DVDs:

	Doris Day Collection 1 (Billy Rose's Jumbo / Calamity Jane / The Glass Bottom Boat / Love Me or Leave Me / ... Doris Day, James Cagney Warner Home Video, 2005 average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Young Man with a Horn (1950)
With a second-hand trumpet and the loving guidance of a brilliant bluesman, a lonely boy grows into manhood as a superb musician whose talent carries him from honky-tonks to posh supper clubs. But his desperate search for the elusive high note, trapped in his mind but impossible to play, starts him on a boozy downward slide. Charged with dynamic performances by Kirk Douglas (the title role), Doris Day, Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael and pitch-perfect direction by Michael Curtiz, the film is a feast of hot, cool, moody jazz. Legendary Harry James dubbed Douglas' horn work.

Lullaby of Broadway (1951)
Day danced divinely and sang in this musical delight about a singer newly arrived in New York and destined for Great White Way fame in the capable company of co-stars Gene Nelson, S.Z. Sakall, Billy DeWolfe, Gladys George and Florence Bates. Highlights are the inclusion of the OscarR -winning title tune, Cole Porter's "Just One of Those Things", "Somebody Loves Me" and six more songs.

Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
Laced with Doris Day's vibrant performances of songs from the era, this 1955 Academy AwardR winner (Best Motion Picture Story) is the tough-minded true tale of Ruth Etting's life with the man who boosted her career with strong-arm tactics yet smothered her in an obsessive grip she escaped at great peril. As Martin "The Gimp" Snyder, James Cagney earned one of the film's six OscarR nominations. Ms. Day's Etting was a career-best dramatic performance, bringing acclaim from critics and protest letters from fans unprepared for the departure from her traditionally sunny roles. DVD special features include: Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1, Three vintage shorts, the first two with Ruth Etting (A Modern Cinderella, Roseland, A Salute to the Theatres)

Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962)
Radiant Doris Day sings beloved Rodgers and Hart tunes and does her own horseback riding tricks in this razzle-dazzle musical based on Billy Rose's stage spectacular and featuring circus sequences directed by Busby Berkeley. The story revolves around a circus owner (Jimmy Durante, star of the 1935 Broadway original) with only two real attractions: his daughter (Day) and popular pachyderm Jumbo. Three-ring pandemonium breaks out when a handsome rival (Stephen Boyd) infiltrates the circus, and father, daughter and Dad's wisecracking fiancie (Martha Raye) are suddenly at risk of losing the greatest show on earth. o DVD Special Features include: Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1, Musical short Yours Sincerely, Tom and Jerry cartoon Jerry and Jumbo, Original overture rejoined to the film for the first time in more than 40 years.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1962)
o Ms. Day brings her trademark radiance to this jovial comedy from the bestseller by playwright Jean Kerr. With Janis Paige, Spring Byington and Richard Haydn on hand for snappy comic support, Please Don't Eat the Daisies is breezy family fun with popular songs "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and "Anyway the Wind Blows."

The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)
Doris Day entered her eighth consecutive year as a Top-10 Box-Office Star when she boarded The Glass Bottom Boat, a blending of romantic comedy and the era's burgeoning spy-movie genre. Frank Tashlin directs with a cartoonist's sensibility, embracing everything from spy guises to push-button chaos in a futuristic kitchen. The film also stars top comedians Arthur Godfrey, Paul Lynde, Edward Andrews, John McGiver, Dom DeLuise and Dick Martin. o DVD special features include: Three vintage featurettes (Catalina Island, Every Girl's Dream, NASA), Oscar-winning cartoon The Dot and the Line.

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The neglected Doris Day summit

THE DORIS DAY COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE is huge and includes some of the lady's greatest, and most underrated, movies. Let us examine them in chronological order.

LULLABY OF BROADWAY (1950) is a dreamy Technicolor musical that takes place all over a studio-set Manhattan, including a Greenwich Village nightclub and a Washington Square townhouse. Doris Day has an off-again, on-again romance with Gene Nelson, but sings the Oscar-winning title song with him at the end. Doris and alcoholic singer Gladys George (superb performance) have a mother-daughter relationship. George does a memorable "An Old Shanty in Old Shanty Town." Nelson has a solo of "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart." There are literally ten songs in 92 minutes of running time. Doris has a solo of "You're Getting to be a Habit With Me." Providing fun support are S. Z. Sakall as a beer tycoon and Florence Bates as his wife. S. Z. keeps running into debt bankrolling actresses and shows. The ending is a happy show-stopper with the exhilarating title song. David Butler directed. Minimal bonuses include a Doris Day trailer camp for six of her early movies.

