Product Description

Singer Lon Prentice s (Dick Foran) efforts at joining the army finally pay off when he is enlisted along with Harry James (himself) and his band of musicians. Also in the uniform are the famed Andrew Sisters (Maxene, Patty & Laverne Andrews) . Together they put on a musical feast that was intended to boost the morale of the United States troops during World War II.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55866 in DVD
• Published on: 2005
• Released on: 2005-03-22
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 68 minutes

Review
For consistent ineptness, for frantic dullness, for the sheer impertinent waste of film at a time when Hollywood supposedly is seeking ways of saving raw stock, "Private Buckeroo," the Andrews Sisters' latest jive essay to arrive at Loew's Criterion, deserves some sort of prize. Another story of what an assortment of crooners, band musicians and jitterbugs can do to the Army, it is a jam session with patriotic overtones, a hapless exhibit of abortive specialties by Joe E. Lewis, unfortunate man; Dick Foran, Shemp Howard and, of course, those Andrews Girls whose close harmonies continue to remind this corner of the effect of a nail scratched on a slate blackboard. In its way, "Private Buckeroo" is a masterpiece. --The New York Times

Review
With this feature film DVD, A2ZCDS brings back this hilarious musical comedy that combines the awesome talents of some of the best artists of the time - The Andrews Sisters, who sold over 100 million copies of their albums, the debonair Dick Foran and the gifted Joe Lewis. The magnificent musical score and outstanding vocals enthrall you, while the inimitable Shemp Howard has you in splits with his antics. The few romantic interludes you witness are well placed and help the narrative along nicely. This classic movie is sprinkled generously with solos, duets, trios and choruses, not to forget some memorable trumpet solos. An all-time favorite musical, it was produced at the height of World War II as a tribute and inspiration to the soldiers who fought for the country. Witness this fascinating, timeless movie extravaganza, which is certain to enthrall you with some of the most captivating song and dance sequences from the 40s!" --A2zcds.com

From the Studio
Director Edward Cline brought together some of the best musical talent of the 40s in this feature film extravaganza - the immensely gifted Andrews sisters who cut a record 19 gold records, the flamboyant Dick Foran whose good looks and good-natured personality made him a natural choice for the supporting cast, and the gifted Joe Lewis who fought back after being left for dead by the Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn gang for refusing to sing in his club. A2ZCDS have brought this old Hollywood Classic feature films on DVD.

THE PLOT: Singer Lon Prentice’s (Dick Foran) efforts at joining the army finally pay off when he is enlisted along with Harry James (himself) and his band of musicians. Also in the uniform are the famed Andrew Sisters (Maxene, Patty & Laverne Andrews) . Together they put on a musical feast that was intended to boost the morale of the United States troops during World War II.

Customer Reviews

Glamour and Corn ...
... the same blend as in a Rossini or Mozart opera or in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night. Though the corn seems cornier with age, the glamour is unfaded. Swing was America's finest-ever pop music, swing dance and swing-era clothes were truly glamourous, and the cinematography of this war-time morale booster was silky smooth. The story line -- band leader Harry James gets drafted and the whole band follows him to boot camp and to deployment "over there" -- is just a coat rack for the song-and-dance, featuring the genuine musical brilliance of the Andrews Sisters, including their classic "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree". The grand finale is an unabashed appeal to patriotism -- it was 1942, I was just over a year old, the war was no joke and patriotism was not anyone's idea of corn -- with the band marching forth to join thousands of staunch young men, thousands of warships, a sky full of fighter planes. If all that fervor wasn't real, you could have fooled me.

Do you want to know how America wanted to see itself in 1942? This film is it. Fun-loving, wise-cracking, irreverent towards authority but ready for the call of duty. Nobody's patsy. Never likely to fail a buddy. The iconic cowboy frontiersman, Private Buckaroo. Self-reliant but ready to share a load. Was the self-image realistic? That wasn't in question in the minds of the film makers. I know that my own mother and her sisters idolized the Andrews Sisters. They dressed like them and slung their shoulders like them. My mother even looked like LaVerne and took voice lessons. My father, on the other hand, worshiped Charles Lindbergh and thought America was entering the war on the wrong side.

