The Golden Age Of Musicals

Pin your corsages and pull out your spats for Film Chest's new 5-DVD set The Golden Age of Musicals. The box includes 17 Hollywood, musical films dating roughly from the period of WW II. As all the titles are in Public Domain, most have already been issued countless times by cheapie labels, and in questionable quality. The primary advantage to this new set is that, although none of the offerings have undergone any significant remastering, they have been digitized, and are shown in better picture quality than ever offered before. And, in addition to the classic standbys, there are a few, interesting surprises.

Disc 1 includes a group of musicals with a "making it big" theme. The first is "Career Girl," a poor man's "Stage Door," which features 40's crooner Frances Langford aspiring to a successful Broadway career along with her roommates at an all-girl rooming house. The youthful Lena Horne hits it big in spite of her stormy romance with her promoter, in the fascinating, all African-American musical "The Duke is Tops." Another worthwhile curio is Cagney's "Something to Sing About," where Jimmy leaves Broadway for Hollywood stardom, with the help of unscrupulous agent William Frawley. Viewers are treated to scads of Cagney's unique, athletic, dancing. The first DVD is filled out by an adequate, Technicolor print of the ubiquitous Astaire/Donen "Royal Wedding."

One of the delights of the set is "All American Co-Ed," which opens with an entirely drag, production number. The plot concerns a frat boy who cross-dresses to crash a girl's school, where he falls for student Langford. The pop singer appears yet again in "People Are Funny," a pastiche about the world of '40's radio. Everyone surfaces, from Jack Haley and Clara Blandick (both of "Wizard of Oz" fame,) to future TV personalities Ozzie Nelson and Art Linkletter, the latter famed for his TV show of the same name. Rounding out disc 2 are surprisingly good transfers of Danny Kaye's farcical "The Inspector General," and Astaire's so-so Swing musical, "Second Chorus."

Discs 3 & 4 contain more of the usual suspects, with films ranging from the innocuous kiddie flick "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," with tunes from Edvard Grieg, to the star-studded Kern biopic "Till the Clouds Roll By." Another studio showcase, "Stage Door Canteen" is always campy fun. Somewhat more unusual is "The Fabulous Dorseys," with the Big Band brothers portraying themselves in their own biography. They were decidedly better musicians than actors.

The final disc contains a wretched print of the Irving Berlin Technicolor review "This is the Army." Kate Smith deserves better quality when introducing "God Bless America!" TCM has a superior print in their Wartime Musicals Collection, a nice companion set to this new release. Two comedies round things out, the irresistible "Private Buckaroo," with the Andrews Sisters, Harry James and Shemp Howard, and the early, middling Martin & Lewis romp "At War With the Army."

With the sheer abundance and diversity of the titles contained in the new "Golden Age of Musicals" collection, as well as the generally fine, picture quality, the set is an essential for devotees of the genre.