Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8683 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-11
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Import, NTSC
• Original language: English, Italian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Album Description
Asian release of award winning DVD directed by Alan Parker (1976) and starring Jodi Foster and Scott Baio. A child gangster determined to rule over New York City. Instead of throwing fists or bullets, the prohibition-era kiddie mobsters sling confections at one another. When he learns that a rival gang has developed a secret weapon capable of firing sweets as quick as a machine gun shoots bullets, he sets out to heist the high-tech tart-launcher. Multi winners of BAFTA Awards. Original English dialogue with English/Chinese subtitles. Digital Dolby/5.1. NTSC. Panorama Ent. 2002.

Amazon.com
Writer-director Alan Parker's feature debut Bugsy Malone is a pastiche of American movies, a musical gangster comedy set in 1929, featuring prohibition, showgirls, and gang warfare, with references to everything from Some Like It Hot to The Godfather. Uniquely, though, all the parts are played by children, including an excellent if underused Jodie Foster as platinum-blonde singer Tallulah, Scott Baio in the title role and a nine-year-old Dexter Fletcher wielding a baseball bat. Cream-firing "spluge guns" sidestep any real violence and the movie climaxes cheerfully with the biggest custard pie fight this side of Casino Royale (1967).

Unfortunately for a musical, Paul Williams's score--part honky-tonk jazz homage, part 1970s Elton John-style pop--lets the side down with a lack of memorable tunes. Nevertheless, Parker's direction is spot on and the look of the film is superb, a fantasy movie-movie existing in the same parallel reality as The Cotton Club and Chicago. A rare British love letter to classic American cinema, Bugsy Malone remains a true original; in Parker's words "the work of a madman" and one of the strangest yet most stylish children's films ever made. --Gary S. Dalkin

Customer Reviews

Very nice import copy.
The DVD that is being shipped is an import from Hong Kong, and was marked for all zones, so it should play anywhere. Very nice copy with a good clean picture and dolby 5.1 sound.
Titles are in english and chinese, but there are no annoying subtitles on the screen when you play it. I have been waiting for years for this to come out in DVD and I am very happy with the DVD.

So Ya Wanna be a Boxer?
We all have our guilty pleasures..."Bugsy Malone" is three or four of mine.

Yep, it's a strange one...a gangster musical with a cast 13 and under. But the kids are having a ball, the period setting is fantastic, the songs are catchy, and some numbers...particularly the "Down and Out" bit...are riotous and exhilarating. I say, put "Bugsy Malone" back in theaters. It's miles better than most of the crappy kids fare out these days. Hey, it might give Scott Baio's career a shot in the arm as well.

Stop the Insanity!
OK, first let me say that I actually own this disk. Many of these reviews are for the movie--which I'm sure we all remember fondly from the Family Film Festival with Tom Hatten--but do not speak to the actual product being sold. (Amazon really should discourage this practice.) And I can understand why some people who have not purchased it are concerned, because the box looks all foreign and scary. I got my disk in a timely manner, and even though it is marked zone 3, it ran just fine in my bottom-of-the-line Samsung American-market DVD player. So I'm thinking it will work for you, too.
The disk itself is fairly bare-bones, without a lot of bells and whistles. There are no subtitles unless you want them (even on the credits) and the sound and picture are quite clean. If you have bought the motion picture soundtrack you will find that some of the vocals are slightly different, and I think the CD is perhaps a bit better. All in all this is a quality product that just looks weird. It's certainly worth the money, and while I can't absolutely guarantee that it will work for you, it sure did for me.