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Astaire and Rogers Collection: Volume 1 (Top Hat / Swing Time / Follow the Fleet / Shall We Dance / The Barkleys of Broadway)
Starring: Oscar Levant, Billie Burke Director: Rating: Not Rated
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| Storyline: |
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You'll Love The Way Fred and Ginger Look Tonight in the 5-film, 5-Disc Astaire and Rogers Collection Volume One.
Top Hat (1935): Perhaps the best remembered of the 10 Astaire/Rogers musicals, Top Hat has it all: Art Deco elegance, a wonderfully addled storyline, loopy support from skilled farceurs and the incomparable chemistry of the two leads cheek-to-cheeking to Irving Berlin's finest film score. It's a wake-up call for romance when Fred's exuberant No Strings dance in his hotel suite disturbs the sleeping beauty (Ginger) in the room below. They meet cute, Fred decides he'd like a few strings (preferably a tied knot) after all and love beckons - until Ginger mistakenly gets the idea that Fred is a married playboy.
Swing Time (1936): It's Swing Time anytime Fred and Ginger slip on their dancing shoes. Here, Fred's a gambler with a fiancee back home... but one look at Ginger and all bets are off! He pursues, she resists, and it's all tied together by a series of breathtaking dances. "Bojangles of Harlem," a tribute to hoofer Bill Robinson, has Astaire tapping with three giant Astaire shadows. The sly "Pick Yourself Up" features Ginger teaching the supposedly flub-footed Fred how to dance. Other highlights from the splendid Jerome Kern-Dorothy Fields score include "A Fine Romance," "Waltz in Swing Time," and the Academy Award winning "The Way You Look Tonight."
Follow The Fleet (1936): All hands on deck! In the fifth of 10 Astaire/Rogers pairings, Fred trades his top hat for a sailor's cap, Randolph Scott gets the girl (pre-Nelson Harriet Hilliard), Ginger gets a tap solo and viewers get the unending delight of seven sparkling Irving Berlin numbers, including Let Yourself Go, We Saw the Sea, the Duo's zany I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket skit and their sublimely powerful Let's Face the Music and Dance.
Astaire is Bake Baker, a hoofer now given to stepping a sailor's horn-pipe while he and other swabbies patrol the seas for democracy. Rogers is his former partner Sherry, now convoying the Navy around a ballroom for 10 cents a dance. But one day the fleet returns to home port. Bake again meets Sherry, and the partnership is renewed at least for one more show. In small early-career roles, look for a very blond Lucille Ball and a very young Betty Grable.
Shall We Dance (1937): To keep musical-comedy star Linda Keene from retiring to marry, her manager Arthur Mille, suggests to the press that she's already married to Petrov, the ballet dancer. The two ultimately decide to marry so that they can have very public divorce and clear the air, but true love blossoms between them.
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949): The last Astaire/Rogers movie, about a show-biz team divided by career ambitions, is also the duo's only color film. |
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| Cast & Crew: |
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Starring:
Oscar Levant | Billie Burke | Gale Robbins | Jacques François | George Zucco | Clinton Sundberg | Inez Cooper | Carol Brewster | ...more
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Directed By:
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| Technical Information: |
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Genre:
Comedy, Dance, Family, Musical, Romantic
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DVD Release Date:
August 16, 2005
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Format: Region 1
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Rating:
Not Rated
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Regional Coding:
R1:
Will only play on North American Region 1 or multi-region DVD players.
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Number of Discs:
5
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Screen Ratio:
Full Screen Edition - 1.33:1
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| Sound System: | |
English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono) | |
Studio:
Warner Brothers
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Catalogue Number:
DVE277259
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UPC/Barcode Number:
053939725926
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Black & White: Yes
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Closed-Captioned: Yes
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Color: Yes
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| DVD Features: |
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- Top Hat (1935):
- Commentary by Fred Astaire's Daughter, Ava Astaire McKenzie, and film dance historian Larry Billman
- New Featurette On Top: Inside the Success of Top Hat
- Comedy short: Watch the Birdie with Bob Hope
- Classic cartoon Page Miss Glory
- Swing Time (1936):
- Commentary by John Mueller, Author of Astaire Dancing
- New featurette: The Swing of Things
- Musical short: Hotel a la Swing
- Classic cartoon: Bingo Crosbyana
- Follow The Fleet (1936):
- New featurette: Follow the Fleet: The Origins of Those Dancing Feet
- Musical short: Melody Master: Jimmie Lunceford and His Dance Orchestra
- Classic cartoon: Let It Be Me
- Shall We Dance (1937):
- Commentary by songwriter Hugh Martin and pianist Kevin Cole
- New featurette: They Can't Take That Away from Me: The Music of Shall We Dance
- Musical short: Sheik to Sheik
- Classic cartoon: Toy Town Hall
- The Barkleys of Broadway (1949):
- New featurette: Reunited at MGM: Astaire and Rogers Together Again
- Vintage short: Annie Was a Wonder
- Classic Droopy cartoon: Wags to Riches
- Theatrical trailers
- Scene Access
- Interactive Menus
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