Bells Are Ringing
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Movie Reviews of Bells Are Ringing
Movie Review: RING-A-DING-DING: THESE BELLS HAVE PERFECT PITCH ON DVD
Summary: 4 Stars
Vincente Minnelli's "Bells Are Ringing" (1960) generally gets a bad wrap from reviewers and critics alike. While it is true that the film came at the tail end of MGM's reign of supremacy in musical motion picture entertainment - and it is equally true that the film falls short by direct comparison to, say, Minnelli's "Meet Me In St. Louis (an unfair but often used example), all the pistons are firing on this occasion with this delightful story of a phone operator who falls in love with one of her clients.
The story concerns lonely Ella Peterson (Judy Holliday in her final performance). Working out of a basement apartment for Susan's-a-phone (a personal message service), Ella longs for the good life and the right fella to fill her needs. However, that doesn't prevent her plucky personality from offering equal portions of good advice and smart talk to her roster of happy clients. Ella's fraternization doesn't particularly sit well with her employer, Sue (Jean Stapleton) who is all dollars and cents, or police detective, Barnes (Dort Clark) who advises Ella that it's illegal to provide unsolicited information in the capacity of a business acquaintance. But Ella is all set to throw caution to the wind when she falls in love with Plaza 0-double four, double nine. That extension belongs to Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin), a once successful playwright who fears that his days of popularity are numbered and has since turned to shallow women and hollow relationships for solace.
Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green transform their Broadway original into a sublime cinematic treat. Minnelli directs adroitly and - given the limited budget he had to work with - delivers a film that appears to be on a much grander scale than it actually is. Particularly in his execution of the "Drop that Name" sequence - in which Ella lampoons her association with the hoi polloi, Minnelli's brisk camera work and staging is flawless. The same is true during Eddy Foy Jr.'s charming romp in "Oh, What A System". Delivered with comedic panache and laconic savvy a la the darling Holliday and charming Martin, the rest of the score, including such standards as "Just in Time" and "Drop That Name" is brilliant and bouncy.
Thanks to Warner's stunning new transfer, "Bells are Ringing" arrives `just in time' on DVD. The anamorphically enhanced Cinemascope image is outstanding. Colors are nicely balanced. Image quality is a marked improvement over anything this film has looked like before on home video. Blacks are rich, deep and solid. Whites are crisp, but never blooming. There is a hint of film grain and the occasional shimmer of fine detail but nothing that will distract you from wallowing in the riotous splendor of this musical classic. The audio has been impeccably remastered in 5.1 and delivers an unexpectedly powerful kick during the songs. The one disappointment for admirers of this film is that the featurette on the film "Just in Time" is way too short to be considered a valid supplement. Others include two outtake musical sequences made available previously, and the film's theatrical trailer. Regardless of these shortcomings, "Bells Are Ringing" comes highly recommended as great good time fun.
Movie Review: Spectacular Showcase For Ruth Storey
Summary: 4 Stars
We watched this the other night, six of us, each of us looking forward to a great evening of fun. Well, we had some fun but not the flotilla of mirth we'd expected. Judy Holliday is super, but the plot had her hamstruck. None of us could figure out what was taking her so long to tell Jeffrey Moss who she was, or why bother even telling him? The device of having to keep her "Ma" identity a secret is just dumb, dumb, dumb. Maybe it worked in the 1950s but it just seems puzzling now that an otherwise smart woman would nearly ruin her whole life because of a silly qualm about not wanting to say she was "Ma." Well, one of us argued, the police were going to arrest her if she dared see anyone on the outside with whom she talked on the phone. So she couldn't see Jeff for fear of being put under arrest and her reputation ruined.
That's pretty much the whole plot and my, oh my, does it sag. However the good parts are legion. It was great to see the late Frank Gorshin with his spectacular Brando impersonation (and later on, his take on Rex Harrison and sophistication). Great also to see Gorshin commenting on the film during the featurette, "Just in Time." He will be sadly missed. The gay neighbor is also great, the one who teaches Ella the cha-cha-cha. Maybe he's not gay in the movie, but he is super gay acting and he's adorable. Who plays him anyhow and what is he doing in the movie? I like a film that has room for extra side things, lines of development and odd characters, that have no strict relevance to the plot.
