Product Description Warner Bros. and the Homefront CollectionHOLLYWOOD CANTEEN The Hollywood Canteen was a club for GIs where Joan Crawford might over- easy you some eggs and John Garfield might scrub out the frying pan. The movie Hollywood Canteen is a snappy, starry salute to that World War II landmark. Dazzle the troops and modern fans in “a great big scrambled vaudeville show with enough talent to have made a dozen fine movies.” THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, and Dinah Shore come out to play in the joyous World War II-era Thank Your Lucky Stars. A breezy, behind-the-Hollywood-scenes story about young talents hoping for a big break glitters with specialty numbers featuring Golden Era greats. Dig in! THIS IS THE ARMY From immigrant lad to All-American success story, Irving Berlin showed his abiding love for his adopted country with, among other cultural accomplishments, decades of Broadway hits, the unofficial national anthem God Bless America and the World War II spirit-lifter This Is the Army. On stage it featured 350 real-life GIs, giving their singing-and- dancing all to raise nearly $2 million (then an astronomical sum) for Army Emergency Relief.]]> .com "War is pretty grim business," an officer states in This is the Army, one of three (literally) star-spangled World War II-era musicals included in this rousing set. "Sometimes a song or a smile is just as vital to an army as food." It was also essential to those on the homefront, and Warner Bros. obliged with these proudly patriotic extravaganzas in which the studios' A-list talents sing, dance, poke fun at themselves, and most important, offer their heartfelt support of the soldiers fighting overseas. Boy, as the ads for That's Entertainment once proclaimed, do we need it now. "Wherever you go, our hearts go with you," Bette Davis movingly states at the end of Hollywood Canteen (1944), a salute to the famed club she co-founded where soldiers mingle with the movies' best and brightest, who entertain and serve as the wait staff. Robert Hutton stars as a wide-eyed soldier with a mad crush on Joan Leslie. At the club, a "Reaganized" Jane Wyman shows him the ropes, Barbara Stanwyck serves him food, and Paul Henreid dispenses romantic advice to his lovelorn buddy, while onstage the likes of Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Roy Rogers and Trigger, and others perform. Cantor gets the good sport medal for Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943), in which he portrays himself as an egomaniacal ham as well as an aspiring entertainer whose resemblance to the real Cantor has stymied his career. The heart of the film is a benefit show. If you've always wanted to see Bette Davis or Errol Flynn sing and dance, then "That's What You Jolly Well Get" (just one of the showstopping numbers). Great comic character actors abound, including Edward Everett Horton and chubby cheeked S.Z. Sakall, who, in one cute bit, intimidates tough guy Humphrey Bogart. Michael Curtiz's This is the Army, the top-grossing film of 1943, is a class act all the way, with an Oscar-winning score and great Irving Berlin tunes, including Kate Smith's defining performance of "God Bless America" (Berlin himself makes a rare screen appearance to sing, "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning"). George Murphy and Ronald Reagan front the cast as father and son soldiers, who, in World Wars I and II, respectively, mount morale-building stage shows. Each disc replicates an old fashioned night at the movies, complete with coming attraction, newsreel, vintage short subjects, and classic cartoons. The This is the Army disc contains a 45-min. documentary about Warner Bros.' war effort narrated by Steven Spielberg, and delightful, all-too-brief commentary by Joan Leslie, who is in all three films (the bulk of the detailed and incisive commentary is by U.S.C. professor Dr. Drew Casper). Whether as tribute to "the Greatest Generation" or as nostalgia for vintage movie buffs, this collection is a (Yankee doodle) dandy! --Donald Liebenson
D**M
Very good collection
Amazon have provided an excellent and precise review of this collection but here are a few additional comments: - "Thank Your Lucky Stars" is a very funny film. If you like Eddie Cantor, then you will love the film. There are some really excellent acts. Ann Sheridan is sensational singing "Love isn't Born, It's Made", Bette Davis "sells" "They're Either too Young or Too Old" making up for her lack of vocal ability with a dry wit, Jack Carson and Alan Hale do a very entertaining vaudeville routine and the invaluable Ruth Donnelly is hilarious as a psychiatric nurse. Joan Leslie is a charming heroine and does a very clever imitation of Ida Lupino. Watch out too for Alexis Smith's dancing. A trained dancer who was never given a chance in a musical, Smith is terrific and had to wait another 30 years before she could strut her stuff on Broadway in "Follies".- At the the other end of the scale, "Hollywood Canteen", as Miss Leslie states in the commentary for "This is the Army", is embarassing. Bette Davis and John Garfield, who founded the Canteen, manage to maintain their dignity but with the exception of Jack Benny's hilarious violin routine, the acts are awful (wait until you see the Andrews Sisters) and the screenplay is dreadful. This is the film where Dane Clark faints because he realises the girl he is dancing with is, wait for it, Joan Crawford. The treatment of the stars with reverential awe is an insult to the intelligence, even back in 1944.- "This is the Army" is directed by Michael Curtiz so it has a class which the other films lack. The technicolour shows a lot of bleeding and generally lacks the sparkle of the Fox films of the same period. The film is a reminder though of just what an excellent song and dance man George Murphy was.As usual, Warners Night at the Movies are included with a choice selection of shorts, cartoons and theatrical trailers, chock full of patriotic fervour. "This is the Army" has a really outstanding commentary by Drew Casper. Casper has shelved his breathless repetitive delivery which have plagued so many of his commentaries to date and really does a good job here. The information is comprehensive and best of all, he is accompanied by Joan Leslie herself who has warm and vivid memories of all 3 films. Leslie is charming and Casper asks sensible simple questions without cloying adoration. The other worthwhile extra is a documentary narrated by Stephen Spielberg no less about the contribution of Warner Brothers towards the war effort. Warners, in their usual fashion, lead the way when they made "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" in 1939.There is a lot to enjoy in this DVD set but only if you suspend the all knowing cynicism of the 21st century - remember, it was war time. Beautifully packaged, the set is good value.