Buckaroo was a confidently White America. There's not a dusky complexion to be seen in the large cast of this film; the closest to an acknowledgement of "another" America is an allusion to "Gone With the Wind" and a scene where the crooner with the Harry James Orchestra sings a "spiritual." What, "swing" has jazz roots? Harry James is a knock-off of King Oliver and Louis Armstrong? America in 1942 was, and wanted to stay, blithely ignorant of that "other" America. The absence of "dark laughter" in Private Buckaroo is incontrovertible evidence of the rigid, brittle racism that the North had accommodated in order to preserve the Union and pass the New Deal.

But the glamour was real. The painterly camera work in black-and-white, grainy as it was, was artful. The comedy was clever and multi-leveled. The Andrew Sisters could SING! And the country could unite to confront a crisis. Where has it all gone, that youthful confidence and creativity?

A really good all around movie
I really love this movie. I'm not real big on war movies, but this movie is not much of a war movie really, it's more of a variety show IMO. The Andrew Sisters are in fine form, and the comedy breaks that are interspersed through the movie are as such as to not overpower the movie but they certainly provide some welcome breaks. It's an easy movie to watch multiple times, the more I watch it the more I like it. Although I'm usually not a fan of Shemp Howard he does a good job in his role of not being too much like a "Stooge". It's nice to see Donald O`Connor too, and Harry James provides some very welcome music. Huntz Hall even shows up for a small role. Overall it's a very easy movie to fall in love with. If you're an older movie buff and have not seen this yet I strongly recommend you give it a view. I can't speak for this particular remastered release, I have the Madacy cheap release and it's not too bad, I've certainly seen worse, but I hope this remaster is of much better quality. When I buy it I'll update my review to include that.

Harry James and The Andrews Sisters, plus Bonnie-Belle Schlopkiss and Lancelot Pringle McBiff
Private Buckaroo, a high-energy, patriotic movie from 1942, has two uses now. The first is to show us the optimism of our elders as they readied themselves to support the troops fighting in WWII. Sure, the jokes are corny, but the musical numbers crank up the confidence with everything from "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" to "Six Jerks in a Jeep." It's not a bad idea to now and then remind ourselves of what an older generation of Americans were facing.

The second use of the movie is to provide fodder for all those graduate students eager for an easy doctorate in "American Popular Culture," a phenomenon that proves, if the money is right, that American universities will offer degrees in just about anything.

The barest of plots has Harry James being drafted. Naturally, his whole orchestra signs up, too, including Lon Prentice (Dick Foran), his singer who has an attitude adjustment problem. We see the high-jinks of training, a romantic encounter that will serve to straighten Prentice out, and a big show just before the boys ship overseas. All this is just a clothesline to pin on at least 13 musical numbers, and The Andrews Sisters and Harry James do most of them. The comedy intermissions are several. To give you an idea of what Universal's writers were capable of, the three-way romantic laugh relief involves Bonnie-Belle Schlopkiss (a tall and emphatic Mary Wickes), Sergeant Muggsy Sharell (Shemp Howard, who was earlier and later became again one of the Three Stooges) and Lancelot Pringle McBiff (an odd incarnation of stand up comic Joe E. Lewis). Personally, I enjoyed most Huntz Hall as a corporal trying to teach James how to play reveille.

Although some people today can pass by The Andrews Sisters because of their style, particularly Patty Andrews' mugging, the three were expert at close harmony. They have six numbers; all are skillfully delivered with a great deal of verve. As far as Harry James goes, I can't think of a better way to open a movie than James and Helen Forrest giving us the full treatment of "You Made Me Love You." And in one showstopper we have The Jivin' Jacks and Jills, a group of dancing teen-agers formed by Universal to showcase the studio's young talent. The ten kids tap and leap all over the stage to "Apple Tree." The fact that the story line is almost non-existent and that romantic lead Dick Foran, who sounds a bit like a cross between Nelson Eddy and Dennis Morgan, has the personality of a cardboard box really doesn't matter at all.

Doctoral candidates, start writing your dissertation on "The Underlying Significance of B Movies on the Cultural Development of American Civilization During the Formative Years of World War Two, With an Emphasis on the Influence of Teen-Age Tap Dancers on the Defeat of the Axis."

The DVD I saw has an adequate picture, no worse than a clean, average VHS tape. There were only four chapter stops and no extras. The movie is in the public domain.