DVD/CD Update '06
Today I am updating a 2004 article, itself an update on previous columns discussing the availability on DVD of certain films and the availability on CD of any number of theatre recordings. Beginning with the subject of musical movies on DVD, I am not surprised that one of my top '04 wish-list choices for DVD transfer, the film version of Where's Charley?, still remains unavailable. Indeed, the 1952 movie of the 1948 Broadway musical hit is not only not on DVD, but appears to be hidden away, to my knowledge unseen on television for many years.
I have seen rumors published to the effect that those involved with the rights to the musical and its film version aren't interested in pursuing a re-release because they believe the film to be less than top-notch. But having seen the picture a number of times over the years, I see nothing terribly wrong with it. Indeed, it's an eminently respectable preservation of the Frank Loesser-George Abbott Broadway show, valuable simply because it allowed Ray Bolger the chance to preserve his hugely acclaimed stage performance. The Where's Charley? film also features the Broadway show's leading lady, Allyn McLerie, and while it did not recreate the stage version's choreography by Georges Balanchine, the film offered the work of another gifted choreographer, Michael Kidd.
While Where's Charley? could plausibly turn up at Encores!, it's an unlikely prospect for another Broadway revival. So one can't see any good reason not to exhibit and/or release the film version. That's particularly true when one considers that such other long-unavailable films as Annie Get Your Gun and Call Me Madam have found their way to DVD.
Other titles on my 2004 wish list of desirable musical films still unavailable on DVD included The Bandwagon, Bells Are Ringing, Finian's Rainbow, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Li'l Abner, the television film of Bye Bye Birdie, My Sister Eileen, It's Always Fair Weather, Kismet, The Boy Friend, Flower Drum Song, Mame, A Little Night Music, Top Banana, The Opposite Sex, and The Pirates of Penzance.
Some progress has clearly been made, as the first six titles on that wish list are now on DVD, and at least one of the two film versions of My Sister Eileen --the musical-- is also out on disc. Coming to DVD in April is It's Always Fair Weather, and since Warner Home Video continues to release titles from the MGM catalogue, one expects that Kismet will eventually appear. If it's not one of the finer screen adaptations of a stage musical, it's certainly worth reissuing as a decent Hollywood representation of a Broadway hit.
Of the other titles, many would like to see A Little Night Music come out on DVD. Few would maintain that it's an ideal film version of a superb musical, but it does have enough going for it --especially Diana Rigg and the presence of three of the original leading stage performers-- to make it worth a reissue.
I would especially like to see Flower Drum Song come out on DVD, particularly as, with the release of the 1962 State Fair and the CinemaScope Oklahoma!, Flower Drum Song is now the only Rodgers and Hammerstein movie not on DVD. One wonders if the lack of a DVD could have anything to do with the fact that the show now exists in a radically different revisal version, while the film naturally documents the original version.
And then there's Mame, which exerts the fascination of a train wreck and is a spectacle that's always, and on any number of levels, intriguing to review. Mame probably brings us to the category of camp, and on that 2004 DVD wish list I had included Lost Horizon the musical, At Long Last Love, Who Killed Teddy Bear?, Sammy Stops the World, and my favored trio of Joan Crawford camp epics, Torch Song, Female on the Beach, and Berserk. Not one of those titles has subsequently appeared on DVD. In the cases of the first four titles, that's hardly surprising. But one would think that the presence of Crawford might promote reissues of more of her films, even the ones that are the most fun to laugh at.
Turning to original-cast recordings on CD and dividing things by label, the 2004 article listed as unavailable on CD the following RCA Victor titles: Say, Darling, New Faces of 1956, Maggie Flynn, Jimmy, Inner City, Let It Ride!, The Saint of Bleecker Street, Maria Golovin, the Lincoln Center King and I and Merry Widow, and Two's Company. Two years later, only the final title has appeared on CD, although I wouldn't be surprised to see New Faces of 1956 come out on a U.K. label, as the fifty-year copyright will soon expire there. And none of RCA Victor's off-Broadway titles --How to Steal an Election, The Last Sweet Days of Isaac, By Jupiter-- has appeared. The last is particularly valuable, the only cast recording of the delightful score from the last all-new Rodgers and Hart musical.
The 2004 list of Columbia original-cast show titles unavailable on CD remains pretty much intact in 2006. True, DRG did give us Columbia's The Mad Show. But still unavailable are Simply Heavenly, The Zulu and the Zayda, My Fair Lady '76, Candide '74, Lincoln Center South Pacific and Threepenny Opera, the Jones Beach Song of Norway, the World's Fair To Broadway with Love, and off-Broadway's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Half-Past Wednesday.
In terms of CD reissues, one of the most active U.S. companies remains Decca Broadway, which recently restored Baker Street to the catalogue. Remaining unavailable are such Decca or Decca-controlled titles as The Consul, Sing Out, Sweet Land, The Billy Barnes Revue, Donnybrook!, Wait a Minim, Doonesbury, and the Jones Beach Arabian Nights. From off-Broadway, there are the unavailable All in Love, Riverwind, The Cradle Will Rock, Man with a Load of Mischief, Cindy, Greenwich Village U.S.A., Fly Blackbird, and Ballad for Bimshire. Of all those titles, I'd most like to see the release of The Consul, the powerful Gian Carlo Menotti Broadway opera that was a sensation in its day, and Donnybrook!, a charming score that's considerably superior to a number of titles that Decca Broadway has already reissued.
Of the cast-album titles from random labels that appeared on that 2004 list, A Family Affair, Cyrano, and New Faces of 1968 have all come out on CD. In terms of quality, it's hard to understand how the latter title made it to CD ahead of such still-unavailable 2004 titles as A Time for Singing, Illya Darling, Anya, Cry for Us All, Show Girl, Stop the World-I Want to Get Off Sammy Davis, and off-Broadway's House of Flowers and One Mo' Time. Of those titles, one would especially like to have on CD the lovely A Time for Singing and the enjoyable floperetta Anya.
Of course, that's not to mention the dozens of interesting West End and studio-cast show recordings that remain unavailable on CD. At least we got the Shirley Jones/Jack Cassidy Brigadoon. That's also not to mention the numerous CD cast-album reissues that are now out of print.
As I noted back in 2004, hard-core collectors have naturally taken to making homemade versions of unavailable titles, burning their LPs onto CD and outfitting the result with scannings of the original LP covers. These will do until the real thing comes along, even if such items are unable to offer much improvement on the sound of the old LPs.