie and I do recommend it but if you're like me in wanting to learn more about the career you might actually prefer The Glenn Miller story.

I am a collector of the early movies. The stories and music and acting usually are so much better than the average movie today.

This story of the Dorseys was good. The quality of the picture, however, was as if a Dvd was made off of a VHS. This should not be.

Alan D. Shaffer
Creve Coeur, MO

Why spend a moment slogging through this awkward and self-conscious movie? Every now and then, after an hour of tedious plot and amateur acting, we start getting bits and pieces of the big band swing that made Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, separately and together, the great musicians they were. Occasionally -- in a jam session with Art Tatum, with Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra doing "Marie" and, a standout, Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra fronting Bob Eberle and Helen O'Connell singing "Green Eyes" -- we get a complete song.

Unfortunately, the movie is in the public domain and the DVD transfer is just as bad as the acting. My copy has only four chapter stops. That means you can get arthritis in your fast-forward finger trying to speed through to where the good stuff is. The swamp you're moving through is Hollywood's version of the life and battles of the two Dorseys. Tommy, superb on trombone, and Jimmy, superb on saxophone, usually couldn't stand each other. In 1935 they finally split, with Tommy starting his own orchestra. Each had greater success alone than they had achieved together. They reconciled when their father died in the Forties, which is where the movie ends. They later managed to tolerate each other in the orchestra led by Tommy as the big band era faded out in the Fifties. Tommy died in 1956 at age 51, vomiting in his sleep after booze, pills and a big meal. Jimmy died of cancer at 53 in 1957. Jimmy was hugely talented and, from all accounts, a reasonably easy-going guy. Tommy was hugely talented and, from all accounts, often an overbearing jerk. But good music makes up for a lot of faults, and the Big Band sounds the two created helped define the swing era.

They play themselves in the movie, and we see them develop from tussling tykes (with child actors) to grown men battling and yammering at each other. The movie is lumbered with not just their two parents, played by those Hollywood Irish clichés, Sara Allgood and Arthur Shields, who just want their boys to get along with each other, but also with a major sub-story involving a romance between Janet Blair, as a childhood friend of the Dorseys who becomes a vocalist with them and serves as a nearly full-time mediator and enabler, and William Lundigan, as a piano player. Blair is not bad at all. However, if you want to see why she never became the star she quite probably should have become, just look at the films, like this one, that her studio put her in. No wonder she left Hollywood. Lundigan simply takes up space.

How bad is this movie, other than when we can actually hear the Dorseys play? Well, here's a song written especially for the movie and given to Blair to warble. It's called "To Me."

To me...you're the rose of a rosary
The rise of a rising sea
The glow of a star

The rose of a rosary? The movie doesn't get any better than this, and it can't get worse. Still, if you like the Dorseys and if the price is right...well, in hindsight I'd still not buy it. The highlight, for me, is Eberle and O'Connell singing "Green Eyes." You can watch them on You Tube for free. You'll also find there quite a bit of each of the Dorseys. I wish I'd known.

Standard kicks against THE FABULOUS DORSEYS are the non-acting skill of its leads, a lack of personal detail (such as the two youngest siblings not getting a mention) and its episodic story. True enough on all three counts, yet I saw this movie recently for the first time and found it thoroughly entertaining.

As depicted here, after years of feuding the Dorsey boys permanently split during a live performance at the Glen Island Casino, when Tommy stormed out due to a beef over tempo. Jimmy kept the Dorsey band, Tommy molded the Joe Haymes unit into his own orchestra (this last detail isn't explained).

After his acrimonous parting with Tommy in 1942 it's no surprise that Frank Sinatra's not included nor is his existence even acknowleged, but why the brothers' mid-20's stint in the California Ramblers gets no mention is curious. Their association with this renowned group of NY studio musicans led to the formation of their own recording outfit, with some of the Ramblers (like legendary bass saxist Adrian Rollini) joining them. Others who worked in-studio with the Dorseys between 1928 and '33: Jack Teagarden (trombone), Mildred Bailey (vocals), Frank Signorelli (piano), Glenn Miller (trombone), Bob Crosby (vocal), Bunny Berigan (trumpet), Johnny Mercer (vocals), Phil Napoleon (trumpet), Joe Venuti (violin) and Stan King (drums).

