Product Description

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 10/12/2004 Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28964 in DVD
• Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2004-10-12
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Color, Dolby, Widescreen, Box set, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .55 pounds
• Running time: 360 minutes

Amazon.com
Like its fellow PBS series Ken Burns' Jazz, Broadway: The American Musical is an ambitious and absorbing exploration of a unique American art form that has always been best experienced in live performance. Hosted and narrated by Julie Andrews, the six-part, six-hour documentary traces the history of musical theater from its roots in vaudeville, operetta, and minstrel shows, to the dawn of what would become the modern American musical, Show Boat, and on through many changes that seemed to reflect those in American culture itself. Significant creators discussed include Florenz Ziegfeld, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse, and David Merrick, and notable shows (Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Company, Cats, and recent hit Wicked, among others) are analyzed through performance clips and interviews with songwriters, stars, directors, producers, critics, and historians.

The series' most obvious weakness is its use of only brief excerpts of the performances--no song is heard in full. The sheer scope of the series no doubt played a part in that, as well as complicated rights issues, but the core problem is that musical theater has always been a live medium, rarely documented and even more rarely released to the general public. The documentary's producers make do with audio recordings, still photographs, and bits of footage, often in grainy black and white. Thankfully, they resist over-relying on feature-film musicals--which look much better and are sometimes excellent (but more often mediocre) translations--and when used such footage is clearly identified. That makes it all the more frustrating, however, that almost all of the other footage is not identified, because that is what fans are less familiar with and would be most interested in. The 1950s footage looks to be mostly from TV programs such as The Ed Sullivan Show; by the 1960s we have live footage from the Tony Awards (easily identifiable by the backdrops); and the newest shows might have been shot on stage. But early Ethel Merman and other random clips are mysteries, perhaps even to the producers themselves.

Because the series is designed to appeal to a general audience (again like Jazz), a lot of the information won't be new to diehard Broadway fans, but they should be especially pleased by the DVDs' bonus features, which include additional performances and about four more hours of interviews. Stephen Sondheim fans should be fascinated by footage of the composer-lyricist discussing "Someone in a Tree" at the piano, and then running through the song with original cast members of Pacific Overtures, as well as interviews of him talking about his own shows and songs (e.g., listing the songwriters he pastiched in Follies) and reminiscing about mentor Oscar Hammerstein II. Other bonus performances include vaudeville films from the Library of Congress, original-cast television performances of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "If I Loved You" (from Carousel, unfolding over 12 minutes) and "Some Enchanted Evening" (the reprise version from South Pacific), Rent's Jonathan Larson spoofing Sondheim, and two behind-the-scenes looks at Wicked. --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

A breathless delight!
Soup to nuts, the folks over at PBS pulled it off. They've condensed the history of the American Broadway musical into six hours, and it feels about right.
Yes yes yes, there will be hordes of folks who quibble that their "all-time most important" musical didn't make it, but that's missing the point.
You will feel as if you have a serious grasp of the development of the American musical after seeing this film. Period. Mission accomplished.

The first segments of the documentary, hosted by the ageless Julie Andrews, begin with Flo Ziegfeld, and the "Follies". One thing that hasn't been mentioned (yet) is the nice concomitant history lesson you get regarding New York, Times Square and American popular culture while absorbing this mini-series. The influence of opera (or more properly, operetta), vaudeville and minstrel shows are made abundantly clear, and are fascinating to someone like me who really had no exposure to this sort of material.

As we reach mid-century, more and more of the people talked ABOUT in the film are actually alive...and the shows discussed are ridiculously familiar to even the most "uneducated" viewer. Song after song reveals their source...standards that originated on Broadway that have become part of our cultural language.
Artistic ambition grows by leaps and bounds...from the musical "revue" to musical "comedy" to a dramatic "book" musical. Storytelling techniques through song and staging develop as fast as the geniuses on the stage, behind the stage and under the stage can think...

Some of the creators, like Sondheim, are expert at analysis and insight. They provide some great "talking head" moments about musicals that aren't theirs! By and large, the critics they used for the documentary come across as enthusiastic, overwhelmingly knowledgeable, incisive, playful...I thought as a group they were terrific, without any hint of elitism, snobbery or any number of other "stereotypes" one may have about a "New York Broadway critic."

My first audible gasp came at the end of episode five, when they play that "I Love NY" commercial from the late 70's. I remember seeing that as a kid, but the only thing that had any effect on me was the presence of Brooke Shields at the end of it.
People like Mandy Patinkin, Patti Lupone, Angela Lansbury, those "Cats" creatures and yes, I think that's Patrick Swayze in "Grease" mode...what a riot!

