Product Description

A Brooklyn telephone answering service operator known as \Mom" falls in love with one of her clients and is determined to meet him.
Genre: Musicals
Rating: NR
Release Date: 15-MAR-2005
Media Type: DVD"""

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3329 in DVD
• Brand: MARTIN,DEAN
• Released on: 2005-03-15
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 126 minutes

Features

• An answering-service operator (Judy Holliday) falls in love with the man she's known only as a voice on the telephone. Dean Martin and Jean Stapleton co-star. Year: 1960 Director: Vincente Minnelli Starring: Judy Holliday, Dean Martin, Fred Clark, Eddie Foy, Jr.Running Time: 126 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS Rating: NR Age: 012569591325 UPC: 012569591325 M

Customer Reviews

What a perfect relationship! (recommended)
Throw away your mobile phones. Smash your answering machines. Turn back your clock to 1960 when Suesanswerphone makes a pitch to improve all aspects of your life by preventing you from missing a phone call. An office full of Ella Peterson (Judy Holliday) voices filters incoming calls and forwards subscriber messages. Ella offers a unique personality for each client, making the establishment sound much grander than it is. Despite instructions to the contrary from her boss, cousin Sue (Jean Stapleton), but to the delight of subscribers, Ella goes beyond phone answering; she becomes a confidant and advisor.

A typical disaster on blind dates, Ella falls in love with the "disembodied voice" and circumstance of "Plaza-0 Double-4 Double-3" -- playwrite subscriber Jeffery Moss (Dean Martin) with whom she speaks in the voice of an elderly mother. "What a perfect relationship; I can't see him and he can't see me!"

Sue is swooned into sharing her office with shady Titanic Records owner J. Otto Prantz (Eddie Foy, Jr.) while Suesanswerphone is being investigated under suspicion of providing lonely-hearts-club service. Inspector Barnes (Dort Clark) warns Susanswerphone personnel not to have personal conversations or arrange meetings with male callers. Aware of these restrictions, Ella's concern for clients soon transcends the switchboard as she goes undercover in a variety of voices and costumes to pass along helpful information affecting the careers of such characters as beatnik Blake Barton (Frank Gorshin).

Discover how many ways BELLS ARE RINGING in another successful Broadway play adapted to motion picture. Subplots of this Oscar nominated romantic comedy are intertwined with song, dance, and humor. What a wonderful tribute to Judy Holliday in this, her final role before succumbing to cancer in 1965. BORN YESTERDAY and IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU are two other wonderful performances of about a dozen in her all-too-short film career. Expect Broadway musical style over-exaggeration at times while BELLS ARE RINGING the sound of delightful entertainment -- deserving 4.5 stars.

Movie quote: "It's a simple little system when the law is listening in. We will take those record orders in a very cultured tone while we're really booking horses over at Suesanswerphone."

Ringing with Love for that Holliday and Martin pair.
I very much enjoyed watching this movie. Saw it many years ago and still love it. Holliday and Martin shine. They seemed to have had a great time making this film. The music is uplifting and fun. If you like this film - see Guys and Dolls with Brando and Simmons.

Just In Time...Bells Are Ringing is on DVD!
Back at a time when there were no answering machines, all smart New Yorkers solved there problems by subscribing to Susanswerphone.

Ella Peterson (Judy Holliday) is the switchboard operator for Suanswerphone, along with her cousin and owner of the business, Sue (Jean Stapleton). Ella, also known as Melisande Scott, is very committed to her job and enjoys helping out each subscriber in a personal way - whether it be a muster plaster for an opera star with laryngitis, a suit for an aspiring actor, or a break for a dentist composing songs on an air hose. But the subscriber Ella spends most of her time on is Mr. "Plaza O Double 4 Double 3" a.k.a Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin), a struggling play writer who fondly refers to her as "Mom." They have "the perfect relationship. She can't see him and he can't see her." But that's about to change! And does Jeff get a surprise when he finds out that "Mom" isn't an old lady at all, but a very cute and charming blonde.

Judy Holliday's film career got started with the help of Katharine Hepburn, who Judy starred with in Adam's Rib (1949), along with Spencer Tracy. Bells are Ringing was Judy Holliday's final film after winning a Tony for her Broadway version. It was also the final musical that director Vincente Minnelli and screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green did together.

So, now that the party's over, I may as well say - This movie is a whole lot of fun for everyone!