Rating: 
Summary: WAY UP THERE.........
Review: LEE ..... Lee Remick, Barbara Cook, Mandy, George, Liliane, Carol ..... {A}licia ...Liz ...Betty ....Adolphe .... how quickly it fades .......SO????It's not complete - but WHAT we have is LEGEND! So priceless ..... WHERE IS the MOVIE Version? MGM was supposed to do this way back ....... WHY do we wait ... ? This DVD is merely a TANTALUS version ... excellent but just a glimpse of THE GREATNESS of the Great White Way .... OK .... so just where are the new Ziegfelds???????? [Streisand should consider this vehicle ... from a director's pov. Reynolds, Powell, MacLaine, Grayson, Gaynor, Andrews, Close, LuPone, Page, Minelli, Menzel and Chenowith ... and the others are STILL around .....for now ......] DO THIS !
Rating: 
Summary: old documentary!
Review: Please think this DVD is recorded in 1986. More worse, this is recorded as a documentary. Sound quality is worst. After I bought this and DVD of "Company" (same, worst sound quality DOCUMENTARY), I suspect the word "concert" or "soundtrack" in DVD title.
Rating: 
Summary: This Should Get 5 Stars, But...!
Review: Thank God that there is a full recording of this evening available on CD, because this video only shows about 45 minutes of the actual concert. Granted, they are 45 minutes that are not to be missed with this brilliant cast and this amazing show from Stephen Sondheim. This is truly a Broadway event. The documentary, which makes up most of the running time of the video is a lot of fun, but cutting the actual concert down to bare bones is a sin. We who adored Sondheim should appeal to the producers and beg that this magical night be released on video in its entirety.
Rating:
Summary: A ONE-NIGHT FOLLY THAT DESERVES TO BE SEEN
Review: They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, but these days the damn things are blazing. Revivals are still king: Alfred Molina is wowing them with his performance as milkman Tevye in the 40th anniversary revival of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway - we haven't seen the show, but the cast recording, now on PS Classics, is so brilliant that it has replaced the Zero Mostel version as our fave Fiddler. Boston audiences just got a chance to plunk down $75 to see a revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, The King and I, starring former Triscuit queen Sandy Duncan (in the title role - no, not the King, but the "I," as in Anna Leonowens, the schoolteacher who "tamed" the King of Siam.). Perhaps the most interesting thing about this revival is that it's being directed by Baayork Lee, the diminutive actress best known for her role as Connie in the original production of A Chorus Line and who appeared as Princess Yaowlak, opposite Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner, in the original Broadway production of The King and I back in 1951.
Aso in Beantown: bombastic broad Elaine Stritch, appearing in her Tony-winning one-woman show, Elaine Stritch At Liberty. It's a raucous and honest look at her life and love and career highs and lows - especially the booze-sodden episodes so reminiscent of those ladies who lunch - and worth every vodka stinger forfeited to pay for a ticket.
Those who yearn to watch moments of standing-room-only grandeur from the Great White Way - and wish to do lying down - can opt for a selection of DVDs. Acorn Media Group recently released Broadway's Lost Treasures, a trove of 22 show-stopping numbers, and is about to release a sequel. Video Arts International has released the long-forgotten, eagerly-anticipated Mary Martin and Ethel Merman: Their Legendary Appearance on the Ford 50th Anniversary Show, the famed June 15, 1953 television special whose highlight is M & M's 13-minute duet medley, where they sing the songs that made them famous ... plus much more. Follies in Concert (Image Entertainment) captures the historic, star-studded, one-night-only 1985 concert version of Sondheim's gem; not a great show but more memorable than not, if just for the chance to see Carol Burnett, Barbara Cook and Lee Remick warble. Image, by the way, has also unleashed "Elaine Stritch At Liberty" on DVD, but we strongly suggest catching the lady live and not relying on a filmed performance. Yes, the DVD is cheaper than a ticket. Yes, the material's the same, and the laughs and tears can be heard. But since when is low-carb as good as the real thing?
And then there's Broadway: The American Musical, the ambitious PBS documentary miniseries that takes viewers on a six-hour, three-night journey through the world of Broadway musicals. Narrated by Julie Andrews - PBS honchos have dubbed her their "Unofficial Ambassador for the Broadway Musical" - and crammed with historians and authors and writers and stars and directors and chorographers (some of which, frankly, are legends in their own minds), Broadway; the American Musical hit nthe TV airwaves in mid-October.
Don't get us wrong: Any show that helps introduce audiences to Broadway musicals or reacquaint theatergoers, any show that educates and entertains gets a standing O from us. But Michael Kantor's film is too long, too ambitious. It tells the tale of two stories - the 100-year history of musical theater and the story of its relationship to 20th-century American life. The interviews are assembled in a haphazard fashion, clips are rarely identified, scenes are often drama tized and recreated ... or are they? We are never told. And there are too many film clips!
Still, it's fascinating to hear Kitty Carlisle tell of going to Harlem with George Gershwin "dressed in ermine and pearls," then stopping by his apartment to help him with orchestrations for the work he was writing, Porgy and Bess. It's always interesting to hear Sondheim discuss the state of the Broadway musical. The segment of Jack Benny attempting to get a discount on a $6.60 orchestra seat for the Rodgers and Hammerstein smash Oklahoma! is hysterical. And the segment on long-forgotten comic Bert Williams - discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld and a man who still needs to be rediscovered and embraced by members of his African-American community - is heartbreaking.