Regardless of how accurate a bio this is or how unpolished Jimmy and Tommy are as actors, musical performances are what the picture's really about. Jimmy's "Green Eyes," with vocals by Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell, and Tommy's "Marie," with Stuart Foster taking over for Jack Leonard and everyone shouting refrains behind him, are delightful. Tommy also solos on his signature number, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You."

Other highlights: amazing pianist Art Tatum does his own "Turquoise," then Tommy, Jimmy, Ziggy Elman, Ray Bauduc and Charlie Barnet join Tatum for a late-night jam on "Art's Blues." In an earlier scene, the still struggling Dorseys are hired by Paul Whiteman; his band performs "At Sundown."

Bottom line: if you're a fan of Swing Era sounds, don't miss this one. You're gonna love it!


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll rating.

(5.5) The Fabulous Dorseys (1947) - Tommy Dorsey/Jimmy Dorsey/Janet Blair/Paul Whiteman/William Lundigan/Sarah Allgood/Arthur Shields/Dave Willock/William Bakewell/James Flavin

Standard kicks against THE FABULOUS DORSEYS are the non-acting skill of its leads, a lack of personal detail (such as the two youngest siblings not getting a mention) and its episodic story. True enough on all three counts, yet I saw this movie recently for the first time and found it thoroughly entertaining.

As depicted here, after years of feuding the Dorsey boys permanently split during a live performance at the Glen Island Casino, when Tommy stormed out due to a beef over tempo. Jimmy kept the Dorsey band, Tommy molded the Joe Haymes unit into his own orchestra (this last detail isn't explained).

After his acrimonous parting with Tommy in 1942 it's no surprise that Frank Sinatra's not included nor is his existence even acknowleged, but why the brothers' mid-20's stint in the California Ramblers gets no mention is curious. Their association with this renowned group of NY studio musicans led to the formation of their own recording outfit, with some of the Ramblers (like legendary bass saxist Adrian Rollini) joining them. Others who worked in-studio with the Dorseys between 1928 and '33: Jack Teagarden (trombone), Mildred Bailey (vocals), Frank Signorelli (piano), Glenn Miller (trombone), Bob Crosby (vocal), Bunny Berigan (trumpet), Johnny Mercer (vocals), Phil Napoleon (trumpet), Joe Venuti (violin) and Stan King (drums).

Regardless of how accurate a bio this is or how unpolished Jimmy and Tommy are as actors, musical performances are what the picture's really about. Jimmy's "Green Eyes," with vocals by Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell, and Tommy's "Marie," with Stuart Foster taking over for Jack Leonard and everyone shouting refrains behind him, are delightful. Tommy also solos on his signature number, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You."

Other highlights: amazing pianist Art Tatum does his own "Turquoise," then Tommy, Jimmy, Ziggy Elman, Ray Bauduc and Charlie Barnet join Tatum for a late-night jam on "Art's Blues." In an earlier scene, the still struggling Dorseys are hired by Paul Whiteman; his band performs "At Sundown."

Bottom line: if you're a fan of Swing Era sounds, don't miss this one. You're gonna love it!


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll rating.

(5.5) The Fabulous Dorseys (1947) - Tommy Dorsey/Jimmy Dorsey/Janet Blair/Paul Whiteman/William Lundigan/Sarah Allgood/Arthur Shields/Dave Willock/William Bakewell/James Flavin

The opening of the story is quite interesting with the young boys trying to get out of practicing their trombone and saxophone. The boys play with a band for a local, small-town, dance, and the three numbers they do are phenomenal. It is worth getting this film just for these few minutes of music; even if like me, you are not a fan of the big-bands.

