Band Wagon (DVD)

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"Gee, kids, let's put on a show" is the theme of "The Band Wagon," and its innocent, naive attitude is carried on throughout the film. But it's mostly all Astaire. When he meets Gabrielle for the first time, she inadvertently insults him by saying, "I used to see all of your pictures when I was a little girl, and I'm still a fan. I recently went to see a revival of them at the museum." It's amusing to see Astaire spoofing himself this way and taking it like a sport.

As with so many of these Astaire vehicles, it is not easy to find objection to "The Band Wagon." The romance is obvious but not too prominent. The characters are caricatures but fun. The songs are not always inspired but often memorable. And the whole thing is as cheerful and sprightly as you could want. If you like older musicals, or just like Fred Astaire, you'll probably enjoy "The Band Wagon."

Video:
Warner Bros. went all out on the DVD to produce a digitally restored print that is about as clean and clear as the day the movie was made. The screen size remains 1.33:1, the standard ratio of the day, just changing over in 1953 from 1.37:1 to 2.35:1 CinemaScope and wider. Had it been made a year later, it would undoubtedly have been in widescreen. Because of the cleaning and color correcting, the Technicolor comes off bright and exceptionally vivid, with blacks especially deep, nicely setting off the rest of the hues. Although there are no lines, scratches, flecks, age spots, or fading of any kind, there are some very small instances of line shimmer in striped clothing, and object delineation is a tad soft. Still, you'll get no complaints from me.

Audio:
The sound is presented in two formats: the film's original 1.0 mono and a newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 multichannel. The DD 5.1 has a decent stereo spread, but it does little in the rear channels that I could hear except provide a modicum of musical ambiance information. While the tonal balance is good, the frequency extremes are limited, and the overall quality is somewhat hard and edgy in the musical numbers. The midrange is excellent, so voices come over well, and since the music takes care of itself, no one will notice any minor shortcomings.

Extras:
This is another of Warner Bros.' two-disc Special Edition sets, so expect a multitude of extras. Disc one contains the feature film; twenty-nine scene selections; English and French spoken languages; and
English, French, and Spanish subtitles. In addition, it has an audio commentary track with the director's daughter, actress Liza Minnelli, and singer-pianist Michael Feinstein, who proves to be quite the film historian. Ms. Minnelli is her usual ebullient self, providing the personal anecdotes, while Feinstein remains more serious and anchored. In their enthusiasm, they often forget the movie, going off into tangents, but it is always Feinstein who brings them back with historical notes. Lastly on the first disc is a Fred Astaire movie-trailer gallery, which includes "Broadway Melody" (1940), "Ziegfeld Follies" (1946), "Easter Parade" (1948), "The Barkleys of Broadway" (1949), "Three Little Words" (1950), "The Band Wagon" (1953), "Silk Stockings" (1957), and "Finian's Rainbow" (1968).

Disc two contains a pair of documentaries. The first is probably of most importance to the film. It's a new, 2005, making-of piece called "Get Aboard! The Band Wagon." It is thirty-seven minutes long and includes just about everybody from the production who is still alive. These people include Astaire's daughter, Ava Astaire McKenzie; Vincente Minnelli's daughter, Liza; Arthur Schwartz's son, Jonathan; stars Cyd Charisse, Nanette Fabray, and Paul Byrd; screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green; and choreographer Michael Kidd. Of all the films Astaire made, he called "The Band Wagon" his favorite. Like most such documentaries, this one is quite self-congratulatory. Everybody in it calls "The Band Wagon" the greatest musical ever made. Fair enough. The second documentary is a vintage production, "The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli." It's fifty-eight minutes long; divided into thirteen chapters; written, directed, and produced by Richard Schickel; and narrated by Cliff Robertson. After the documentaries is a musical short subject, "Jack Buchanan With the Glee Quartet." It's six minutes of early Hollywood silliness from the English actor. The final items are the unused musical number "Two Faced Woman," plus about seven minutes of dailies for the scene.

I've said this before of WB's more-recent special editions, but it bears repeating: the two discs are housed in a slim-line keep case, further enclosed in a colorful cardboard slipcover. But Warners Bros. provide no chapter insert or informational booklet, which seems a strange oversight given the money they spent on everything else.

Parting Thoughts:
"The Band Wagon" followed "Singin' in the Rain" by two years, but I'm afraid it suffers by comparison. Both films are about the song-and-dance industry (one set in Hollywood and the other on Broadway), but "Singin' in the Rain" has the better songs, the better story, the better characters, the better everything. Nonetheless, that doesn't make "The Band Wagon" any the less entertaining in its own right. I mean, it's hard to dislike something so cheerful and uplifting as this movie. For a lot of people, it ranks right up there among the handful of best musicals ever made. Who am I to argue?

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