The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection [Blu-ray]

THE ROGERS & HAMMERSMITH COLLECTION [2014] [Amazon Exclusive Blu-ray Box Set] Experience Your Favourite Musical As Never Before!Celebrate the world’s most beloved film musicals. “The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection” which contains all 6 films now together on the Blu-ray format for the first time ever! Each timeless film is in dazzling high definition for the ultimate home viewing experience. So every spectacular scene, every enchanting song, and every magical, memorable moment can be yours to cherish forever and share with your family.8 Disc Set Includes: ‘State Fair’ [1945], ‘Oklahoma!’ [1955] [Todd-AO and CinemaScope Versions], ‘The King and I’ [1956], ‘Carousel’ [1956], ‘South Pacific’ [1958] [Theatrical and Extended “Road Show” Versions] and ‘The Sound of Music’ [1965].Video Resolution: 1080p [Technicolor]Aspect Ratio:State Fair [1.37:1]Oklahoma! [2.20:1 and 2.55:1] [Todd-AO and CinemaScope]The King and I [2.55:1] [CinemaScope 55]Carousel [2.55:1] [CinemaScope 55]South Pacific [2.20:1] [Todd-AO]The Sound of Music [2.20:1] [Todd-AO]Audio:State Fair: English: DTS-HD Master Audio MonoOklahoma!: English: 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and English: 4.0 DTS-HD Master Audio.Carousel: English: 4.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono and Music: 2.0 Dolby DigitalThe King and I: English: 4.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono, French: Dolby Digital Mono and Music: 2.0 Dolby Digital.South Pacific: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English: 4.0 Dolby Digital, English: 2.0 Dolby Digital, French: 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish: 5.1 Dolby Digital.The Sound of Music: English: 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English: 4.0 Dolby Digital, French: 5.1 DTS-HD, Portuguese: 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish: 5.1 Dolby DigitalSubtitles:State Fair: English SDH, French and SpanishOklahoma!: English SDH, French and SpanishCarousel: English SDH, French and SpanishThe King and I: English SDH, French and SpanishSouth Pacific: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese, Korean and Mandarin (Simplified)The Sound of Music: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and SwedishRunning Times:State Fair: 100 minutesOklahoma!: 145 minutesCarousel: 128 minutesThe King and I: 133 minutesThe Sound of Music: 174 minutesRegion: Region A/1Studio: Twentieth Century Fox Home EntertainmentAndrew’s Blu-ray Review: Most modern pop music, including the music for most newest Broadway shows, shows a painful lack of something that America once created in enormous quantities, especially melodies. Although the generation that most loved the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, is well on its way to passing onto new generations who love these types of musicals and the popularity of those shows is still very strong. As a child of the 1950s, I can attest to the fact that the music of all the shows in 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's new Blu-ray set “The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection” all became a part of our DNA film experience. Across the years families collected 45 rpm record sets, Long Playing Albums and eventually various video formats, including Betamax, VHS, LaserDisc and DVD of these films. They were core family viewing, and I can remember my mother's pleased reaction to our 'shared experience' with them.The 6 picture set are ‘State Fair;’ ‘Oklahoma!;’ ‘Carousel;’ The King & I;’ ‘South Pacific’ and ‘The Sound of Music.’ Only two have had previous Blu-ray releases; these are presented with the same awesome brilliant transfers, but not all of the same extras.‘STATE FAIR’ was released by 20th Century Fox in a 60th Anniversary Edition DVD in 2005. Although not one of the 'super-productions' that would follow a decade later, ‘State Fair’ is a sweet, quaint musical of a novel previously produced as a non-musical film in 1933. Fox gave it the full Technicolor treatment, along with the top singing talent Dick Haymes and Vivian Blaine. Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews are dubbed. Curiously, Dana Andrews began his show business career as a singer but repeatedly declined to sing, as he wanted to be regarded as a serious actor only. After all, Dick Powell had recently succeeded in switching from crooning to straight drama; going the other way was not considered a smart career move.The 1080p transfer is in great shape and has that candy-colour look of 20th Century Fox musicals of the 1940s. It isn't as sharp as one might expect, but there's definitely more detail present than on the older DVD. The mono audio is strong, if obviously not as dynamic as that on the newer pictures. The songs "It Might as Well Be Spring" and “It’s a Grand Night for Singing" made the biggest impact with this viewer. The attractive Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews are plunked down in the middle of a storyline that relentlessly celebrates the joys of rural life. Sorry, but most Iowans people all went to the big city like everyone else.