So expansive is the miniseries that there are three companion items: a lavishly illustrated companion book, to be published by Bulfinch Press, and a tome so heavy it very well may be used as a murder weapon; a five-CD box set to be released by Sony; and a single CD featuring highlights from the miniseries (Decca).
Take your seats, please. The show is about to start.
Rating:
Summary: Too Short a Showing of a Terrific Concert
Review: This is a documentary of a 1985 concert performance from Lincoln Center of Stephen Sondheim's 1971 "Follies." A really great cast of Broadway greats was brought together for this concert that was basically put together is a few days. Although the backstage elements of the show are great (e.g., showing actors working through dance numbers, flubbing lyrics, Sondheim talking with the actors), the real interest of the show is in the performaces themselves that make up about half of the 90 minute documentary. The unfortunate thing about the documentary is that we only see about half the concert, mostly in the form of excerpts. It really would have been much better to see a COMPLETE version of the concert. One really wonders why this wasn't filmed and made available in some format. There is, however, a 2-CD album of the whole concert to fill in the gaps. This concern aside, the concert is a great chance to see the likes of Barbara Cook, Lee Remick, George Hearn, Carol Burnett, Elaine Stritch, and Adolph Green and Betty Comden singing and within the frame of a concert performance) acting their way through one of the great musicals of our age. This DVD is a definite buy!
Rating:
Summary: Too Short a Showing of a Terrific Concert
Review: This is a documentary of a 1985 concert performance from Lincoln Center of Stephen Sondheim's 1971 "Follies." A really great cast of Broadway greats was brought together for this concert that was basically put together is a few days. Although the backstage elements of the show are great (e.g., showing actors working through dance numbers, flubbing lyrics, Sondheim talking with the actors), the real interest of the show is in the performaces themselves that make up about half of the 90 minute documentary. The unfortunate thing about the documentary is that we only see about half the concert, mostly in the form of excerpts. It really would have been much better to see a COMPLETE version of the concert. One really wonders why this wasn't filmed and made available in some format. There is, however, a 2-CD album of the whole concert to fill in the gaps. This concern aside, the concert is a great chance to see the likes of Barbara Cook, Lee Remick, George Hearn, Carol Burnett, Elaine Stritch, and Adolph Green and Betty Comden singing and within the frame of a concert performance) acting their way through one of the great musicals of our age. This DVD is a definite buy!
Rating:
Summary: Hats off, here they come those beautiful girls!
Review: This is by far my favorite musical, not the concert but the actual musical from the 70's. When i saw Alexis Smith the first time i fell deeply in love. Of course i was only 24 at the time.Even though this is just the concert version minus the terrible cutting and editing it's better than nothing at all. This cast was also wonderful with it's vintage and well polished cast, I gave it the four stars only because it's not as complete as the CD. After all most of the people that would buy the concert version would also have been fans of the original show itself so why not include all the production numbers.Maybe if enough people make compaints do you think they may re-do this DVD?To all those wonderful women who were in the original production,,,Hats off, to those wonderful girls.. The likes of this will never come again.
Rating:
Summary: Outrageous!
Review: This is not "Follies in Concert," it is the reader's digest version. Many numbers have been truncated and many omitted, most notably "Waiting for the Boys Upstairs" and "The Road I Didn't Take." While the concert itself ran over 130 minutes, the DVD is made from a 90 minute video tape. Include the fact that they added about 30 minutes of rehearsal interviews, and the concert is basically cut in half. In addition, the DVD is video tape quality and the sound is unstable. All in all, a very disappointing recording for Sondheim lovers.
Rating:
Summary: The Fabulous Follies
Review: This was a wonderful production and the DVD of the highest quality. It was quite interesting to be able to see Sondheim at work and because I love everything he has done and this was the icing on the cake. I thought all of the performers were great and that Mandy Patinkin was at his best. It was pure entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: I'LL TAKE ANY SCRAP I CAN GET!
Review: True...this is not "the best" documentary film ever made, although it IS pretty darned good, and part of the criticism may come because most of us who would want to see this would be just as happy with just one long uncut take of the concert on film...but we do have that on CD (thank goodness!). And what a concert it was!!! This is as near a dream cast as one could hope for. Of course there will be be endless quibbling over that opinion, and endless comparisons to the OBC...that's the glory of theatre...many opinions. But the overall arc and energy of this concert is amazing and that cannot be disputed...the CD is a classic... and one of those rare few "I wish I were there" events captured on recording. That said, the documentary does offer delight in the backstage glimpses it gives, especiallly after several (hundred? thousand?) listenings to the CD. For instance...I went into this already worshipping and adoring Barbara Cook (for me there can be no other Sally Durant), but after watching, I was really hooked onto Lee Remick too. And there were lots of discovery moments like that because of the documentary...so it did indeed, bring me someplace that the concert CD alone did not, and for that I truly value this DVD. So, perfect? No. (And franky, what is?) But it is worth watching and re-watching, especially if you are a total Follies junky, or learning to become one. How many other backstage stories can you say that of? For me, darned few...this one's a keeper. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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