Cheap On the Riviera (DVD) (Walter Lang) Price
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| CATEGORY: | DVD |
| DIRECTOR: | Walter Lang |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 20 April, 1951 |
| MANUFACTURER: | 20th Century Fox |
| MPAA RATING: | NR (Not Rated) |
| FEATURES: | Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC |
| TYPE: | Color, Comedy, Feature, Movie, Musical, Musical Features, Musicals, Musicals & Cast Recordings, Musicals (Theatrical), Suitable for Children, USA |
| MEDIA: | DVD |
| MPN: | D2243888D |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
| UPC: | 024543438885 |
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Customer Reviews of On the Riviera
On the Riviera I loved this movie because it was the first movie that I became aware of Gwen Verdon and Jack Cole. It lead me to later become a professional dancerdancer
Great movie
This is a great movie. A fun remake of "[[ASIN:B000K7VHNM That Night in Rio]] with Don Ameche. Danny Kaye is a very verstile entertainer who can sing, dance and act. He really pulls off the double role he plays as an entertainer and a wealthy man who has a reputation as a ladies man. A couple of the songs in this movie harken back to my childhood and enhances the enjoyment of this movie. A must see!
Good reasons: Danny Kaye, Gwen Verdon and Jack Cole!
Warner set the standard with a string of well-produced DVDs of MGM musicals. 20th Century Fox is up for the challenge - and they've already proved it with special editions of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classics. So a lot of love and care went into the making of this DVD. It comes in a slipcase and contains four b/w lobby cards. Picture and sound were superbly restored. The format is of course fullscreen - not widescreen, as stated in the product description above. The great extras section includes the trailer, a still gallery and three comprehensive featurettes:
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>"The Riviera Story" (10 minutes): "On the Riviera" (1951) is a remake of "Folies Bergère" (1936) and "That Night In Rio" (1941), respectively. The featurette draws a comparison.
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>"A Portrait of Danny Kaye" (26 minutes): A biographical look at Kaye's impressive life, featuring - amongst others - his daughter Dena Kaye.
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>"The Jack of Clubs - Choreographer Jack Cole" (10 minutes): An appreciation of Jack Cole's work (that's been long overdue).
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>The film isn't a great comedy. Nevertheless, Kaye does a fine job in a dull plot while Gene Tierney and Corinne Calvet contribute nothing except their lovely looks. If you'd like to see Danny Kaye at his best - with a wonderful supporting cast - get "The Court Jester".
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>Walter Lang's directorial style is, as always, invisible. He directed a couple of major Fox musicals - most importantly "The King and I". His big achievement as a director was that he never got in the way of all the talent he was working with.
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>Huge plus points, besides Kaye's performance, are the lively and hummable score by Kaye's wife Sylvia Fine and Jack Cole's extraordinary jazz choreography featuring the stunning future Broadway star Gwen Verdon.
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>Verdon was a brilliant dancer in a class of her own (and certainly NOT just a "Fosse hoofer", as stated above). Choreographers like Jack Cole, Michael Kidd and her later husband Bob Fosse made very effective use of this fact. She was Cole's left hand and danced for him in shows and films from the late Forties until the mid-Fifties - always receiving solo or centre stage spots. Her enormous contribution to the world of dance and her unique talent should be acknowledged by dance students and musical theatre enthusiasts alike.
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>Her work as a dancer can be studied in "Meet Me After the Show", "The Farmer Takes a Wife" (both will hopefully be included in the second installment of the Betty Grable DVD collection), "The I-Don't-Care-Girl" (probably Mitzi Gaynor's best film - hopefully available on DVD soon), "The Mississippi Gambler" (features an amazing voodoo sequence - not available on DVD), "David and Bathsheba" (available on DVD), "The Merry Widow" (available on DVD in South America - Verdon's can-can is also featured in the MGM clip compilation "That's Dancing!"), "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" (Verdon's big charleston number was cut, only a few seconds remained in the film - not available on DVD) and "Damn Yankees" (her only starring role in a film musical, mastering the triple threat (acting, singing and dancing) - highly recommended and available on DVD). You will also find clips on youtube.com and in DVD compilations like "Broadway's Lost Treasures" and "Best of the Ed Sullivan Show".
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>During the Eighties and Nineties she had a "second" career as a supporting actress appearing in "The Cotton Club", the "Cocoon" films, Woody Allen's "Alice", "Magnum P.I." (as Tom Selleck's mother) and "Marvin's Room". She passed away in 2000.
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>Back to "On the Riviera" - let's take a look at the five musical numbers:
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>"On the Riviera": Kaye impersonating Maurice Chevalier. A tip of the hat to the man who originally played the double role.
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>"Rhythm of a New Romance": A big production number that introduced Gwen Verdon to movie audiences. It begins with a can-can. (One year later Verdon would dance the can-can again in "The Merry Widow". This would land her a job in a new Cole Porter musical - called "Can-Can". The rest is Broadway history.) The number continues with an East Indian dance featuring Verdon and Jack Cole (behind a Kathakali mask). Cole studied authentic Bharata Natyam and other ethnic dances and integrated them brilliantly into his style.
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>"Ballin' the Jack": One of Kaye's trademark songs and part of his stage act for many years. Here's a rather sophisticated version.
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>"Popo the Puppet": An imaginative number - conceived by Jack Cole - featuring Danny Kaye, Gwen Verdon and Ethel Martin as Commedia Del Arte puppets. Fine's droll song received an Oscar nomination. (By the way, look for the similarities between the tambourine players and the tambourine playing doctors in the "Some of These Days" sequence in Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz". Fosse admired Jack Cole's work. He auditioned for him when he was starting out as a dancer.)
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>"A Happy Ending": Pure heaven for anyone who's interested in dance and a rare chance to see (almost) the entire core of the Jack Cole Dancers together: Verdon, Cole himself, Buzz Miller (an excellent jazz dancer who would also work extensively with Fosse (in "Redhead" and in the stage and movie version of "Pajama Game"). He was also the companion of Broadway legend Jerome Robbins.) and George and Ethel Martin (probably the most loyal of Cole's dancers. They had been working with him since the early Forties. George Martin appeared in all of Cole's Columbia musicals usually partnered with Rod Alexander and Alex Romero. He and his wife Ethel would re-create parts of Cole's original stage choreography for Richard Lester's movie adaptation of "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum".)
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>If you'd like to know more about Jack Cole I recommend to find a copy of Glenn Loney's great book "The Unsung Genius - The Passion of Dancer-Choreographer Jack Cole". Look for a list of his films under imdb.com.
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>Unfortunately there's still no biography of Gwen Verdon available. But you'll find plenty of information in the Fosse books. Search under Kevin Boyd Grubb, Margery Beddow and Martin Gottfried (who also published a rather gossipy Danny Kaye biography called "Nobody's Fool").
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>Thank you, 20th Century Fox, for helping to keep the legends alive. There's so much to learn. I hope that you will continue to release rare musicals from the golden era on DVD.