Product Details

• Actors: Bette Midler, Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, David Hyde Pierce, John Cleese
• Directors: Andrew Bergman
• Writers: Michael Korda, Paul Rudnick
• Producers: Alex Barder, Cathy Schulman, Gary Levinsohn, Mark Gordon, Mike Lobell
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: July 18, 2000
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0783242298
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,109 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Isn't She Great" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Most people probably approached Isn't She Great looking for a screaming camp-fest, only to discover a surprisingly sincere love letter to trash-novelist Jacqueline Susann, author of Valley of the Dolls and Once Is Not Enough. Bette Midler plays the brash, self-obsessed Susann, who started as a struggling actress yearning for fame and not too picky about what she was famous for. Fortunately, she catches the eye of personal manager Irving Mansfield (Nathan Lane), who seems to have no particular skills either but who is so passionately devoted to his client that he marries her. It's Irving who first suggests that Susann write a book about the sordid lives of celebrities and beautiful people, and Irving who pushes the book to publisher after publisher with dogged devotion. The movie lurches a bit in Susann's early life--it wants to approach the difficulties of Susann's life (an autistic son, breast cancer) with a mixture of sentimentality and irreverence, which doesn't always mesh--but once Valley of the Dolls finds a publisher, the movie finds its legs. The ever-dependable David Hyde Pierce plays the uptight WASP assigned to edit Susann's manuscript, and much mileage is gotten out of the conflict between Pierce's blue-blood manner and Midler's broad Jewish glitz. John Cleese and Stockard Channing also provide able support. Paul Rudnick's script shows a genuine affection for its heroine; Rudnick also wrote the screenplays for Addams Family Values and In and Out. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

ISN'T SHE GREAT - DVD Movie

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nope, she's Divine!, February 20, 2001

By 

Ann Smith (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isn't She Great (DVD)

The hilarious Miss M does it again! Her timing is fab and she nails the delivery. Nobody can tell off God quite like Bette as trash novelist, Jackie Susann. While the movie was not a knock-your-socks-off hit, the critics are wrong. With perfectly cast supporting players, a super-ditzy 70s-style score by none other than Burt Bacharach, and wonderful costuming and sets, the film was very enjoyable and I recommend it to those who actually have a sense of humor.

Stockard Channing (who really shines in over-the-top roles) is incomparable and a perfect match to Bette. Her best lines are second only to Bette's conversations with God and her editor. Master of the stage, Nathan Lane, delivers his usual outstanding performance as the endearing, funny, supportive husband and handler of Bette's wacky, exceedingly self-centered Susann. Bette and Nathan are like cream and sugar. David Hyde Pierce brings Niles' charm and wonderful sensitivity to his character as Bette's editor. John Cleese, always a very funny guy, doesn't get nearly enough screen time or lines, but makes the very best of it anyway.

So what if the bio wasn't accurate, it never is. And the acting was not overdone at all, it was meant to be flamboyant! Will I see it again? You bet! If only just to listen Bette tell it like it is. Way to go, Miss M!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A PARTY, WITH LOTS OF HEART, June 9, 2003

By 

Ruth (Los Angeles,CA,USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isn't She Great (DVD)

This movie was so good,funny, and affecting that I ended up seeing it twice in the cinema. Now, I'm a BIG Bette Midler fan. I mean BIG.But I can't really say that I am biased, because ANY film with her radiates such warmth, and energy, and this one is no different. This movie isn't very thought-provoking, but it is sincere,hilarious, but at the same time very, very fragile.All the costars did a solid job, but this is Bette's party, this is her movie. I won't give away the plot, but it's about a writer, Jackie Susan (she wrote 'Valley of the Dolls"), in the 60's, and she is in every sense of the word a rockstar.Over the top,dramatic, in your face, flashy, but with lots of heart and soul.She keeps getting rejected, 'till she finally gets her chance at becoming what she aspires to be- a writer. Then Jackie gets a punch, she's diagnosed with cancer. But she gets ten more years, and on those ten years, she takes you on ana entertaining and delightful ride, without ever once losing spirit. The way Bette portrayed Jackie, she made her seem like such a lovable person, warm,fiery,crazy,shrewd,witty, and full of heart-someone a lot like me.I bet Jackie was great.And you know what, so is Bette. I reccommend everyone sees this film.It's the perfect comedy, with just a touch of sad.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No She Isn't Actually . . ., July 27, 2005

By 

Matthew Patton (Deltona, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Isn't She Great (DVD)

The title comes from the phrase that Jacqueline Susann's husband, Irving Mansfield, uttered about his wife at every possible turn. The story is based, rather vaguely, on an article by writer and editor Michael Korda titled "Wasn't She Great?" (His final assessment? Not really, but she was certainly, er, colorful). Korda had been Susann's editor for her second novel THE LOVE MACHINE, and an aghast-yet-fascinated witness to the publicity juggernaut that the writer and her husband launched to sell the book (much as they had for her previous effort, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, only now they had a pink jet to cart them around).

In short, there is material for an interesting movie here, but although the movie is a harmless time-passer, it's not something you have to see, either. To begin with, the tense, angry Susann, the human equivalent of an overloaded watch spring, is played by a jolly and rather-too-zaftig Bette Midler (not too zaftig to be seen mind you, just to be playing a woman who seemed to live on booze, tobacco, and mood-altering prescription drugs). The real Susann, who arrived in New York with a high-school diploma, a pot habit, a complicated relationship with her father, and a burning desire to Be Famous, spent most of her life chasing the fame at the cost of a happy and productive life; she did bit parts in plays, became a married, but faithless, nightclub showgirl, knocked around in television. And by her late forties was at about the same place as she had been over 20 years earlier. The anger and frustration of those years was apparently drained into her names-changed showbiz potboilers, full of unhappy, promiscuous people who hop from bed to bed when they aren't too stoned on pills and booze to walk in a straight line (mind you, I haven't actually read any of the books--the closest I've come is a spoofy review that Calvin Trillin did of one of the novels and sitting through the last half hour of the movie version of VALLEY, appropriately while stoned on pain-killers and nursing a broken ankle--as I remember, Sharon Tate was pretty and very touching and Patty Duke yelled a LOT).

It's rather hard to reconcile such bile with this movie (written by Paul Rudnick) about a nice Jewish lady who writes a naughty little novel and helps everybody, including her up-tight WASP-y editor (David Hyde-Pierce) to overcome their sexual hangups, fitting all of this in between weeping over the fate of her autistic son and popping by Central Park to chat with God (Susann did have an autistic son and she did have the odd chat with the Deity, but if you want the lowdown of how they fit into her rather dark life story, better to check out Barbara Seaman's LOVELY ME, one of the best biographies I've ever read about a writer I have no interest in reading). That lady, as I've mentioned before, is played very agreeably by Bette Midler, and Nathan Lane is just as affable playing her husband. Hyde-Pierce is basically doing a re-mix of Niles Crane, but he is such an assured and appealing actor that you really don't care. There are also amusing turns by Stockard Channing as an actress friend of Midler's and John Cleese as an eccentric publisher. Also, some nice music by Burt Bacharach (even a Bacharach/David song sung by Dionne Warwick), pretty photography, nice costumes YAWN, YAWN . . .