Product Details

• Actors: Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ann Miller, Keenan Wynn, Bobby Van
• Directors: George Sidney
• Writers: Bella Spewack, Dorothy Kingsley, Sam Spewack, William Shakespeare
• Producers: Jack Cummings
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: February 24, 1995
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302363276
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #197,289 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Cole Porter, Shakespeare, and 3-D: Not the usual recipe for an MGM musical, but hey--it works. Although it runs hot and cold, this 1953 take on Porter's delightful Broadway smash lets a chewy cast gorge on some terrific songs and show-biz in-jokes. Think of the plot as His Girl Friday in greasepaint: vain star Howard Keel wants to lure ex-wife Kathryn Grayson back to the boards with a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. The movie's weakness is too much Shakespeare, not enough backstage backbiting (and why are two of the best numbers, "So in Love" and Ann Miller's zippy "Too Darn Hot," confined to a prologue?). Then there's the tendency to throw things at the camera--3-D, what hath you wrought? The candy-store color design is great fun, and Tommy Rall and future dance titan Bob Fosse are turned loose for some sensational leaps. Now that's "Wunderbar." --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of MGM's Best !, February 17, 2000

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Great Movie Addict (New York City) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Kiss Me Kate [VHS] (VHS Tape)

After seeing this movie for the first time since its 3D release in 1953, it makes one wonder why MGM insists on holding up "Singin' in the Rain" (a great treat in itself) as its best musical. KISS ME KATE is simply amazing -- tight, funny, fast, colorful, full of the dry wit and wisdom of Cole Porter, and gloriously "musical". To the crew's credit, many lines are straight from Shakespeare's original and the cast's readings are as adroit as any from Old Vic, anywhere, any time. Hermes Pan's and Bob Fosse's dance numbers are so sizzling good you can't take your eyes off the performance. It's a must-have for dance fans. For comedy fans, the offstage antics that mirror the onstage situations are a fiendishly clever conceit. Only one regret: the original 3D photography was terrific, with perhaps the most brilliant color work of 50's vintage. It's a bit subdued in modern prints. But don't let that deter you from enjoying this lively, literate, nearly perfect gem. Others have mentioned some of the more famous musical bits, but pay attention to Howard Keel's brilliant comedic reading of "The Life That Once I Led" (which drew gleeful applause when I saw it in a New York cinema recently), and Miss Grayson's rendition of "I Hate Men", copied by every lady who's tried it since 1953. Ann Miller's dance numbers are easily her very best work, by far -- and her "Too Darn Hot" was, at the time, almost too darn hot. Add veteran George Sindey's directorial expertise (The Harvey Girls, Scaramouche, etc.) and Shakespeare's own genius, and this becomes *THE* show for people who say they don't like musicals!

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars DULL LOOKING TRANSFER NEEDS SOME TAMING, April 22, 2003

By 

Nix Pix (Windsor, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiss Me Kate (DVD)

"Kiss Me Kate" is Cole Porter's charming update of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew". It stars Kathryn Grayson as Lily Vanessi, a hyper-sensative diva of the stage who stars opposite her ex-husband (Howard Keel) and his new lover (Ann Miller). On their way to a hit show, the three repeatedly bump heads and egos, ultimately finding true love. Porter's score for this musical is perhaps his finest, with such standards as "From This Moment On", "Wunderbar" and the title track. "A" list performances throughout make "Kiss Me Kate" a real show stopper.
Unfortunately the same can't be said for Warner Home Video's dull looking transfer. Colors are muted, at time appearing bleached or, at the very least, weak. The same is true of the picture's contrast and black levels. There is a haze that plagues the picture quality throughout and adds to its overly soft characteristic.
Now, about that - the visual characteristic is generally soft looking throughout (most likely the result of over use of noise reduction equipment used to master the DVD). On a 32 inch television screen the picture will merely appear generally soft. On a 65 inch monitor it looks down right blurry and at times incredibly out of focus.
I am really at a loss to explain why this movie looks this bad. Owning the laserdisc and, doing a side by side comparison, I can report that the laserdisc actually surpasses this DVD in all of the above mentioned catagories. Of course, no laserdisc can hold a candle to DVD, in its superior resolution capabilities, and this DVD is no exception. There is no edge enhancement, aliasing or fine detail shimmering to speak of. This movie has been remixed to 5.1 surround. It's generally good, only suggesting a strident characteristic during brief interludes of dialogue or effects. The musical score is well represented.
Extras: Another all too short featurette on Cole Porter and the making of this movie - this one hosted by Ann Miller, but also featuring snippets from Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Tommy Rall and James Whitmore. A theatrical trailer and isolated music track are also worthy of mention.
Bottom Line: In light of Warner's usually pristine efforts on DVD this transfer is a big disappointment and NOT recommended.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rollicking Production From MGM's "B" Unit, July 20, 2005

