Product Description

Musical western about a mail order bride who ditches her bashful suitor and joins a group of women intent on opening a remote whistle stop restaurant.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1279 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2001-04-30
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 102 minutes

Features

• Musical western about a mail order bride who ditches her bashful suitor and joins a group of women intent on opening a remote whistle stop restaurant.Running Time: 102 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: WESTERN Rating: NR Age: 012569534827 UPC: 012569534827 Manufacturer No: 65348

Amazon.com
Sometimes lively, sometimes pokey, this Technicolor MGM musical inspires mixed feelings in aficionados of the form--except on one point. No viewer will question why "On the Atchison, Topeka, & the Santa Fe" won the best song Oscar for 1946. This is a brilliant, inventive song given an epic staging. Director George Sidney pulls out all the stops for this wowser--even Marjorie Main sings, an eardrum-testing sound. The real-life Harvey Girls were waitresses imported to the far-flung Fred Harvey Hotels, civilizing oases along the railroad lines out west. The fictional Harvey Girls is set in Sandrock, where the traveling waitresses are joined by a sort of mail-order bride (Judy Garland) whose prospective husband is a bust--he's a roughhewn rancher played by Chill Wills. Garland is in fine spunky form; unfortunately, her romance is with John Hodiak (as the owner of a dance hall), that uninspiring World War II-era lead. The film's other great Johnny Mercer-Harry Warren song is the unexpectedly melancholy "It's a Great Big World," performed in a lovely trio by Garland, Virginia O'Brien, and the young Cyd Charisse. The tall, deadpan O'Brien also does a comic take on "The Wild, Wild West" while shoeing a horse. With kewpie-faced Angela Lansbury as a bespangled dance-hall gal and Ray Bolger high-stepping through a dance solo, there are enough good people on board to keep the wheels a-turning "all the way to Californ-eye-yay." --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

STUNNING! This HARVEY GIRLS DVD is "Metro-GARLAND-Magic"
Hats off to Ted Turner's crew and their partners at Warner Home Video for a simply stunning DVD presentation of THE HARVEY GIRLS. The film looks sumptuous. A thrilling example of Technicolor at its most splendid. Although THE HARVEY GIRLS is a thoroughly delightful entertainment, there isn't much substance to the plot. It seems to hardly matter, as the film's major virtues are its great score by Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren, superb performances from a great cast, and of course, the peerless Judy Garland.

If anyone else had played the lead in this picture, it would have been long forgotten. This is Judy's show, all the way, and everything about it is designed to show off her immense talents.
She is at the top of her form here...looking lovely, singing gorgeously, dancing with aplomb, and handling both dramatic and comedic scenes better than anyone else could ever dream to. The biggest highlight of the film is the mammoth eight-minute production number ON THE ATCHISON, TOPEKA, AND THE SANTA FE which ended up winning a Best Song Oscar. This sequence alone is worth the price of the DVD, and the Warner Home Video people give us an extra bonus by presenting the number separately in TRUE STEREO! Astounding!

The supplementary materials are vast and beautifully assembled. The commentary by recently-deceased director George Sidney was fortunately captured for this release, and his thoughts and reminiscences are entertaining and charming. There were four musical numbers intended for this picture which were cut before release. MARCH OF THE DOAGIES and its reprise and MY INTUITION are the three that were filmed, and they are included on this DVD, looking like they were filmed yesterday (actually they look TOO good to have been filmed in this day and age). The one unused song that was recorded but not filmed called HAYRIDE is among the more than 20 pre-recording sessions included on the DVD's "Sing Song Express". A captivating opportunity to be present on the Metro recording stages as they laid down these historic tracks. You can hear the starts and stops, the banter and laughter...It's almost like being there. The disc also includes a trailer.

Hats off to Warner and Turner for a splendid job well done, a VAST improvement from the once-impressive laserdisc release, which is now unwatchable in comparison to this DVD. Add to this the VERY reasonable price of this movie, and it can't be beat. Now the big question: "When will Warner give us MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, EASTER PARADE and the rest of the golden Garland catalog?" Let's hope it's soon. If this DVD is any indication of what those will be like, we are in for a treat.

The powers of wholesomeness
One of the most lavish of 40s MGM musicals, THE HARVEY GIRLS really shows off Judy Garland's considerable comedy skills, which she rarely got much of a chance to work with, and also shows her off at her absolute most unearthly beauty. She's terrific here, and she gets a great haunting opening solo from the caboose of a train and a great entrance into town with the famous "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe," one of the most excitingly staged numbers the Arthur Freed unit ever did (which is saying something). The rest of the film isn't up to Garland's level or the level of those two songs, although the hokey plot--about how the upright and starched Harvey Girls bring such an attractive wholesomeness to the Wild West that all the temptations of sin wilt before them--demonstrates pretty much the MGM moral ethos of the time. One added plus: a very young Angela Lansbury, as Garland's rival for John Hodiak (ugh), looking ravishing in multicolored lace teddies and oversized picture hats.

Judy at her comedic best!
"The Harvey Girls" is my favorite of the MGM musicals. It has everything: a superb star (Judy Garland), a great supporting cast (headed by a young Angela Lansbury, with Ray Bolger and Marjorie Main), fantastic songs (featuring the Academy Award winning "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe"), and a funny plot. Susan Bradley (Garland) decides to marry the man she has been writing love letters to, and travels with the Harvey restaurant chain to a town in the Old West to meet him. When she gets there, she realizes the romantic letters were written by his friend, the owner of the town saloon (played by John Hodiak). Susan decides to join the Harvey girls in setting up the new restaurant. When the town leaders try to scare the Harvey girls away because they are taking business from the saloon, Susan must help keep the restaurant in order. Angela Lansbury shines as the villainous saloon girl, as do Marjorie Main as the Harvey House cook, and Ray Bolger as the local blacksmith.