Broadway's Lost Treasures

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Great Performances!
Review: It is wonderful to see these performances preserved! You slowly realize that they are not real Broadway performances, but actually old Tony Award shows, but we are glad to have these shows preserved. The connecting material is a little dull though. It is hard to compare to "Broadway: The Golden Age" which has just the opposite - fantastic interviews and a smaller amount of completely different, real live performances. But, they make a great companion piece together. Which the PBS series, "Broadway: The American Musical" should have been.

Rating:
Summary: Broadway Heaven
Review: Never again will we see the likes of Zero Mostel as Tevye, Yul Brynner as the King or Robert Preston as Professor Harold Hill. These are legendary Broadway performances from another era, a Golden Age, and the most any of us can do is listen to original cast CDs from the 1950s and 1960s. However, in 1971, the Tony Awards choose one number from each previous year's winning musical and had an original cast member perform it. I saw the original broadcast and have wished for over 30 years to see it again. Now we all can and it is worth it! If you love musicals, you WILL NOT be disappointed. Get this one before the parade passes by.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!!! - But I want Dreamgirls!!!
Review: One performance, And I'm not telling you...by Jennifer Holiday left me gasping for air...I've always searched for this performance...Also, 1 year they had a medley of "Divas" that had won the Tony Award from Tomorrow by Andrea McArdle, Angela Lansbury, Priscilla Lopez from Chorus Line, Nell Carter, it was great!!! Also, what about Ben Vereen from Pippin...I could go on and on!!!

Rating:
Summary: I saw it on PBS first.
Review: Our local PBS station showed this video tonight. I was surprised to learn that it has yet to be released. It has some incredible footage and is very entertaining. If you are a fan of musical comical theater this DVD is a treasure. Somehow they have complied many of the original performances of characters from well known musicals. By that I mean the numbers are performed by the actors who first played the roles. It was a treat. I recommend it to anyone who loves the theater. It would be a great gift for the student of theater as well.

Rating:
Summary: A rip-off
Review: Read all the reviews, got throroughly familiar with this DVD before spending my money ($21) on it, then rented it for a test-drive just in case. Thank god I rented it. Knew (I thought) all the bad stuff, at least 2 songs lip-synched (one of them from a Sondheim thing, planned to skip over that garbage anyway), Julie Andrews instead of Glynis Johns singing the other Sondheim thing (Sondheim's one and only good song, and it just a series of triads) and John Raitt's number shortened (oh well, have the OBC album, saw the movie, disappointing but not devastating). Brushed my teeth, showered, settled back and turned it on. First there's Angela Lansbury telling me what a truly glorious show I'm about to see, telling me how great Hammerstein and Sondheim are (that's her opinion, want mine?), then Vivian Blaine live and not on wax singing her wonderful "Adelaide's Lament." Delicious from the first sneeze. Okay. She sang about a third of the song, hokey, except for the sniffles totally our of character, and she ended (off key?) on the wrong note flinging her arms out in true Broadwayesque (but NOT Runyonesque) style. Forget it. I advise anyone interested in this thing to RENT IT FIRST, unless you're rich and don't care how you spend your money. I shut it off in complete disappointment and incredulous disgust after Adelaide. "What a mess!" as a female tough guy in the military with the heart of a rattler said to me when in a state of terror and confusion at the induction center I screwed up filling out a form!

Rating:
Summary: A rip-off
Review: Read all the reviews, got throroughly familiar with this DVD before spending my money ($21) on it, then rented it for a test-drive just in case. Thank god I rented it. Knew (I thought) all the bad stuff, at least 2 songs lip-synched (one of them from a Sondheim thing, planned to skip over that garbage anyway), Julie Andrews instead of Glynis Johns singing the other Sondheim thing (Sondheim's one and only good song, and it just a series of triads) and John Raitt's number shortened (oh well, have the OBC album, saw the movie, disappointing but not devastating). Brushed my teeth, showered, settled back and turned it on. First there's Angela Lansbury telling me what a truly glorious show I'm about to see, telling me how great Hammerstein and Sondheim are (that's her opinion, want mine?), then Vivian Blaine live and not on wax singing her wonderful "Adelaide's Lament." Delicious from the first sneeze. Okay. She sang about a third of the song, hokey, except for the sniffles totally our of character, and she ended (off key?) on the wrong note flinging her arms out in true Broadwayesque (but NOT Runyonesque) style. Forget it. I advise anyone interested in this thing to RENT IT FIRST, unless you're rich and don't care how you spend your money. I shut it off in complete disappointment and incredulous disgust after Adelaide. "What a mess!" as a female tough guy in the military with the heart of a rattler said to me when in a state of terror and confusion at the induction center I screwed up filling out a form!

Rating:
Summary: Forever lost...
Review: Some of the choices of numbers on this DVD are confusing, given what's missing, particularly Jennifer Holliday's "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," a performance The New York Times called history-making. The '82 telecast that featured it was produced by Cohen and Co., the producers of this lopsided set. It's sad that Holliday is now truly one of Broadway's lost treasures. Hold off for a better compilation.

Rating:
Summary: "Broadway's Lost Treasures" Is A Sure Find!
Review: These magic moments have given lovers of Broadway musicals a chance to see their favorite stars of the past repeat their show stopping songs and dances. Just seeing Zero Mostel singing "If I Were A Rich Man" made me want to purchase this wonderful DVD!
This Broadway melange has something for everyone and it is a must for anyone who is nostalgic.

Rating:
Summary: LOST GEMS THAT ARE JEWELS AMONG MUSICAL MEMORIES
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: An Imperfect Look at Great Performances
Review: This a very good DVD. There are some low points though. One of them is "The Worst Pies in London". If you try to sing this song to yourself you will see why they had it Lip-synched in front of a live audience. The rest of the Dvd for the most part is excellent. The appluase number in the extra is great. Buy this DVD , But with some caution.