There must be a story behind the casting of Ruth Storey as Gwynne, Ella's co-worker who tries to cool herself off with an electric fan under her skirt. Was she one of Arthur Freed's girlfriends? (She made few movies, but she had a good part in Freed's version of Kerouac's SUBTERRANEANS a little later on.) She has an interesting stage presence, slinky, sensual, always bending and stretching, and she's not classically beautiful. Film fans will remember her as one of the Kansas victims of the two killers in IN COLD BLOOD, and, early on, she played in Fritz Lang's romantic thriller THE BLUE GARDENIA with Nat King Cole and Ann Sothern. Here she goes for the hardened New Yorker type and she really nails it, though it's funny she doesn't get to do any singing or dancing.
Of the cut-out musical numbers on the DVD, "My Guiding Star" is fantastic, and the alternate version of "The Midas Touch" is fascinating, in a later era of musicals it could have fit right into Fosse's ALL THAT JAZZ. "Is It A Crime?" however, is just terrible. It's one of those "Rose's Turn" "My Boy Bill" type of numbers that go all over the place and reveal the singer's character. "Is It A Crime?" however, is just excruciating, it hurts to watch it. You feel you are standing next to the brink of a black hole that will suck in your sanity never to let it go.
Movie Review: What a perfect relationship! (recommended)
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Note: Widescreen BELLS ARE RINGING (Ws Sub Amar) version is available (ASIN: B000J40AK2).
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."
Movie Review: Judy Holliday in her element!
Summary: 4 Stars
At last, BELLS ARE RINGING makes it's long-overdue DVD debut in its original widescreen ratio with Judy Holliday triumphantly reprising her Broadway role of Ella Peterson. Dean Martin plays Ella's handsome subscriber Jeff Moss, and the entire film is stylishly directed by the amazing Vincente Minnelli.
BELLS ARE RINGING was written specifically to fit the talents of Judy Holliday by her old friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and originally premiered on Broadway in 1956. Holliday beat Julie Andrews (in MY FAIR LADY) to win the coveted Tony Award and she stayed for the entire 3-year-run. The story concerns the lovelorn Ella Peterson, a telephone operator for the Susanswerphone message service. Ella (disguised as `Mom')falls in love with the voice of one of her subscribers, Jeff Moss, a playwright with writer's block, though she resigns herself to the fact that she may never actually meet him. Complications arise when Ella takes on the persona of `Melisande Scott' in order to embark on a relationship with him.
Eddie Foy Jr., Frank Gorshin and Jean Stapleton, all great stage-trained actors, turn in fantastic supporting performances. It is truly lovely seeing Judy Holliday (in her final film before succumbing to cancer) kicking up her heels in her acclaimed Broadway role. She is truly missed.
The DVD includes a brief Making-Of featurette with Hal Linden talking about understudying and eventually replacing Sydney Chaplin as Jeff Moss on Broadway; as well as warm reminisces from Comden & Green and Frank Gorshin. The outtake numbers "Is It a Crime?", "My Guiding Star" and an alternate take of "The Midas Touch" can also be savoured, as well as the obligatory trailer.
Movie Review: A rare delight
Summary: 4 Stars
Bells Are Ringing is one of the rarest of all MGM musicals these days, but it's not at all bad despite a strong air of theatricality, most notably in the awkwardly staged finale. It's easy to see the strong influence this must have had on Amelie as Judy Holliday's Susanswerphone operator meddles in the lives of her clients, transforming them all for the better. The police investigation and bookie subplots don't really work that well (and the song-writing dentist is surely far more irritating than he was ever intended to be), but Holliday tones down the ditziness for something more believable and genuinely likeable and Frank Gorshin's hilariously brilliant impersonation of Marlon Brando is worth the price of the DVD alone. Dean Martin seems strangely sidelined here, especially with Holliday getting all the best songs, but it's still delightful entertainment if a tad overlong.
A good widescreen transfer and deleted musical numbers round out a very decent package.