‘STATE FAIR’ has the fewest extras. All of the titles offer the viewer four ways to watch the film. One can play the picture straight through or play it in "Music Machine" mode, which skips from song highlight to song highlight. There's also the "Sing Along" mode, which adds lyric subtitles to the songs. Finally, "Play the whole Film with Sing Along" is self-explanatory.Between the commentaries and the extras on the discs, one can get a solid, and sometimes fairly critical, overview of their origins in books or the stage and the way the films came together. The commentary on State Fair is by authors Richard Barrios and Tom Briggs. The half-hour documentary “From Page to Screen to Stage” charts the musical's 'backwards' genesis and it was a movie musical first before being adapted to the stage. Each disc also contains a wealth of visual extras in Still Galleries: often broken down into categories of ad art, behind-the-scenes stills and production stills showing sets, costumes, etc. The one thing missing here that was included on the DVD presentation is the 1962 ‘State Fair’ remake with Pat Boone and Ann-Margret. It's nobody's idea of a good film, from any angle... but it did have Bobby Darin, and that's kind of fun isn’t it.‘OKLAHOMA!’ tends to drags at times and some of the direction is dull, but many of the musical sequences are brilliantly done. The main central ballet motivated by Shirley Jones' song "Out of My Dreams" is a marvellous mix of great choreography, staging and direction and its stylised painted sky backdrops look like something from the Japanese film ‘Kwaidan.’ Song for song, ‘Oklahoma!’ has possibly the most memorable music of the features in this set. Seen in a good presentation, it's a powerful show.Mike Todd pulled out of Cinerama and made ‘Oklahoma!’ as what was to be the first film of a Road Show feature empire. The film invented its own Todd-AO (American Optical) film format. The process and the movie were practically developed together. 65mm wide and five perforations, Todd-AO also ran at 30 frames per second, to cut down on strobing, flicker and 'chatter' during on-screen motion. Todd-AO could not be adapted for normal 24fps theatre use, so Mike Todd was forced to simultaneously film a second standard CinemaScope version of the film. That second version is what had been seen almost exclusively since the late 1950s.The biggest news of this new Blu-ray set is that the 30-frame Todd-AO version of ‘Oklahoma!’ is back, this time looking and sounding sensational. The 2005 DVD was something of a disaster for Rogers & Hammerstein fans. It contained both versions, but the Todd-A0 transfer was of awful quality, blurry and diffuse, it looked a mess. Now, ten years later, scanners are so safe that the original negative for ‘Oklahoma!’ could be scanned, and the result is totally magnificent.The Todd-AO version was reportedly filmed first and its cameras occupied the best positions. It has been suggested that the quality of the daylight looks better and some of the performances seem fresher in the Todd-AO version, too. The cutting and framing differs between versions, and the Todd-AO cut is eight minutes longer. This disc may be the deal-maker that sells a lot of these boxed sets, although I must add that a stand-alone ‘Oklahoma!’ is rumoured to be out sometime in the near future. The Todd-AO and CinemaScope versions occupy separate discs. The CinemaScope version looks good too, but is nowhere near as impressive as the Todd-AO version. Both versions have excellent multi-track audio, and the Todd-AO listed as a 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio sound track.Beyond the four playback options and galleries and trailers, ‘Oklahoma!’ is graced with two commentaries, one by Shirley Jones and one by Nick Redman; Ted Chapin and Hugh Fordin. There is a Documentary comparing the two format versions, and the development of Todd-AO. Culled from a 1950s TV show are two song excerpts from the show, sung by Gordon MacRae and wait for it, Florence Henderson and is really very good!Brilliant master producer Mike Todd pulled together resources that historically didn't mesh well with Hollywood, Broadway and the research/technical industry. For a year or so it seemed possible that the 'new' Hollywood might convert to Todd-AO for road shows, with a change to 30fps becoming normal even for standard films. As it happened, the industry would instead slowly lose interest in an expensive 65mm 'big pictures.'‘CAROUSEL’ was also released in 1955. As every studio wanted its own proprietary format, Fox came up with a king-sized CinemaScope system called CinemaScope 55, using an enormous negative withan anamorphic squeeze identical to standard 35mm CinemaScope. When the executives saw the improved quality of print-downs to 35mm CinemaScope, they abandoned plans for large-format projection, just as Paramount had with their own proprietary VistaVision. ‘Carousel’ and ‘The King and I’ were the only films shot in CinemaScope 55.