Product Description

Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 04/15/2008 Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17590 in DVD
• Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
• Released on: 2004-04-20
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.com
A great star and a great composer can make a Broadway musical into a smash, as Ethel Merman and Irving Berlin proved with Call Me Madam. Not a bad place to start with a movie, either, and the 1953 film of the show has both Merman and Berlin represented in brassy fashion. Granted, Merman's platinum-throated talents were best suited to the stage, and the production overall has that dutiful, stodgy tone of so many Fox musicals. Extra points for the suavity of George Sanders (he's Merman's love interest in tiny Lichtenburg, where the lady has been appointed U.S. ambassador), and for the dancing of Vera-Ellen and Donald O'Connor. A year after crashing through the wall in Singin' in the Rain, O'Connor has a similar solo athletic workout to "What Chance Have I with Love." High point: Merman and O'Connor trading verses on "You're Just in Love," the best tune in a bouncy score. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

Ethel Merman's only film version of one of her stage hits!
After too many years locked away in the vaults, the movie version of CALL ME MADAM is finally getting released on DVD.

This is the only time Ethel Merman did a faithful screen re-creation of one of her famous Broadway roles. Sadly she was passed over for the film of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN when the role was assigned to first to Judy Garland, then to Betty Hutton. And her greatest stage role, Madame Rose, went To Rosalind Russell in the movie of GYPSY. In an interview with Miss Merman she explained "the studios, in those days, they wanted picture names..but when they got to CALL ME MADAM I guess they figured they'd take a chance on me." Some chance. MADAM had played 644 performances on Broadway and had been acclaimed a big hit.

The story, a lightly satirical look at international politics was inspired by Harry Truman's appointment of Pearl Mesta as Ambassador to Luxembourg. It was rumoured that Pearl got the assignment by being a great party-giver. So, Howard Lindsay & Russell Crouse created Mrs. Sally Adams, a wealthy Oklahoma widow who gravitates to Washington and thanks to her parties is appointed ambassador to Lichtenburg. The movie retains much of what worked on stage but embellishes it with some additional funny scenes.

Best of all most of the Broadway score is retained: "The Hostess With the Mostes'"; "Can You Use Any Money Today"; "Marrying for Love"; "It's a Lovely Day Today"; "Something to Dance About"; "The Best Thing for You" and the showstopping "You're Just in Love." Added to the movie are two old Berlin standards, "The International Rag" and "What Chance Have I with Love" which becomes a hilarious dance routine for Donald O'Connor.

O'Connor also gets to dance to "Something to Dance About" with Vera Ellen. Since the two secondary leads were played by dancers, the movie allows them to develop their romance through dance and its an effective change. It also takes some of the emphasis off Merman.

Ethel is still very much the star of the picture. Belting out the songs and delivering the comic zingers with panache. It is still a very theatrical performance....you still have the sense she is playing to the back row of the balcony. But that is was Merman was all about, and that is why the film is an important document.

Some of her best lines:

Congressman: When will you arrive at your post?
Sally: I'm not sure. Where the heck is Lichtenburg??

Congressman: Sally, you wouldn't like me to make a little farewell speech tonight?
Sally: That's right. I WOULDN'T!

Grand Duke: Tell me - How does this reception differ from your famous Washington parties?
Sally: Well WE have good time!

And in the best musical comdy tradition, everything works out in time for a happy ending. Now that CALL ME MADAM is finally getting back into circulation we have a happy ending too!

(Now..if only Decca would reissue the movie soundtrack album!)

The brassiest and just about the best!
A huge hit on the Broadway stage, "Call Me Madam" was brought to the screen with Ethel Merman allowed to recreate her role of Sally Adams, legendary Washington hostess, named as American Ambassador to a fictional European duchy. The Irving Berlin score is endlessly melodic and listenable and performed with panache by the leads (Vera-Ellen's songs are dubbed by a well-matched voice double), including George Sanders revealing a surprisingly lyrical bass-baritone. Donald O'Connor and Vera-Ellen deliver with some of the best dance duets since Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire's halcyon days at RKO, and both get a chance to shine in solo dance numbers, including a spectacular "Orcarina" production extravaganza with Vera and a fantastically well-rehearsed chorus of colorfully costumed dancers.

Twentieth lavished class "A" production values on this delight and Alfred Newman's Oscar for Best Adapted Musical Score was eminently well-deserved. What a pleasure to welcome this back from its long exile in the vaults of favorite movie musical memories!

Wonderful nostalgia trip
I originally saw this movie when I was 10 years old and over the years remembered the wonderful dancing and songs. I was disappointed that it never seemed to turn up on TV and was delighted to be able to buy my own copy. When I saw it again recently it was even better than I had remembered it. Donald O'Connor's partnership with Vera-Ellen is enchanting - I've watched their dances over and over. And Ethel Merman lights up the screen every time she is on - her interpretation of the memorable Berlin songs, whether belted out or sweetly romantic - is, I believe, unbeatable. I now want to get all the other Merman movies. And what a shame that George Sanders' deep, rich baritone wasn't more widely heard.