Though it is in a Doris Day DVD boxed set, Michael Curtiz' YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN (1950) is really one of Kirk Douglas' best early films. It is narrated by Hoagy Carmichael at a piano and goes back to Douglas' Rick Martin as a child addicted to jazz music and a school runaway. He grows up to be a man obsessed with playing the trumpet (dubbed by Harry James) better than anyone else in the world. Worldly intellectual Amy (Lauren Bacall) cannot stand that, but likeable singer Jo Jordan (Doris) can and becomes his friend for singer/trumpet duets. Juano Hernandez is unforgettable as a likeable black musician Kirk idolizes. Gorgeously photographed in high gloss B&W by Ted McCord (TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE SOUND OF MUSIC) and directed with his usual authority by Curtiz, the movie includes smoky jazz renditions of "Too Marvelous For Words," "Someone to Watch Over Me," "With a Song in My Heart" and a dozen more. This is a jazz lover's paradise, and I think Doris' fans will love it as much as Kirk's fan club. The only bonus is a theatrical trailer.

I believe CALAMITY JANE (1953) is one of Doris Day's personal favorites among her movies. She gets to do an old-fashioned western, wear cowboy duds and no makeup, and sing exuberant songs like "I Just Blew In From the Windy City" and the Oscar-winning "Secret Love." We are in the Old West and the so-called Windy City is Chicago. Howard Keel is Wild Bill Hickok, Allyn McLerie plays a saloon singer named Katie Brown, and Philip Carey makes it a foursome for romance. This is a colorful and tuneful western/romantic musical with songs by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster. For a comparison, rent Cecil B. DeMille's THE PLAINSMAN (1936), with Gary Cooper as Wild Bill and Jean Arthur as Calamity. It is even better than CALAMITY JANE.

LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (1955) is a curious film in the Doris Day filmography. She is downright brilliant as Jazz Age torch singer Ruth Etting, dynamically singing song after wonderful song in reprocessed stereo. But the movie itself, nominated for six Oscars and a winner for Original Story, is so unpleasant because Oscar nominee James Cagney is so vicious and loathsome as her boyfriend/manager/later husband Marty Snyder. I love Cagney, but not here. There is so little to like about Marty that I kept threatening to turn off my DVD. But then Doris came back on stage to sing a good dozen era songs, including "It All Depends on You," "You Made Me Love You," "Shaking the Blues Away," "My Blue Heaven," 10 Cents a Dance," the Oscar-nominated "I'll Never Stop Loving You," and the title song as the film's finale. Something doesn't ring true about early feminist Ruthie letting a violent gangster control every step of her life and even being willing to marry him. The restored color is beautiful, the CinemaScope compositions are outstanding, and the Oscar-nominated soundtrack is enthralling. But Cagney's unredeemed viciousness derailed the movie for me. Excellent bonuses include 1955 at the (MGM) Movies and two Vitaphone shorts featuring the real Ruth Etting.

THE PAJAMA GAME (1957) is a neglected musical masterpiece about labor conditions in the Sleep Tite pajama factory. Labor wants a 7 ½ cent raise, and management refuses to budge. Representing labor is Doris Day at her best as Babe Williams; for management there is John Raitt as Sid Sirokin. They fall in love, of course. The costume design is some of the most colorful of the entire 1950's and should have won the Oscar; a young Bob Fosse did the choreography; and this sparkler of a musical was co-directed by Stanley Donen and George Abbott. The stupendous songs include "Hernando's Hideaway," "There Once Was a Man," "Small Talk," "Hey There," and especially the exuberant "Once a Year Day." Doris is at her very best, Raitt burns a hole through celluloid with a dynamic performance, and the supporting cast includes Carol Haney and Eddie Foy, Jr. This film is as good as film musicals get and should have a much stronger reputation. Maybe its inclusion in this huge boxed set can help.

PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES (1959) has Doris Day as a Connecticut interior decorator married to fussy, cynical Broadway drama critic David Niven, who never met a play he liked. It's a good comedy that should have been a great one, and I'm not sure why. Niven keeps trying to stay friends with actors and writers, particularly Janis Paige, whose work he keeps panning in print. Richard Haydn has a great supporting role as a playwright whose work Niven pans. This critic reminds me of vicious critic John Simon, whose drama reviews could open or close a play. Directed in CineaScope by Charles Walters (BILLY ROSE'S JUMBO upcoming), the source here is a book by playwright Jean Kerr. Doris even gets to sing two songs, including the title number, and the final scene is uproarious. I still remember the wonderful mid-1960's TV sitcom version of this, starring Patricia Crowley, with great fondness from my adolescent years. It would be lovely to have it on home video also. Bonuses are skimpy, just a theatrical trailer.

BILLY ROSE'S JUMBO (1962) is a most pleasant and nostalgic trip to the circus, based on the 1935 show that Mr. Rose staged at the long-demolished Hippodrome in New York City. Starring in the movie are Doris Day and Stephen Boyd as circus performers (and one can only hope they did not do their own stunts), with Jimmy Durante (from the 1935 show) and Martha Raye for comic relief. The wonderful songs, by Rodgers and Hart, include "My Romance," "Stardust, Spangles, and Dreams" and the incomparable "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World". In fact, I like the musical numbers more than the circus acts. Director Charles Walters and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon collaborated earlier on EASTER PARADE (1948), and the circus action was choreographed by Busby Berkeley. This Panavision production restores the original roadshow overture and also includes a hysterically funny "Tom and Jerry" cartoon and a 1933 Vitaphone romantic short.

Finally, THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT (1966) is an unexpectedly uproarious blend of romantic comedy, mistaken identity, and mid-1960s spy spoof from Looney Toons cartoon genius director Frank Tashlin. Doris Day plays a NASA employee (the movie was filmed all over Cape Canaveral) who is pursued amorously by her boss, Rod Taylor. (I think he's her boss.) Doris' father is Arthur Godfrey, who runs a glass bottom boat tourist attraction in Catalina Island harbor, where Doris spends her summers as a mermaid. (Could I make this up?) She and Godfrey and Taylor sing the catchy theme song over tropical drinks. Anyway, Day is mistaken for a Russian spy because she has a dog named Vladimir, whom she keeps calling on the phone. ("She you tonight, Vladimir. I love you.") The dream comedy supporting cast pursuing our heroine includes John McGiver, Paul Lynde, Dom De Luise, Edward Andrews, Eric Fleming, and Dick Martin. Watch for a wild party scene where one of them plants an electronic phone bug inside an hors d'ouvre that someone eats; Lynde in drag to bug the ladies' room; and conservative Andrews and Martin at sex objects in bed together. Watch what sweet and hilarious revenge Doris plays on all of them when she realizes they falsely think she is a spy. The legendary Leon Shamroy (the 1945 STATE FAIR, THE KING AND I) photographed in Panavision; the script is by Everett Freeman, who also produced. Everyone looks as if they had a wonderful time making THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT, and you will have a wonderful time watching it. DVD bonuses are generous: a tour of NASA, a travelogue on Catalina Island, a 1966 beauty contest winner tours 1966 MGM studios, there is the Oscar-winning cartoon "The Dot and the Line", and finally the theatrical trailer.

THE DORIS DAY COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE is a must rental and a feast to invest in on DVD if you have the money and love the lady's work as much as I do.

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Great Set

Doris Day is great. I have always been a fan of hers. The movies in this set give us a good representation of her dramatic and comedic skills as an actress. This set would be a good gift to give to someone who loves the classics and musicals.


Doris Day Collection 1

I really love Doris Day but I had been looking for Calamity Jane for a couple of years now and could not find it. When I saw it was in this collection along with Jumbo and the other that were offered I couldn't resist and the quality was just what I expected. I am very happy with the collection.


My daughters Christmas.

My daughter loves Doris Day so these movies were an absolutely wonderful gift for her. She was Thrilled! We got the movies in time and the price was reasonable. Thank You

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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