A true story. Their father is a coal-miner, who gives music-lessons to earn extra money. He wants his sons to have a better life, and so demands they practice their music. The brothers are always fighting with each other. When the boys are shown all grown up; the actual Dorsey-brothers appear and star in the film. After the boys grow up; the film is not so exciting as the start. However, the true story is interesting; as they struggle to make it. I saw this on Hooloo dot com; so I cannot speak to the quality of the print.

When I was eight years old, and beginning to learn the trombone, my parents went out and bought me a two record set--"The Great Tommy Dorsey Orchestra: I'm Getting Sentimental Over You." For the next eight years I worked to sound like him, until I discovered Bill Watrous in my teens, and eventually Jay Jay Johnson, Curtis Fuller, Frank Rosolino, and others. I never lost my fondness for Tommy, though.

When I was younger, I was eager for footage of Dorsey playing. One of my favorite films was A SONG IS BORN, with Danny Kaye, and featuring Dorsey along with Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, and many others including Benny Goodman in a real acting role. Even after I had moved on from Tommy as a model, footage of the old big band leaders was gold to me.

I wonder what I would have thought of THE FABULOUS DORSEYS had I seen it then. Would I have been excited just to see Tommy and Jimmy talk and put their instruments together? Or would I have noticed the difference between a film directed by Howard Hawks and one directed by, well, Alfred E. Green?

I think I would have been indulgent--the footage is of the Dorseys and others, after all. But I don't think I would have remembered it fondly. The film focuses on the embattled musical relationship between the two famous big band brothers, Tommy and Jimmy. The brothers can't seem to play together without fighting, and the movie chronicles the efforts of the people around them to convince the brothers to set their differences aside and play together--their apparently strict but really sentimental father, their loving mother, and their unexplained non-sister "Jane" (presumably a fictional replacement for their actual sister Mary--who may not have wanted to be included).

Green tells the story capably enough--but he tells it without much music. The only real musical highlights are full performances of "Marie" by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and "Green Eyes" by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra (the two songs which would appear on different sides of the same single in 1954 when they were really reunited), and a jam session featuring Tommy and Jimmy playing with Charlie Barnet, Ziggy Elman, and Art Tatum. And that is the sum total of the musical interesting moments of the film.

That might be forgiven if the story was even remotely interesting. But the attempt to clean up and simplify actual events is disappointing, especially to anyone who actually knows something about the brothers. The distinction of the two boys by instrument is understandable, if a little silly; both brothers, like most people who play music for a living, played several instruments and would often each double on trumpet in the early days of their association. But other details are also left out. Tommy's perfectionism and poor sense of humor are depicted, but very little of his somewhat violent temper and his lurid love life. The fact that the brothers were both more successful on their own is never explored--so insistent is the film on its own master-plot of bringing the two of them back together.

One explanation for this would be that the reunion between the brothers was in the works when the film first appeared. Driven by the promotional needs of the musical reunion, Green's work is bent on representing the potential greatness of the two brothers when they join forces. In the film itself, by the way, the agency of the reunion is their participation in a concerto featuring trombone and clarinet and conducted by the venerable Paul Whiteman. There is no need to reflect on the value of this moment from a musical standpoint. Does anyone even know of a recording of this distinguished moment? Has it appeared on any of the "Best Of" collections of either brother?

The other explanation is Green himself. His later career includes a number of biopics--THE FABULOUS DORSEYS, THE JOLSON STORY, THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY, THE EDDIE CANTOR STORY--so perhaps he was seen as the man to use in that genre. But a look at his whole career will show you that he was quite prolific in directing movies-you've-never-heard-of.

A year after THE FABULOUS DORSEYS came out, Howard Hawks' Danny Kaye vehicle, A SONG IS BORN was released. If you really want to watch a fun movie about the big bands, buy that one.

This is the very first movie I ever owned. I bought it on 16MM sound film about 60 years ago. Since then it still has a magic all its own. One of the best big-band movies ever made.

This is not a great movie, but if you like the music from the 30s & 40s it's nice to see the original artists perform.