Product Description

Five of Crosby's Most Timeless Musicals! Each Film Showcases His Extraordinary Singing Striking Good Looks and Captivating Screen Presence!System Requirements:Running Time: 89 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 025193092229 Manufacturer No: 61030922

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32989 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 2006-11-14
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: French
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .50 pounds
• Running time: 462 minutes

Amazon.com
You may think you're a Bing Crosby fan, but if all you know is Holiday Inn, The Bells of St. Mary's, or the On the Road movies, brother, you only know half the story. Crosby had a rich, long film career, and this collection features some of the best of Der Bingle's lesser-known films: Waikiki Wedding, Double or Nothing , East Side of Heaven, If I Had My Way, and Here Come the Waves. All showcase Crosby's easygoing persona and, of course, plenty of crooning. Waikiki Wedding, for instance, costars Martha Raye, Anthony Quinn, and Shirley Ross, and features the Oscar-winning song "Sweet Leilani" and "Blue Hawaii." The premise of Double or Nothing could be a modern-day reality competition, with four people, including Raye again, feverishly trying to double their inheritance within a 30-day window. East Side of Heaven costars the always appealing Joan Blondell and showcases Crosby at his bemused best as a cabbie with an abandoned baby on his hands, trying desperately (and with a few showtunes) to find the infant's parents. In If I Had My Way, Crosby's a blue-collar worker who helps an orphan girl (Gloria Jean) find her long-lost uncle, and delivers a show-stopping version of the title song. And Here Come the Waves has Crosby as a popular songster enlisting and creating havoc in the Navy, falling for twins (played by Betty Hutton) and singing classics like "That Old Black Magic" and "Ac-cent-u-ate the Positive" (the latter, unfortunately, in blackface). The collection is a great cross-section of Crosby's career and shouldn't be missed by fans of him or of American film in the '40s. --A.T. Hurley

Customer Reviews

Boxful Of Bing
This looks to be a pleasant set for fans of Bing Crosby. Since Amazon has not posted any product description for this set, here are the titles included with short descriptions (from imdb and allmovie).

Disc 1-
Waikiki Wedding (1937;dir. Frank Tuttle)- A beauty contest winner of the "Miss Pineapple Princess" pageant takes part in a publicity scheme in Hawaii, and is pursued by an advertising executive for the agency doing the promotion.

Double Or Nothing (1937;dir. Theodore Reed)-In this lively musical, an eccentric philanthropist's will dictates that four people receive $5,000 with the stipulation that the first one who can double the amount-- without dishonesty-- will win a cool million. Hindering the four are the avaricious relatives of the late millionaire. Songs include: "It's On, It's Off," "Double or Nothing," "Listen My Children," "Smarty," "The Moon Got in My Eyes" and "After You."

Disc 2-
East Side Of Heaven (1939;dir. David Butler)-Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his roommate, dour doorman Mischa Auer, Crosby offers care and shelter to the infant until he can locate the parents.

If I Had My Way (1940;dir. David Butler)-In this musical drama, a construction worker becomes the guardian of a 12-year old girl after one of his buddies is killed. She and he head to New York to look for her uncle, a vaudevillian. With the help of a good pal, they soon find the uncle. The three searchers encounter trouble when the pal uses all their money to buy a ramshackle restaurant. Songs include: "I Haven't The Time To Be A Millionaire", "Meet The Sun Halfway", "April Played The Fiddle", "The Pessimistic Character (With The Crab Apple Face)", "If I Had My Way", "Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider", and "Rings On My Fingers".

Disc 3-
Here Come The Waves (1944;dir. Mark Sandrich)- This peppy wartime musical stars Bing Crosby as radio crooner Johnny Cabot, the heartthrob of millions. To escape his frenzied fans, Johnny joins the Navy, where is he ordering to aid a WAVE recruiting drive. his is the film in which Bing Crosby and Sonny Tufts, both in blackface, introduce the Johnny Mercer-Harold Arlen standard "Accen-tu-ate the Positive".

Five stars for IF I HAD MY WAY. It's complete, for the first time since 1940
We have this set strictly for IF I HAD MY WAY, the 1940 musical co-starring Bing Crosby and Gloria Jean. Every version that has appeared on television and in theaters for six decades has been Universal's 1946 reissue, which is missing some Gloria Jean footage and almost all of the featured appearances by vaudeville stars.

It is a pleasure to report that Universal consulted the original 1940 release for this sparkling DVD edition. The film is fully complete with all of its original (undoctored) titles. The entire score is on parade here, including Gloria Jean's charming "Little Grey Home in the West," seen and heard for the first time in 66 years. The guest-star specialties are intact: Blanche Ring and Eddie Leonard sing their signature numbers backed by Six Hits and a Miss; Paul Gordon does a trick-cycling act; Trixie Friganza, Julian Eltinge, and Grace La Rue appear as themselves.

A fine ensemble cast (El Brendel, Allyn Joslyn, Charles Winninger, Nana Bryant, Claire Dodd, Moroni Olsen, Donald Woods) lends fine support to Bing and Gloria, who sing memorably. If you like Bing Crosby, this is very enjoyable and highly representative of his talents. The restoration job is excellent, with the long-lost deletions artfully fitted back into the standard vault print. Picture and sound are also excellent. The restored IF I HAD MY WAY is a major find for movie-musical fans, and the DVD is highly recommended.

A great, value priced set of movies.
I was pleasantly surprised to find this boxed set and even happier to discover they are all good quality transfers. These are not the double faced disks; two disks have two movies and a third has Here Come The Waves. My favorite is Waikiki Wedding, a funny story about a bored Miss Pineapple (Shirley Ross) and the lengths Bing will go to stop her from going home and ruining his career. Bob Burns is great as Bing's sidekick and keen eyed High Chaparral fans can spot a young Leif Ericson as Ross's irate boyfriend. Martha Raye's comedy is not really to my taste but that's just a personal opinion. She is also in Double or Nothing, along with Andy Devine.
There is not a bad movie in this set and I'm happy to see some of Bing's earlier work out on DVD, other than just Holiday Inn, Bells of St Mary and White Christmas. The music itself is timeless and these movies are just plain fun. Well worth buying.