A**R
Movies like This is the Army and Hollywood Canteen show the unified spirit America had in WWII to lift America's military up!
For those of us who were born before WWII started these movies bring back the excitement of America for their military and show that Hollywood was sold out as well. Two of the three are 5+ star ---- Hollywood Canteen and This is the Army. The other one is 3 star.We need the song "You can always tell a Yank" sung by Dennis Morgan and Joe E. Brown in the movie "Hollywood Canteen" brought back to liven Americans for America. We are being led down hill by the Vietnam War haters who also hate our military and Founding Fathers. Americans in WWII were always for our Military and it took 400,000 deaths over the 4 years to show that many who were drafted or signed up were willing to give their lives for America and the citizens and not declare themselves to be free of that as many did in the Vietnam War days. Hollywood has gone down, down, down because of their hate also.The other 5+star movie is my favorite. "This is the Army", but with Ronald Reagan one of the stars you know what this present Hollywood would say and the present Washington leaders. The class scene is when Kate Smith sings for the first time in a movie, "God bless America". Now you can't even say that in schools or the ACLU (founded by a Communist in 1919) will nail you. A great scene that occurred during Miss Smith's singing (done in 1943) shows George Murphy and Ronald Reagan. Murphy becomes a US senator from CA in the 60s and of course Reagan is Governor of CA then and later President in 1980 and 1984. Both stars backed our military 100%. Reagan was a Lt. in WWII. Too many in Washington today never served in our Armed Forces and are sold out to the right (always ACLU defended) to not serve. Young guys today have no idea what it means to serve their country for the protection of our Citizens or are completely lost by the meaning of "God Bless America". Now you know why America is so split today. Back then the focus was prayer in the Military in the Name of God and Jesus. Every soldier was given a Bible. Now you can't even mention it. Sad!
R**N
Meanwhile, Back At the Ranch
Wow. This collection is a virtual museum of mid-World War Two entertainment. Warner Bros. did an excellent job of recreating something of what it would have been like to see these films in the theatre, and it's a must-see for anyone who is interested in the time period. Or, for that matter, anyone who enjoys the work of Joan Leslie, who is in all three films and is her usual sweetheart self."This Is the Army" features stellar music by Irving Berlin. I actually have sung the title song to my son, and even when he was a baby he thought it was extremely funny. The key phrase when thinking of "Army" is "PERIOD PIECE." There's a minstral show (it was okay back then, though today's audiences may squirm), there are lots of guys in drag (go with it), and there are plenty of antics, such as someone throwing a shoe at a bugler. Ronald Reagan is basically the stage manager of the second Army show, and it's fun to see him at the beginning of his career."Thank Your Lucky Stars" is jaw-dropping. Bette Davis and John Garfield sing, Errol Flynn dances, and Eddie Cantor is everywhere. Yipes. I asked my mom about this guy--my parents were both born at the beginning of World War Two--and she told me Eddie Cantor did burlesque and vaudeville, so his performance style was pretty explosive. Darned right. All I know is I never saw anyone move their eyes like that before."Hollywood Canteen" may be the best of the three. When I first saw this film on Turner Classic Movies, I wanted to eat it up with a spoon. Like "Stage Door Canteen," it features a wall-to-wall Who's Who of 1940s pop culture, and it's done brilliantly. Some of the highlights are performances by the Andrews Sisters, Dane Clark's animal magnetism, and a touch of romance with Robert Hutton and Joan Leslie. I would say more, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone."Warner Bros. and the Homefront Collection" is definitely worth it. Lots of history and lots of fun.
P**.
DEFECTIVE disc for "Hollywood Canteen"
I had high hopes for this 3-Pack DVD movie compilation, but was very disappointed with the "Hollywood Canteen" disc. The reason being beginning in Chapter 4 which has the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra playing the picture stuttered and stopped and would not continue on. The disc was supposed to be new but I think it was a used disc as it was covered with many minute scratches. Interestingly enough the added features did play just fine, but not the actual movie itself. The other two movies played fine. Now I see that many other customers had the same problem with the "Hollywood Canteen" movie. Amazon should discontinue using this provider.
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