‘Carousel’ is the most problematic of the Rogers & Hammerstein features. Although it has some of the series' most beautiful songs, it is the least original and the least exciting visually. The repeat casting of Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae might seem a quickie follow-up to the previous show, but in actuality, Frank Sinatra walked off the film set when he discovered that he'd have to shoot all of his scenes twice for the CinemaScope 55 and the 35mm version (The 35mm version was abandoned during filming). Director Henry King seems defeated by a production that wastes beautiful New England locations by using them as static backdrops. Not helping are uninspired sets back in Hollywood sound stages that often simply look cheap. After an uninspiring prologue in a smoke and glass 'heaven,' the first earthbound scene is a marvellous, more or less dialogue-free story setup that brings together innocent factory girl Julie Jordan [Shirley Jones] and carousel barker Billy Bigelow [Gordon MacRae]. Billy Bigelow's boss Mrs. Mullin [Audrey Christie] insults Julie and fires Billy Bigelow over a flirting incident, while the marvellous main "Carousel Waltz" theme reinforces the notion that an unquenchable love has been ignited.From that point forward ‘Carousel’ is directed as if on remote control, with barely a thought given to anything beyond setting up of the great songs. The plotline slogs along like a can kicked down the road. It's best to concentrate on the quality of the musical arrangements and their delivery by the capable cast. Julie loses her job as well, marries Billy Bigelow and becomes pregnant. Egged on by his thuggish false friend Jigger Craigin [Cameron Mitchell], the chronically irresponsible Billy Bigelow goes through with a stupid robbery. Tragedy ensues. Sixteen years later in heaven, a miracle allows Billy Bigelow to return briefly to Earth to try to do one good thing for the daughter he never knew. The ending is a bittersweet tearjerker that verges on the slightly maudlin effect. Although Billy Bigelow barely showed his love for Julie Jordan, their problem seems to have been only a matter of bad communication. He's really a softie enchanted by the idea of having a child. One idea carried over from the source play, is that wife beating can be a matter of "hits that don't hurt." In this context, it's a painfully dated embarrassment not likely to be appreciated by activists against domestic violence. I can imagine the horror of a battered wife who sought some psychic relief and chose to attend a 1955 matinee of ‘Carousel.’ Although Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan's life is one big mess up, but the message is, that it's okay because "You'll Never Walk Alone."Prominent among the extras for ‘Carousel’ is a carryover from the NTSC DVD Special Edition, especially the film ‘Liliom’ [1934] directed by Fritz Lang. It's the French film Fritz Lang made after his escape from Nazi Germany, en route to Hollywood. This non-musical version of Ferenc Molnár's play is to ‘Carousel’ what ‘Pygmalion’ is to ‘My Fair Lady’ a total revelation. The film ‘Liliom’ in this extra; is in the 480i encoded on this Blu-ray, and is far better that the NTSC DVD extra.Due both to the needs of Broadway musicals and American entertainment in general, ‘Carousel’ all but emasculates the original ‘Liliom’ fim, which added a lot more satirical messages about class injustice to its story of a brutal relationship. In the film, we find Liliom (a young Charles Boyer) is much less romanticised heel, and is indeed bad news for Julie [Madeleine Ozeray]. They never marry. He refuses to work and they live in poverty; the fact that she accepts his abuse makes him so ashamed that he hits her. He's soon pretending that he doesn't care, when he's actually crippled by self-loathing. There is no 'wholesome' alternative couple; instead the carousel operator Mrs. Muscat cruelly tries to lure Liliom back, right in Julie's presence. Carousel eliminates a suicide and softens heaven into a quaint stellar waiting room. In Liliom our ignoble hero finds that heaven has a double standard just like on Earth. The wealthy dead get special treatment while he's forced to cool his heels. Instead of returning to a purgatory of star-polishing duty, Liliom's failed mission on Earth will result in an eternity spent in flames. The finale in the Fritz Lang film sees Julie finally being able to express her forbidden love (yes, complete with the un-PC idea of 'hits' that feel like kisses) and sheds a tear that shifts the heavenly balance in favour of the misunderstood rogue Liliom.The Fritz Lang's film is incredibly well directed, and has a depth of detail and atmosphere not found in the musical remake. As befits a French film untouched by the Hollywood Production Code, the show features some near-nudity. When Liliom is granted a kiss from Julie on a park bench, he proceeds to caress her breast. Molnár's play surely influenced Fritz Lang's film ‘Destiny’ [1921], with its story of a love that can alter the course of the stars. The black-clad emissaries that escorts Liliom to heaven, are also echoed in Jean Cocteau's mysterious art film ‘Orpheus.’With the opening of the film ‘Carousel’ where the carousel scene is staged on a much smaller scale than the old French film ‘Liliom’ and the location shooting often lacks an even basic pictorial sense. Louise Bigelow's big ballet scene is staged on a tiny set, and without any of the dramatic lighting scheme that was so effective in ‘Oklahoma!’ The 4.0 stereo audio track reproduces the directional stereo feel of the original film. In addition to the feature ‘Liliom,’ the four playback choices and still galleries, the extras for Carousel include a trailer, a newsreel and a making-of documentary. Two deleted songs are heard as audio extras, illustrated with photos. And a TV excerpt has two more song presentations, sung by Mary Martin, John Raitt and Jan Clayton. An Isolated music score is present. The full commentary with Shirley Jones and a well-informed Nick Redman brings forth some interesting questions and answers, instead of the usual interview vacuous fluff.‘THE KING & I’ [1956] is the second and last CinemaScope 55 film and was a massive success whose fame has burned bright for half a century. This time the solid source material was didn't need sanitizing either for the stage or screen; as seen in the popular Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison picture Anna and the King of Siam, the hints of a hot 'n' heavy romance between an English schoolteacher and an Indo-Chinese King remain in the censor-safe theoretical stage.The story is sound in all departments and the proud Anna Leonowens [Deborah Kerr] and her son have a rough time adjusting to work teaching the many children of King Mongkut of Siam [Yul Brynner]. Although a lively personality, the King's deeply rooted convictions place everyone under his paternal tyranny. Women are chattel and Anna's educated foreigner is only partly an exception. The friendship between sovereign and teacher grows until, in a private meeting in a vast royal reception room, she teaches him to dance the Polka. The major subplot sees Mongkut cruelly separating and punishing two of his 'possessions'. Tuptim [Rita Moreno] is one of his wives, gifted to him by another monarch. Lun Tha [Carlos Rivas] is a worker who brought Tuptim to Siam. They fall in love but under Mongkut's system of bondage have no rights. Anna tries to diplomatically leverage Mongkut's affections to help Tuptim, and to this end stages a Siamese version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as the royal entertainment.Except for some palace exteriors and a street scene ‘The King & I’ is entirely stage-bound, which is no disadvantage at all thanks to the marvellous sumptuous designs of John DeCuir. The fact that the vision of Siam is a dated stage construction also means little, as what we see is so visually pleasing. The design really comes forward in the bravura "The Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet, where costumes and masks convert Harriet Beecher Stowe's drama into a Siamese fable. As the representative of Western decorum, Anna glides through scenes in giant skirts that disguise the fact that she has legs. The contrast with the sensually costumed Eastern women couldn't be greater.Yul Brynner dominates the film in the role that both made and capped his career; he'd be performing “The King & I” stage productions off and on until his death decades later. As for Anna, if Irene Dunne hadn't been too aged for the part she could have performed Anna and sung for her too, instead of being dubbed by Marni Nixon as was Deborah Kerr. Refined, opulent and romantic, but minus messy sex complications. Deborah Kerr's Anna is the one that's remembered, and the role that most types her career. She and Yul Brynner were considered such a hot pairing that M-G-M quickly reunited them in the Cold War thriller ‘The Journey.’As with ‘Carousel,’ the transfer of ‘The King & I’ has some odd colour choices. Most scenes are dazzlingly good, especially the Uncle Thomas ballet, but a great many moments look too blue. We understand seeing a blue tinge in night scenes or the stage performance, but normal close-ups of Deborah Kerr will suddenly turn bluish, even in the middle of a scene. It can only be attributed to the condition of the elements. The 4.0 stereo audio has no deficiencies. Mixed much like ‘Carousel,’ voices and sound effects come across as directional, appropriate for a classic 1950s stereo sound mix.With the Audio Commentary, Michael Portantiere and Richard Barrios contribute the informed and lively commentary for ‘The King & I,’ and another track contains a two-channel stereophonic Isolated music score. Five documentaries cover the history of the film and play, the story of the stage version, a quick look