I'm agog and aghast! DR Matt must not read the Scarlet Street Forums where I posted the contents (actually the press release) for the contents of the Doris Day boxed set from Warner. Two of the titles - PAJAMA GAME and CALAMITY JANE - have been previously released:
The Doris Day Collection
Young Man With a Horn, Lullaby of Broadway, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, The Glass Bottom Boat, Love Me or Leave Me, Billy Rose's "Jumbo" Six New-to-DVD Titles and Two Previously Released Classics Available April 26 from Warner Home Video
Burbank, Calif. January 26, 2005 - Doris Day -- whose on-screen wholesomeness, unfailing optimism and understated strength of character helped make her America's sweetheart in the '50s and '60s -- comes to DVD on April 26 with eight of her films. Warner Home Video's The Doris Day Collection features six new-to-DVD titles -- Young Man With a Horn, Lullaby of Broadway, Love Me or Leave Me, Billy Rose's "Jumbo", Please Don't Eat the Daisies, The Glass Bottom Boat -- along with two of Ms. Day's all-time favorite musicals, Calamity Jane and Pajama Game which have been repackaged for the Collection. All DVDs are packed with bonus features including vintage shorts and featurettes, cartoons, trailers and more. The gift set will be available for $88.92 SRP. Each title is also available separately for $19.97 SRP/$14.95 MAP. Orders are due March 29.
Born Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ms. Day started out as a dancer, but after a near-fatal car crash ended her hopes of becoming a ballerina, at her mother's suggestion she began refining her vocal skills. With a voice of distinct beauty at just 14 years of age, Ms. Day was soon discovered by a vocal coach who arranged an appearance on a local radio station.
Soon after, the young songstress met local bandleader Barney Rapp who convinced her to adopt the moniker that would soon become a household name. Rapp suggested "Day" after the song "Day after Day" which was part of her repertoire. Ms. Day toured briefly with Rapp's band, as well as those of Bob Crosby and Les Brown, and then set out on her own in the late 1940s.
Ms. Day's film career began in 1948 after a screen test at Warner Bros. resulted in her first film role in the smash-hit musical Romance on the High Seas. It was in this film that she introduced the hit song "It's Magic". The song and the film catapulted her to super-stardom. Throughout the 1950s she appeared in dozens of films from musicals to dramas to comedies. By the 1960s she was best known for a string of successful romantic comedies opposite some of Hollywood's greatest leading men including Cary Grant, James Garner, Rod Taylor and Rock Hudson. In 1960, she earned a Best Actress Oscar® nomination for her role in the hugely popular Pillow Talk with Hudson.
In April of 1968, Ms. Day's film career came to an abrupt end with the death of her third husband, manager/producer Marty Melcher. Left penniless and deeply in debt through what turned out to be a series of sordid investments by Melcher, Ms. Day soon bounced back and found success in television with "The Doris Day Show." Now in her 80s, Ms. Day is an active and vocal supporter of animal rights, focusing the majority of her attention on her Animal League and Animal Foundation organizations.
Details of The Doris Day Collection Films
Young Man With a Horn (1950)
With a second-hand trumpet and the loving guidance of a brilliant bluesman, a lonely boy grows into manhood as a superb musician whose talent carries him from honky-tonks to posh supper clubs. But his desperate search for the elusive high note, trapped in his mind but impossible to play, starts him on a boozy downward slide. Charged with dynamic performances by Kirk Douglas (the title role), Doris Day, Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael and pitch-perfect direction by Michael Curtiz, the film is a feast of hot, cool, moody jazz. Legendary Harry James dubbed Douglas' horn work.
DVD special features include:
* Doris Day trailer gallery
* Languages: English & French
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Lullaby of Broadway (1951)
Day danced divinely and sang in this musical delight about a singer newly arrived in New York and destined for Great White Way fame in the capable company of co-stars Gene Nelson, S.Z. Sakall, Billy DeWolfe, Gladys George and Florence Bates. Highlights are the inclusion of the Oscar®-winning title tune, Cole Porter's "Just One of Those Things", "Somebody Loves Me" and six more songs.
DVD special features include:
* Doris Day trailer gallery
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
Laced with Doris Day's vibrant performances of songs from the era, this 1955 Academy Award® winner (Best Motion Picture Story) is the tough-minded true tale of Ruth Etting's life with the man who boosted her career with strong-arm tactics yet smothered her in an obsessive grip she escaped at great peril. As Martin "The Gimp" Snyder, James Cagney earned one of the film's six Oscar® nominations. Ms. Day's Etting was a career-best dramatic performance, bringing acclaim from critics and protest letters from fans unprepared for the departure from her traditionally sunny roles.
DVD special features include:
* Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1
* Three vintage shorts, the first two with Ruth Etting
- A Modern Cinderella
- Roseland
- A Salute to the Theatres
* Theatrical trailer
* Languages: English & French
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962)
Radiant Doris Day sings beloved Rodgers and Hart tunes and does her own horseback riding tricks in this razzle-dazzle musical based on Billy Rose's stage spectacular and featuring circus sequences directed by Busby Berkeley. The story revolves around a circus owner (Jimmy Durante, star of the 1935 Broadway original) with only two real attractions: his daughter (Day) and popular pachyderm Jumbo. Three-ring pandemonium breaks out when a handsome rival (Stephen Boyd) infiltrates the circus, and father, daughter and Dad's wisecracking fiancée (Martha Raye) are suddenly at risk of losing the greatest show on earth.
DVD Special Features include:
* Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1
* Musical short Yours Sincerely
* Tom and Jerry cartoon Jerry and Jumbo
* Original overture rejoined to the film for the first time in more than 40 years
* Theatrical trailer
* Languages: English & French
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1962)
Ms. Day brings her trademark radiance to this jovial comedy from the bestseller by playwright Jean Kerr. With Janis Paige, Spring Byington and Richard Haydn on hand for snappy comic support, Please Don't Eat the Daisies is breezy family fun with popular songs "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" and "Anyway the Wind Blows."
DVD special features include:
* Theatrical trailer
* Languages: English & French
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)
Doris Day entered her eighth consecutive year as a Top-10 Box-Office Star when she boarded The Glass Bottom Boat, a blending of romantic comedy and the era's burgeoning spy-movie genre. Frank Tashlin directs with a cartoonist's sensibility, embracing everything from spy guises to push-button chaos in a futuristic kitchen. The film also stars top comedians Arthur Godfrey, Paul Lynde, Edward Andrews, John McGiver, Dom DeLuise and Dick Martin.
DVD special features include:
* Three vintage featurettes:
o Catalina Island
o Every Girl's Dream
o NASA
* Oscar®-winning cartoon The Dot and the Line
* Theatrical trailer
* Languages: English & French
* Subtitles: English, French, Spanish