Reviews

The previous reviewer is incorrect, "Stranger in Paradise" is from Kismet not South Pacific and Paulo Szot's warm, rich baritone was never inaudible in this wonderful production. Szot won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical and this terrific production won 7 Tonys, the most a musical revival has ever won. Both Kelli O'Hara, who captured the essence of Nellie Forbush from "Small Rock," and Loretta Ables Sayre, who showed the dark desperate side of Bloody Mary, were also nominated for Tonys. O'Hara and Szot were a great romantic pairing, and I thought both their acting and singing far surpassed that of Mitzi Gaynor and Rosanno Brazzi, paired in the 1958 movie. This production just seemed to flesh out the characters and their situation, it's serious and moving.

It's great to hear a really big orchestra performing that sweeping music, the sound and production values seem to me to be near perfect, amazing considering it's a live performance. Heart felt performances from all, superb voices do justice to the timeless songs.

This production brought South Pacific back to life, I'm just sorry Lincoln Center's unwillingness to release DVD's or to allow PBS stations to air the show again will prevent others from experiencing this tremendous version of the classic musical. Considering all the dubbing in the movie version and the color experimentation that went awry, this is THE version of the musical that should be available to everybody. Come on PBS and Lincoln Center, let us see it!

(link to the Tony Awards page is in a message on the board)

I tuned into this movie half way thru, but apparently I've seen more than poster "It Lives", who wrote a review apparently without seeing any of this movie. This movie has a great musical section with spectacular dancing from Harold Nicholas, The Step Brothers, the Layson Brothers, well you can read the credits. So his comments about the lack of black performers in a Kay Kyser movie isn't true of this movie. This movie preserves the work of these wonderful dancers. "It Lives" comment should have been put on Kay Kyser's page or the the page of the movie he's actually referring to, if he could remember which one.

If you look him up, Kyser called his band the Kollege of Musical Knowledge. Corny yeah, but how is that racist? Where is the 3 K's in that? If there was a movie where a big band was dressed like the KKK I think that movie would be famous for that, and I've never heard of it. I looked on Wikipedia and I didn't see anything about Kyser and race, I googled it and I didn't see any connection with him and the KKK, though please correct me if its there. At one point in this movie there's a discussion about whether Ann Miller will sing with another famous band, such as Cab Calloway.

I'm guessing that the music business, especially the big bands, were not nearly as racist as other US institutions at the time, because black musicians were so talented they were pretty much in the process of inventing modern music and everybody sort of jumped on board what they were doing. If there were no black musicians in Kyser's band in the movie the first poster saw, maybe its because he played music, per quotes in his IMDb bio, that was "corny" and "sweet" and that's not where black musicians were going.

I'm not saying there wasn't something racist about Kyser's success, I mean obviously, he got to be a movie star, not a more talented band leader, like Duke Ellington, but "It Lives" post doesn't exactly make the case for Kyser being a symbol of racism, or whatever he was trying to say.

This wasn't just bad, it was despicable. The most sexist movie I've ever seen. Even in the heyday of sexism, movies seemed to at least like women, these movie makers don't. Women are derided for looking like women (they're FAT!)and depicted as pathetic if they are over 30 or have careers or are not bimbos. The only successful pairings are between men and subservient younger women (sluts or servants) Anti-American in the most obnoxious way, no discussion of meaningful issues, just American women are sluts and our president is an overtly sinister sleaze who gropes the help (why Americans are posting positive reviews is beyond me. A super slimy Billy Bob Thornton as the president!) I haven't seen this movie in two years, I'm actually just remembering how much I hated this from reading these user comments. I'm shocked at the good ones. It wasn't at all funny, the story lines would have been trite for an old American sitcom like Love, American Style or The Love Boat. Scenes the movie makers apparently thought were funny: juxtaposing a funeral with pornography; having a very young boy whose mother has just died spout four letter words; denigrating the religious traditions of Christmas. Corny, lame, predictable, unfunny, insulting, and calculated in the most stupid, base way. This movie has it all. Why do I have to give it a 1, why no 0 score or negative numbers? I'd give this a -10. I felt sorry for some of the cast, like Laura Linney, going topless for this dreck and Hugh Grant who announced his semi-retirement, I think, around then. I don't blame him.