Roxie Hart
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Movie Reviews of Roxie Hart
Movie Review: Roxy Heart - Great Entertainment
Summary: 5 Stars
A very enjoyable film to watch. Every character was great but Ginger Rogers was fabulaous.Movie Review: They BOTH reached for the gun!
Summary: 4 Stars
Ginger Rogers dazzles in this remake of the 1927 silent film "Chicago", entitled ROXIE HART, based on the Maurine Dallas Watkins play. Whilst it's severely hampered by the restrictions of the Production Code, 1942's ROXIE HART still gives a flavourful enough soupcón of the original material (which would later be turned into the legendary Broadway musical "Chicago"); and Ginger Rogers is a lively Roxie.
In the "bad old days" of Chicago in the 1920's, Roxie Hart (Ginger Rogers), a frustrated, fame-seeking housewife, is jailed for the murder of her boyfriend. At the Cook County Jail, she's the hottest headline in town, and can afford the services of Chicago's slickest defence lawyer, Billy Flynn (Adolphe Menjou). But Chicago's a fickle city when it comes to murderous dames seeking more than five minutes of fame. Almost at once, Roxie is eclipsed by "Two-Gun" Gertie (Iris Adrian); so in order to milk her trial, she'll have to resort to drastic measures...
Ginger Rogers smacks, slaps, winks and taps her way through a murderously funny turn as Roxie Hart; one of her most successful comedy performances of the period. Whilst she'd prove she could also bring home the trophies for a pure dramatic performance (1942's "Kitty Foyle"), when it came to saucy comediennes, Rogers was in a league all by herself.
Adolphe Menjou is an unlikely yet wily Billy Flynn; Spring Byington is the "sob sister" Mary Sunshine, and the film also features William Frawley from "I Love Lucy" as a barkeep. Pure class all the way! The DVD includes two short trailers, plus trailers from other Fox movies.
Movie Review: Kiss, Kiss and Bang, Bang! Roxie Hart is on her way!
Summary: 4 Stars
Never has a girl with so little done so much. When a 1920s has-been showgirl's husband shoots a burglar in her apartment, "Roxie Hart" (Ginger Rogers) decides to take the wrap. Why? Good business...and because outside of 15 minutes in the pen she becomes the biggest little murderess in old Chicago. Based on a true story, but this time played strictly for laughs, the bawdy, gaudy and luscious Roxy kicks up her high-stepping heels into one of the most publicized trials of the last century. There's much to admire in the story and Rogers is outstanding as the vixen turned hot property. Adolph Menjou costars as Roxy's ubiquitous attorney. TRANSFER: Kiss! Kiss! Bang! Bang! This one's a winner. Despite a few scenes that lay claim to considerable film grain and minor mis-registration (resulting in some minor pesky halos) this DVD is minted from a remarkably clean camera negative. The gray scale is wonderfully realized, with rich, deep, solid blacks. Occasionally the contrast level appears a tad on the low side but only occasionally. For the most part what you get is a genuinely impressive looking transfer. The audio has been rechanneled to stereo with predictable dated characteristics.
EXTRAS: A couple of trailers that illustrate just how awful this DVD might have looked if the good people at Fox hadn't worked some digital magic on this restored print.
BOTTOM LINE: Get ready to shoot it out with "Roxie Hart" on DVD!
Movie Review: Roxie Hart
Summary: 4 Stars
Please note that 4 stars is my review of the movie not the seller or his service. I would give the seller 5 stars for prompt response and service. Again, I would be very happy to do business with this seller again.Movie Review: Great Performances, Awkward Script in this Production-Code Version of the Legendary CHICAGO
Summary: 3 Stars
Loosely based on the 1924 trials of Chicago murderesses Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, as well as the exploits of notorious defense lawyers W.W. O'Brien and William Scott Steward, playwright Maurine Dallas Watkin's play CHICAGO was a popular stage success of 1926--a wickedly funny satire on fame and the American justice system. It was also a popular silent film of 1927. But when Hollywood returned to the story in 1942 the movies were under the infamous "production code," and there was simply no way the story could be filmed as originally written. The resulting film was a very loose adaptation in which the role of Velma Kelly was largely cut and Roxie Hart herself became less sinner than a fame-hungry dimwit who pleads guilty to a crime of which she is innocent in order to gain media fame.
ROXIE HART is one of those films that goes off with a bang when it works and dies with a fizzle when it doesn't. The great success is the cast: both Ginger Rogers and Adophe Menjou are knock-outs in the leading roles of Roxie and her slick-and-slimy defense attorney Billy Flynn, and the supporting cast (which includes a host of famous faces, including Nigel Bruce, Phil Silvers, Sara Allgood, Spring Byington, William Frawley and Iris Adrian) is hard to beat. The jail house scenes are a scream--yes, Ginger coaxes everybody into dancing "The Black Bottom"--and the court room scenes even more so--with Ginger showing as much false emotion as she does leg.
On the other hand, the film uses a framing device in which a reporter (George Montgomery) tells the story of Roxy to a bar-room audience some twenty years after the fact, and it creaks, plods, thuds, brings the movie to a slow crawl, and then gives us a surprise ending that's not only completely unsurprising but which has the effect of undercutting the entire premise of the film. When ROXIE HART flies, it really flies; when it falls, it does so with the thump of an over-cooked poundcake.
Even so, the film was still appealing enough to intrigue Broadway star Gwen Verdon, who was so fascinated by the general premise that she begged then-husband Bob Fosse to transform it into a stage showcase for her own talents. Fosse agreed it would make a great musical, but he ran afoul of original author Watkins, who had had a change of heart about her play over the years and didn't want to see it resurrected. When Watkins died in 1969 her estate felt differently, released the rights, and by 1975--with all its sin blackened humor restored--CHICAGO began to prove its worth on the musical stage. An Academy-award winning film version aside, it is currently one of the most widely admired and widely performed musicals on the world stage.
Getting back to ROXIE HART--well, no, it ain't no CHICAGO. But that awkward framing device aside, fans of the later musical will enjoy seeing this variation of their favorite musical, and certainly no one can argue with the calibre of the performances. The DVD is not mint, but it is close, and it comes with two film trailers. Recommended, as long as you don't expected too much.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer