Customer Reviews

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Harold Arlen

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

 

 

I rented this a couple of nights ago. One of the interviewees in the bio comments that he heard an Arlen medley one night and was amazed that he recognized song after song ... did this guy write all that ??? Well, Harold Arlen did and this DVD features some amazing performances by legends like Streisand, Sinatra, and Garland. There are nice black and white interviews with Mr. Arlen himself, lots of kinescopes of Arlen on piano playing and singing his songs. There is a fascinating section of how "Over The Rainbow" came to be written (lyricist E.Y. Harburg is very eloquent in his explanation). There's even a very cool section of Arlen and Tony Bennett in the recording studio. I can't remember the name of the song, but it swings, oh it swings! Of course, Streisand explodes on the screen as she whips through an incredible version of "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home". And there's a rare kinescope of Sinatra singing "One For My Baby" which has to be the most incredible song written because it is an actor's monologue with music. Sinatra does such a good job! I found the whole bio to be interesting. Arlen is one of America's treasures and has given us so many jewels for our songbook. Seeing the man behind the music was very interesting.

Like a lot of people, I had heard the name of Harold Arlen, but didn't fully realize how many great songs he had written. There must be maybe 30 songs we all know and love, with some of the most famous being STORMY WEATHER, OVER THE RAINBOW, COME RAIN OR COME SHINE and BLUES IN THE NIGHT.

And, of course, it was very interesting and fun to learn more about THE WIZARD OF OZ. Arlen composed the great songs with Yip Harburg, and they almost threw out OVER THE RAINBOW before they released the film.

It was real treat to see a lot of different song writers in the program speaking about Arlen's work, and the roster of great singers like Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland and Mel Tormé doing mostly defintive versions of his songs, was a real plus.

But probably the most memorable aspect of the documentary is the very moving story about his life, which was both charmed and cursed at the same time.

That's what makes this stand out from the usual biographies you see. There is a real feeling for his music, and a dramatic impact to his life story.

WOW, what a talent! Does everybody know what we are missing when great artists like this are not around any more? Too bad for us because we will never have this kind of song writer in our midst again. I've just ordered this on DVD because my VHS copy is no longer watchable. Two reasons to buy this DVD 1) Barbra Streisand sings "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" and 2) Tony Bennett sings "So Long, Big Time" worth the money of the DVD and what a bargin it is at Amazon. Some of the current Rock Pop and R&B is okay but I've been listening to Harold Arlen since I was 13 years old. There are so many familiar songs that make you say "I didn't know he wrote that too"! If you like biographies then this one's for you. Plus Old Blue Eyes sings "One For My Baby" and what a treat that is.

Really a delight to see all these wonderful performers doing this calibre of song. the home movies, with views of Gershwin, Berlin, Kern, WC Handy, are revelatory. the personal story is very moving. but above all, it reminds us all of how great a composer he was. So many songs!

I bought this DVD a couple of years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have watched it probably 10 times at least. Then all of a sudden recently I am seeing and hearing all this hype about the 2005 Centennial Celebration of Harold Arlen's birth, and came back to Amazon to nose around. I bought Sam Arlen's CD (a tribute to his father) and was just blown away by it, and of course the songs it contains... Harold Arlen was a master, and this DVD is just an excellent documentary of his life. I also recommend you get his son's CD, "Arlen Plays Arlen: A Timeless Tribute To Harold Arlen", by Sam Arlen. It has a very nice 20 page book with it that has a some trivia quips, pictures, and lyrics.

WOW, what a talent! Does everybody know what we are missing when great artists like this are not around any more? Too bad for us because we will never have this kind of song writer in our midst again. I've just ordered this on DVD because my VHS copy is no longer watchable. Two reasons to buy this DVD 1) Barbra Streisand sings "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" and 2) Tony Bennett sings "So Long, Big Time" worth the money of the DVD and what a bargin it is at Amazon. Some of the current Rock Pop and R&B is okay but I've been listening to Harold Arlen since I was 13 years old. There are so many familiar songs that make you say "I didn't know he wrote that too"! If you like biographies then this one's for you. Plus Old Blue Eyes sings "One For My Baby" and what a treat that is.