The most affecting portion, for me, is the last episode, for that encompasses most of my personal Broadway experience. I imagine that whatever era you feel the most affinity towards will have the same effect.
Spending 6-10 minutes per musical or producer seems criminal, until you simply appreciate the tidbits for what they are. They're like little gems. Fragments of shows that you yearn to see ALL of...
...so let me editorialize for a second.

All musicals should be filmed once with their original casts, if only for posterity. I own "Sunday In The Park With George" and "Sweeney Todd", two exemplary musicals (covered here) and nice DVD's to own. What I wouldn't give for an "Evita" (not covered here) with Lupone and Patinkin, or the original cast of "Rent". There. Editorial done.

Speaking of "Rent", the final fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie are an emotional tidal wave. Seeing Jonathan Larson's last day of work on video...watching him make his last milk shake at the Moondance Diner...and then finding out he dies right before previews, is not heartbreaking, it's heart-shattering.

That segment leads into the piece on 9/11. Somber and a little creepy, as you've seen almost six hours of the busiest intersections on Earth suddenly empty, a modern ghost town.
The filmmakers then pull off a terrific stunt. They show the post 9/11 commercial encouraging people to come back to NY. It echoes the one from over two decades prior, yet is defiant, proud and yes, a little inspiring.

A quick cut to "Hairspray", specifically to the finale which may be the single most energetic song to ever grace the boards, and then summing it all up with "Wicked", a musical I coincidentally just saw three weeks ago (and loved), made for an amazing viewing experience and I could not recommend this any more highly.

Now, for those of you who DO own this, my copy is plagued by a jittery video (with pristine audio) across all three discs. No one else has mentioned this, so perhaps my case is isolated...

One last request: please watch the rehearsal "bonus" footage with Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, working on their song from Wicked called, "For Good." Watching and listening to these two outstanding singers tentatively creating these performances, intercut with footage from the final result, sent shivers up my spine.

Fantastic! The definitive lullaby of Broadway.
I saw a press copy of the series and was absolutely awestruck. It covers the history of the Broadway musical from its origins to present day, and manages to tell both the big stories and the little-known gems of performers, composers etc whose names have since faded from popular memory. It's very PBS-like to use something so inherently American (the Broadway musical) to tell the story of our cultural history, as they did with the Baseball series, the Jazz series etc. But it works beautifully, and the series is much more than just a collection of performance clips (if that's all you want, there are plenty of greatest-hits packages on the market). The PBS series is the real deal.

One thing that really impressed me is the amount of film footage the filmmakers managed to find of original shows (some of the old stuff in color - amazing!). Many thanks to whoever had the foresight to film this stuff and save it for posterity, and congrats to the filmmakers for hunting it down and giving it a proper showcase. They also scored interviews with all the Broadway heavy-hitters, and got them to really talk instead of just repeating their old stories. I loved seeing Michael Kidd, who talked about the "dese, dem and dose" characters in "Guys and Dolls" - himself in an old-school New York street accent! And Jerry Mitchell's story about seeing "A Chorus Line," learning the opening combination, landing a role and going on tour gave me chills.

Overall, a major achievement for PBS, a huge delight for theater buffs like myself, and a wonderful introduction to musical theater for anyone who thinks Broadway is just a street in Manhattan. One complaint: why does the Jazz series get 19 hours and Broadway only 6? I would've liked to have seen more of everything. A+++.

Give Your Regards Too Broadway
Wow!! Thats really all you really need to know about this set. The most important moments and people in Broadway history. With such legends as the Ziegfeld Follies, George. M Cohan, Ethel Merman, Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice, Ethel Waters, Show Boat, Larry Hart, George, Ira Ghershwin, Cole Porter, Of Thee I Sing, The Cradle Will Rock, Anything Goes,Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Oklahoma, South Pacfic, King&I, Jerome Robbins, Micheal Bennett, Gerome Ragni, James Rado, Hair, Leonard Berstein, Kander&Ebb,West Side Story, Stephen Sondhiem, Hal Prince, Company, Chorus Line, Cabaret,Chicago, Joel Grey, Bob Fosse, David Merrick, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Cats, Cameron Mackintosh, Cats, Les Miz, Rent and Wicked. The are all in this set. Trust me it is a great way to introduce to many people what Broadway is all about, dreams, Sacrifice, fame, some times not. The documentary is an amazing piece of history.