at Darryl Zanuck's promotions for CinemaScope, the genesis of the music and a ten-minute overview of the creative teaming of Rodgers and Hammerstein.One of the other Special Features is a half-hour pilot, which is present for an ‘Anna and the King’ TV show, with a commentary by its Anna, Samantha Eggar. An extra audio song is present, plus TV excerpts from the stage version with Patricia Morison and Yul Brynner. Roughly ten minutes of ‘The King & I’ related newsreels are offered as well. Finally, a restoration extra gives us an idea of the huge volume of work required to re-master ‘The King & I’ from original CinemaScope 55 materials.This brings us to another Rogers & Hammerstein film musical in which the screen purposely changes colours, and that is ‘South Pacific’ [1958]. Another huge success, the film had to wait out a particularly lengthy Broadway run so that the film version could be made. The two discs included in this new set are identical to the earlier release. We're still impressed that 20th Century Fox went to the trouble to reconstruct the film's much longer version by fifteen minutes with the Road Show version. Even though the sound quality isn't as rich and the added footage is pale and faded and it's presumably a surviving positive print, which we are grateful to see the extra story detail and additional scenes.Some people are still not sure about the film's colour experiment, which still seems to attempt to visually suggest moods normally achieved through sensitive direction, but I really love it. But some of the tints work well, especially when the colour-wheel seams don't show. The ever-changing mystery matte paintings of the fantasy island Bali Hai look even better when cast in different hues. But Joshua Logan's overall direction is numbingly flat, letting his locations and the stage-like blocking do all the work.South Pacific’ is billed as filmed in Todd-AO, but this time the 30 frames-per-second film speed was dropped, leaving ‘Oklahoma!’ and ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ as the only other films shot in the original Todd-AO format. According to author-authorities Carr and Hayes, the cameras actually used were Panavision lenses, which mean that the film is really a standard 65mm production. This was the biggest Rogers & Hammerstein hit of all time, and one of the most popular films of the 1960s and a triumph for director-producer Robert Wise, ‘The Sound of Music’ was restored several years ago after a complex 8K scan job, and released as a 45th Anniversary Special Edition Blu-ray.The transfer is worth a little discussion of its own. Four years ago at an industry film restoration convention in America, Fox treated the attendees and lucky hangers-on to a rare comparison test. In the Linwood Dunn Theater at the Academy's facility on Vine Street, they first projected a reel from ‘The Sound of Music’ in restored 70mm. It's difficult to believe that any video could possibly approach the detail and clarity of the 70mm that the people viewed; the only other film that people compare to this film is the more impressive big format was David Lean's ‘Ryan's Daughter.’ Then they put up an uncompressed 4K theatrical video projection master of the same ‘The Sound of Music’ scene.On this Blu-ray disc ‘The Sound of Music’ looks absolutely marvellous, with the resolution just good enough to convey the eye-popping clarity remembered from theatrical screenings. The colour throughout is very accurate. The extras for ‘The Sound of Music’ lead off with an interactive picture-in-picture feature that looks to have been very costly. It puts a choice of several trivia-track choices on the screen, or all of them at once if you so wish. One is a karaoke feature. It all sounds like a perfect arrangement for viewers incapable of doing one thing at a time.With the Audio Commentary, Robert Wise contributes one commentary, and a second track gathers statements from Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, who was a good sport, despite his put-downs of the film over the years. Charmian Carr, who was the choreographer for Dee Dee Wood and Johannes von Trapp. Like the other titles, this disc also contains the four viewing modes like "music machine" and "sing along." Accessed through the web is a four-minute piece with Laura Benanti, an actress in a recent Broadway revival of the show.Finally, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's Blu-ray of “The Rodgers & Hammerstein Collection” is totally awesome and is also one of those monster sets that a number of years ago would come in a gift box not likely to fit on the average bookshelf. Instead you get all 8 Blu-ray discs packed into a very tidy package and not much fatter than one for the standard DVD case. The package layout gives a minimum of information about the discs inside. For confirmed Rodgers & Hammerstein musical fans, the big draw here is the marvellous 30fps Todd-AO version of ‘Oklahoma!’ The transfers of ‘South Pacific’ and ‘The Sound of Music’ are just as good, if not perfect, but the higher frame rate makes ‘Oklahoma!’ pop out so much brighter and clearer and we're just being hit with more information per second, and the fast motion in the dance sequences is much less blurred. I think of myself at the age of five, spinning 45rpm records of these songs on the floor, and find it hard to believe that I can now can see the presentations of the whole films, in totally quality that is totally equal to what I saw when I went to see these films in the cinema and I feel these films look far more superior, and look even more stunning and thank goodness to computer high definition in cleaning up the prints and making sure we have the right soundtrack and I originally had this box set on the Region 1 DVD set and looked good at the time, but this Blu-ray set surpasses all of my expectation and it has now gone pride of place in my Region A/1 Blu-ray Collection. Very Highly Recommended!Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film FanLe Cinema ParadisoWARE, United Kingdom

I bought this set specifically to get the Todd-A-O version of Oklahoma. At the time it was only available in this set and for a reasonable price it gave me the opportunity to watch several other classic movies that I have never seen, or only seen on a picture tube TV decimated by late night car commercials.However this review is for the purchased product, the entire set. In a nutshell, the films rate a 5 as genuine classics, produced in a way that will never be repeated. The enjoyment of being able to watch them full-length at home on a modern flat-screen TV is easily worth a 5.On the other hand, the transfers range from bad to really bad. No it can't be expected that any of these movies would or could look as good as when they were projected on the silver screen from the original release prints, but with a few of the movies the image and sound quality are so bad it make it difficult to watch the film. Colors wander all over the place, the sound volume goes up and down, and dialogue is sometimes unintelligible. This is a set to own for content only, to be able to watch a classic movie at home. None of them will please a movie connoisseur. But is that a reasonable expectation? That's something that's up to the buyer to decide.The hardest to watch is South Pacific because the original producer had this thing about dissolving to weird colors every time a character burst into song. The modern transfer to DVD process just didn't seem to be able to handle that and made what was originally an unusual effect into something that seems to be drug induced. I found myself closing my eyes so I could enjoy listening to the song without having to watch the shifting colors.Straying from the review for a second ... movie reviews at Amazon are the least credible of any review for any product. Are people reviewing a movie that was made 30 years ago because they don't like the story line? Will that make the slightest difference in a movie that's already made? Or are they reviewing the technical quality of the film-to-disc transfer? Regardless of digital technical restoration "miracles" there's no way an old movie being played on their TV will ever look like a shot-to-digital current theatrical release. In one instance of the ridiculous, as this is being written on Sept 4, 2014, one of these films - the digitally remastered Todd-A-O version of Oklahoma which won't be sold until October 7, 2014 already has 325 reviews under it, many complaining how bad the color and sound are. Duh! That's because they're reviewing an old version of that movie! So, hint, if you like classic old movies just buy them in whatever format is cheapest and enjoy them for what they are. Some things just can't be made better with a "new coat of paint".Final rating - a tough call. Certainly a 5 on content. While it would be tempting to rate it a 1 on technical quality, that's not exactly fair for the reason described above. I would say overall for all of the discs the technical quality is about what should be expected from such old movies, hence an average 3, bringing the overall rating to 4-stars.

Great value for money. Only disappointment is that the CDs are in thin cases rather than normal size ones, which seems to be getting to be the norm these days. Its a tad annoying though as it does not match the rest of my DVD cases so has to be stored separately. I cant take points off for that though and the DVDs are great. A real blast from the past.

Mum Loved this

It's nice to view these old films, the quality is good but the experience is spoilt by the lengthy pirating warnings which are not necessary because a real pirate would ignore them.

Brings back great memories of visits to the local cinema to see and hear great musicals.

Call me a softie but the early musicals allow you to forget everyday troubles and enjoy the escapism of the film/stage show. Horribly inaccurate ,misogenistic and racist but putting your mind set to one side there are some wonderful songs and dances to admire.