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A. Munnik "firewatcher" (Brazeau Tower, Alberta) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kiss Me Kate (DVD)

So popular were MGM's musicals during the "golden" decade that ran from 1944 to 1954 that one production unit was not enough to satisfy the demand for this genre. Modern viewers may find this hullabaloo a little hard to understand, but in an era where the overwhelming majority of films were still shot in black and white, MGM's glorious Technicolor productions were always considered a bit of a visual treat for audiences jaded by more typical "film noire" fare. Perhaps the waning popularity of musicals beginning in the late 1950's had something to do with the upsurge of colour in other film genres, as well as a decline in the colour quality of film musicals themselves (of which Kiss Me Kate is a good example) as studios cut costs by abandoning glorious three step Technicolor for the much duller one step colour processes such as Ansco.
Kiss Me Kate, a Broadway stage hit, was turned over to the studio's so called "B" Unit; a lower budget knock off of the "A" Unit headed by Arthur Freed and headed by such stellars of the film musical world as director Vincente Minnelli, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, etc. Minnelli's search for perfection was legendary so it comes as no surprise that he would run up production costs, which became more of an issue in the problematic years of the early 1950's.
So MGM increasingly relied on the "B" Unit to keep up with the demand for musicals while at the same time not breaking the bank.
George Sidney was one of the favourite directors of the "B" Unit with a reputation for getting excellent results with sparser resources, such as time and money. Sidney achieved his results by fostering an "esprit de corps" atmosphere amongst his crew and cast. One of the hallmark of Sidney helmed films is that everyone seems to be having a good time and Kiss Me Kate is an excellent example of this. Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Ann Miller and the rest of the cast all turn in wonderful performances in spite of their lesser marquee appeal compared to the "big guns" of the "A" Unit. They are helped along immeasureably by Cole Porter's splendid score, one of the very best to make its way to celluloid.
Some viewers complain that this DVD is not in the widescreen format. This film was shot in 1953, the same year that Fox introduced Cinemascope. Kiss Me Kate was one of the last major musicals to be shot in the old standard format, and it was soon realized that the novelty of 3-D would never be able to compete with widescreen. Viewers who claim to have seen Kiss Me Kate in widescreen probably saw a bit of mischief perpertrated by unscrupulous studio moguls who in their rush to get on the widescreen band wagon stooped to trimming the tops and bottoms of 35 mm film in order to achieve the 16:9 format. I think the process was called SuperScope and had a mercifully brief life as viewing audiences didn't appreciate seeing their stars minus their feet and the tops of their heads lobbed off.
No use in complaining about poor colour quality. Ansco was a bit of a disaster, being unstable in addition to it's other shortcomings. We should be grateful for what we have.
That the film version of Kiss Me Kate lacks the bite of the stage version is because of puritanical censorship codes that were rigorously enforced until well into the 1960's, and cannot be blamed on the film's creative team.
All in all, Kiss Me Kate is musical and comical riot from start to end and probably stands as the high light of George Sidney's illustrious career.