Image | ![]() |
EAN-13 | 9780792837640 ![]() |
Product Name | High Society [VHS] |
Language | English |
Category | Electronics / Photography: A/V Media: Movie / TV |
Amazon.com | ![]() |
Price New | 2.18 US Dollars (curriencies) |
Price Used | 0.45 US Dollars (curriencies) |
Cast | Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm, John Lund |
Binding | VHS Tape |
Format | Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC |
Run Time | 111 minutes |
Long Description | MGM's bold idea to remake George Cukor's Oscar-winning upperclass romantic farce, The Philadelphia Story , into a star-studded, Technicolor musical with Cole Porter tunes somehow works splendidly and remains an underrated gem. Even the plot and character names--and some bits of dialogue--all remain the same as the original. Crooning Bing Crosby replaces Cary Grant as the wealthy ex-husband trying to win back his soon-to-be-remarried ex-wife, spoiled ice queen Tracy Lord (Grace Kelly, stunning and aloof in her last film role, originated in the earlier comedy by Katherine Hepburn). Unlike Grant, however, Crosby has jazz great Louis Armstrong, playing himself, in his corner for quixotic persuasion. Frank Sinatra (cocky in James Stewart's former role) and Celeste Holm add support as the nosy reporters covering, and subsequently complicating, the upcoming wedding. Sure, High Society lacks the original's witty satire, sarcasm, and character complexity; but it's assuredly paced and wonderfully acted, and contains enough romantic chemistry to keep the plot engaging. And then there's the music. Unlike the grandiose production numbers of many '40s and '50s musicals, High Society 's musical sequences are considerably low-key and intimate, focusing on Porter's lyrical content, and the style in which it's delivered by the charismatic performers. Armstrong kicks the film off in telling style: he sings the title track, a calypso tune outlining the plot like a Greek chorus, not as an elaborately choreographed song-and-dance number, but instead stuffed claustrophobically in the back of a limousine with his jazz band. Other musical standouts include Sinatra and Crosby playfully tossing barbs during "Well, Did You Evah?"; Crosby and Armstrong teaming up for an energetic clash of styles in "Now You Has Jazz"; the two soaring, archetypal ballads by the leads--Crosby's "I Love You, Samantha" and Sinatra's superior "You're Sensational"; and, finally, the satirical Sinatra/Holm duet, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," the closest High Society ever comes to social or class commentary. --Dave McCoy |
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Created | 03-12-2013 1:29:20pm |
Modified | 05-01-2020 1:52:58am |
MD5 | 7bcd92770198568d0d76fdbab8a82da5 |
SHA256 | 2904e2c241070723cd1466221324a03fcbc4e16c9f8c84cc4600ee2f335de565 |
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Query Time | 0.0140560 |
Article of interest
Well heck! We had another upgrade of hardware today and the process simply took far longer than expected. Sorry!
Yes, we added some more new hardware. To insure that nothing got lost we had to perform a full database backup.
This backup required copying over 70gig of data from one machine to another and this required a complete database shutdown.
Now this step took longer than expected but that wasn't all, installing the new hardware took longer than expected.
The good news? We now have new servers for both the web server and the database server PLUS backup equipment for both servers. The old equipment has been recycled into massive file servers and backup servers so we haven't wasted anything.
The hope is that all these upgrades over the past couple weeks will improve over all system performance and reliability. With all the traffic we have been seeing lately, the old database server and web server have been getting pushed to their limits. We now have some breathing room again.
Thanks for your patients.