Whoever had the idea of resurrecting Broadway musical footage from the TV companies' vaults and giving it DVD-availability deserves a pat on the back. Unfortunately, the Cohen company, who present this compilation as a tribute to their Father(?), Alexander Cohen, have given us brilliant performances wrapped in shoddy presentation.
I have no axe to grind with Richard Kiley, but he does not appear in the show. Why, then, does he pop up in the montage of excerpts that precedes the excerpts themselves? ( Somebody wasn't paying attention!) If I were the excellent Barbara Erwin (Lily St. Regis in the "Easy Street" routine) I'd want to know why I wasn't named in the "opening night cast" list in the bonus features. (Somebody thought she had the role of Grace Farrell who is named in the cast credits.) And just listen to the commentary preceding the "Easy Street" number. Ask yourself why he did not correctly stress the word "their" before "luck". Because he was merely reading a script, that's why, not trying to make sense of it as he ought to have been doing.
So, should I be offloading this on the "Nitpickers" site? Not at all. My point is that the performances on "Broadways Lost Treasures" are such pure gold that they deserve professional presentation and that they did not get.
I keep returning to Ann Miller and Mickey Rooney in "Sugar Babies" What a treat it would be to have a complete performance of that show on DVD. And the wonderful Dorothy Loudun's Miss Hannigan in "Annie" gets repeat showings on my screen. (What a great pity to hear that Dorothy Loudun died recently. God rest her soul and long may her image and her filmed and audio performances continue to bring her talent to the world). My admiration for Patty Lupone increases each time I see her in a new role .And these are only a few of what were the show's highlights for me. Perhaps I should mention that, before obtaining the DVD, I thought I'd be constantly watching Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon do their "All That Jazz" and "Nowadays" routines from "Chicago". What a disappointment! A severely truncated version of the dance routines is all that is to be seen on this DVD. I myself could have done the choreography for what we see here. Anyone who has seen Karen Ziemba and Bebe Neuwirth dance these numbers in "Broadway-The Leading Ladies" knows how they ought to be performed. I can only assume that the footage of Rivera and Verdon was not all of sufficiently high quality to be included on this DVD.
There is a special reason for being hard on the producers of "Broadway's Lost Treasures". It looks as though there will be another batch of "Treasures" soon and this time, you Cohen guys, let's have P-E-R-F-E-C-T-I-O-N. Those guys and gals of the Broadway stage deserve nothing less!
I have no axe to grind with Richard Kiley, but he does not appear in the show. Why, then, does he pop up in the montage of excerpts that precedes the excerpts themselves? ( Somebody wasn't paying attention!) If I were the excellent Barbara Erwin (Lily St. Regis in the "Easy Street" routine) I'd want to know why I wasn't named in the "opening night cast" list in the bonus features. (Somebody thought she had the role of Grace Farrell who is named in the cast credits.) And just listen to the commentary preceding the "Easy Street" number. Ask yourself why he did not correctly stress the word "their" before "luck". Because he was merely reading a script, that's why, not trying to make sense of it as he ought to have been doing.
So, should I be offloading this on the "Nitpickers" site? Not at all. My point is that the performances on "Broadways Lost Treasures" are such pure gold that they deserve professional presentation and that they did not get.
I keep returning to Ann Miller and Mickey Rooney in "Sugar Babies" What a treat it would be to have a complete performance of that show on DVD. And the wonderful Dorothy Loudun's Miss Hannigan in "Annie" gets repeat showings on my screen. (What a great pity to hear that Dorothy Loudun died recently. God rest her soul and long may her image and her filmed and audio performances continue to bring her talent to the world). My admiration for Patty Lupone increases each time I see her in a new role .And these are only a few of what were the show's highlights for me. Perhaps I should mention that, before obtaining the DVD, I thought I'd be constantly watching Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon do their "All That Jazz" and "Nowadays" routines from "Chicago". What a disappointment! A severely truncated version of the dance routines is all that is to be seen on this DVD. I myself could have done the choreography for what we see here. Anyone who has seen Karen Ziemba and Bebe Neuwirth dance these numbers in "Broadway-The Leading Ladies" knows how they ought to be performed. I can only assume that the footage of Rivera and Verdon was not all of sufficiently high quality to be included on this DVD.
There is a special reason for being hard on the producers of "Broadway's Lost Treasures". It looks as though there will be another batch of "Treasures" soon and this time, you Cohen guys, let's have P-E-R-F-E-C-T-I-O-N. Those guys and gals of the Broadway stage deserve nothing less!