OVER THE RAINBOW is a beautifully put together tribute to one of America's greatest yet overlooked composers. Harold Arlen helped create American popular song by creating melodies that are embedded in our subconscious. Working with the greatest lyricists of the day,the film beautifully depicts his glamorous Hollywood and Broadway life, as well as examines the deep sorrow that seemed to be so much a part of his character. With amazing clips of the greatest singers all time (including Judy, Barbra, Tony, Lena and Frank) singing his amazing songs, OVER THE RAINBOW is a wonderful journey down the yellow brick road to meet it's composer, Harold Arlen.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Harold Arlen gives us a fascinating portrait of a genius who should have been more of a household name when he was living; and he still deserves far more recognition than he gets today. Harold wrote so many songs I couldn't list them all here even if I tried. Some of his better known songs come from The Wizard Of Oz and films like Stormy Weather; but he also composed the music for incomparable tunes including "Blues In The Night;" Get Happy;" "Last Night When We Were Young;" "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)" and so much more. In this documentary, we get rarely seen interview footage with Arlen from what was probably the 1960s; and we see him working in a recording studio with Tony Bennett in 1963. There's marvelous color footage of Barbra Streisand singing Arlen's "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" from a television show in 1966 and there are several very rare black and white clips of Harold Arlen singing and playing the piano on televised "specials" back in the 1950s.

The documentary benefits from the interviews we get from stars and the people who knew Harold much more intimately. I enjoyed the commentary by the incredible Fayard Nicholas, who danced with his brother as The Nicholas Brothers; Fayard remembers Harold Arlen fondly and he recalls having so much fun dancing with Pearl Bailey to one of Arlen's tunes in a big show. There's some good commentary by Harold's son Sam and his sister-in-law; they tell us so much more about this sensitive, caring man who could seemingly pull a tune out of his hat within 30 minutes at the most. It's incredible.

Moreover, the documentary takes some time to explore the basic timeline of Harold Arlen's life. We learn that he was born Hyman Arluck and that his family lived in an African-American neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. The Arlucks befriended many families there and Harold learned about music both from them and his father's work as a cantor in a Jewish synagogue. Hyman changed his name to Harold Arlen; and he arrived in New York in the late 1920s after playing in a couple of bands in the Buffalo area. In addition, the documentary takes its time to tell the meaningful tale of Arlen's romance with and marriage to a young, beautiful model named Anya; things weren't always easy for them as the film will explain to you. However, the footage of Harold and Anya is terrific.

Why isn't Harold Arlen better remembered? The documentary goes into that; and I think you'll gain much insight about that from watching this DVD video. It may well seem that I've given it all away; but I truly haven't. We get much more commentary from people I haven't even mentioned here; and the film covers Harold Arlen's life all the way until his passing. Even if I had told you everything you'll see on this DVD, the emotional impact of watching would still remain enormous and memorable.

I highly recommend this documentary for fans of Harold Arlen; and people just discovering his artistry will find this DVD to be an indispensable education about just how special and talented he truly was.

Thank you, Harold Arlen! We will never forget you!

Where do those four stars come from? After all, the audio/video quality here is middlin' to dreadful, and the production values aren't much better, but those are the reasons it doesn't get five stars.

Because this is (with the single exception of the DVD transcription of a short 1965 tribute on The Bell Telephone Hour Harold Arlen - An All-Star Tribute) probably the only available video appreciation of Harold Arlen, and enough of the great entertainers of the 20th Century show up to make it very special indeed.

The real strength here isn't even the music: it's the contemporary interviews with his collaborators, like lyricists Johnny Mercer and "Yip" Harburg, and the many great artists who sang and still sing his songs.

The high musical point for me is the trenchcoated n' Fedora'd Sinatra singing "One For My Baby" on a smoky barroom set that even includes an attentive Joe to set them up. The clip is not identified, so no way to tell if it came before or after ol' blue eyes got his (well-deserved, so quit yer whining, ya hear?) Oscar, but he completely inhabits the song, here. And there's Tony Bennett, showing he was an all-grown-up artist in 1960, so how on earth can he still be vibrant in 2010? He probably does it with mirrors that he borrows from Cher.

The scriptwriters do a bit of a Hollywood gloss over some parts of the story, like they give Arlen an undeserved free ride over the fate of his doomed wife Anya, but in other places they face the music directly, like when they explain that's he's probably not as well-known today as he deserves because late in his career he had an unbroken string of shows that crashed and burned, and after his wife died he left the public stage, folded his tent, and was gone.

I don't think the video even mentions Irving Berlin, but it should. Berlin phoned him daily and tried to coax him out of retirement, to which Arlen replied: "I've shot my wad". To which Berlin's response was a birthday poem for him titled, of course, "I've Shot My Wad":

Don't be a schmuck
No nightingale has had such luck,
Your songs have built a golden nest
For Stanley Adams and the rest.
They're praying for the moment when
You get off your ass and sing again.

I bought this DVD simply for the appearance of Barbra Streisand. The rest of it is boring.