Product Description

Bette Midler gives the brassiest, sassiest performance of her career as Dixie Leonard, a USO singer whose electrifying stage presence, and flair for outrageous comedy, captivates troops and civilians alike. Teamed up with America's beloved song and dance man, Eddie Sparks (James Caan), the whole world becomes Dixie's stage through three very different wars, and 50 years of music and memories, laughter and tears. All of it... FOR THE BOYS.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14481 in DVD
• Brand: MIDLER,BETTE
• Released on: 2001-04-17
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 138 minutes

Amazon.com
For the Boys is a lumpy attempt to create an old-fashioned backstage drama, replete with classic showbiz feuds, breakups and make-ups, and the often inexplicable adoration of fictional fans toward characters with dubious star appeal. Released under a cloud of accusations that the story was ripped off from the life of USO stalwart Martha Raye (who had been attempting to get an autobiographical film project set up), For the Boys didn't improve its public relations by being, well, not very good. Bette Midler stars as Dixie Leonard, a singer plucked from obscurity by song-and-dance man Eddie Sparks (James Caan) while on a USO tour during World War II. Their bawdy chemistry before audiences makes them a durable act through many years and wars to come. The problem is that they don't like each other very much, and here's where director Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond) drops the ball: the film never develops sufficient story grounds or the emotional complexity necessary for a high degree of conflict in what is essentially a two-character drama. It doesn't help that the script requires Dixie and Eddie to be on nonspeaking terms for most of the 50 years they know one another, or that the story culminates in a horribly contrived reunion on television, with both actors buried under enough flesh-aging prosthetics and make-up to make them look like Dick Tracy villains. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
Bette Midler plays Dixie Leonard, a singer-dancer-comedienne who becomes famous in the early days of the Second World War when she teams up with an established star named Eddie Sparks (James Caan, who gives the movie's best performance). Framed by an awards ceremony at which Dixie and Eddie are to be honored for their many years of entertaining troops on U.S.O. tours, the story is told in a series of flashbacks. Most of the big sequences take place in wartime: in London and North Africa during the Second World War; in Korea in the early fifties; in Vietnam in 1969. This structure allows Midler to perform musical numbers from different eras and to attempt the acting tour de force of playing a character at several distinct stages of life. She piles persona on top of persona on top of persona for two and a half hours in an effort to overwhelm us with the sheer force and infinite variety of herself: she is the world. The movie (which was produced by her own company) is meant to serve as the Portable Bette-a boxed set of Midler moments. In the Second World War sequences, the picture has a certain trashy charm, but the Korea and Vietnam scenes feature "realistic" combat footage and glib anti-war sentiments. Dixie, weeping over dying soldiers, just seems to get nobler and nobler as the bodies accumulate around her. The film itself has a kind of life-achievement-award feel to it: when it's over, the words "a great entertainer and a wonderful human being" seem to have acquired a new, unprecedentedly berserk meaning. Bette Midler begins as a red-hot mama and winds up as Mother Courage. And this vanity production is such an ordeal that it turns into a demonstration of a startling thesis: war is bad, but entertainment is hell. Also with George Segal, Christopher Rydell, and Arye Gross. Directed by Mark Rydell, from a screenplay by Marshall Brickman, Neal Jimenez, and Lindy Laub. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

FOR THE WORLD!
To tell you the truth, I love this movie. Bette Midler can act in anything-comedy or drama-anything! But I like her most in drama. This movie was Bette Midler's second Academy Award nomination. Directed by the same man who directed the movie The Rose (also with Bette Midler-her first Academy Award nomination).
I find this movie to be delightful, funny, heartbreaking, and VERY well acted!
Bette Midler sings in this movie, and it only adds to the superior quality of the film. The acting, the story, the music is worth watching over and over again. Like I said, I love this movie, and I recommend it to one and all!

Another soft spoken wonder
This movie is great the way it sneaks up at you and touches your heart. It makes you feel wonderful and sad all at the same time, and makes you evaluate your life

BETTE WAS ROBBED YET A SECOND TIME AT THE OSCARS!
The only reason Miss Midler didn't win that year, (Jodie Foster won for Silence of the Lambs) was because 'For the Boys' was a box-office dud. I wish back then the marketing executives at 20th Century Fox would've sold this movie a little better. First of all the soundtrack had two possible mega hits, 'In My Life' the Beatles' tune in which Bette's renditon turned into an emotionally packed moment in the movie. I get a lump in the throat every time I see it. The other tune, 'Every road leads Back to you', like 'Wind beneath my wings' is a wonderful song reflecting on a bumpy and long, yet close and loving friendship. These songs should've been airing over the radio way before the movie was released. Secondly, 'For the boys' was pitted against 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Addams Family' when it was released. It's no wonder this movie got shoved aside. As for the movie itself, it's evident that Miss Midler poured her soul and guts into the whole project. Yes, the movie does try to cover a lot of war-history in 2 1/2 hours, but Bette as Dixie and her love-hate relationship with Caan as Eddie do have an appealing quality despite all their tumultuus bickering behind the scenes of entertaining the boys. Critics complained about how awful the aging makeup looked on Midler and Caan. Well my argumnent to them is, when you see an elderly performers win a lifetime acheivement award on TV, aren't they supposed to look somewhat gray and wrinkled...Or do all aged show biz icons have to look like Joan Collins and Dick Clark? Nevertheless, the scene of Dixies's first time singing with the troops in 1942 is the reason why people love to see Bette....I just wish more people would have done so when this was released in 1991. TL