My Sister Eileen (DVD)
APPROX. 107 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1955 - MPA RATING: NR
" Fans of old musicals will find this formula fare to their liking, but be warned that the music isn't memorable.
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The script itself, penned by director Richard Quine and Blake Edwards, is cute enough and sufficiently complicated by the usual mistaken identities and turnabouts to provide the fun. Wreck's fiancé's mother comes to town, so he has to bunk with the girls, and that leads to some mistaken assumptions. The same happens when Ruth knocks on the door of a publishing exec (Lemmon) who reads her stuff and sees talent but says she's writing "spinster stuff." Ruth returns with a story about the spell Eileen holds over men, and tired of being the unattractive sister she pretends that she and Eileen are one and the same. And there's one memorable scene where Ruth is chased by the Brazilian navy and they all end up . . . well, I don't want to give everything away.
Video:
Filmed in Cinemascope and Technicolor, "My Sister Eileen" was remastered in High Definition and is presented in a 2.55:1 aspect ratio. The color and clarity are both quite good—Sony did a fine job on the transfer—with even dark scenes retaining color saturation.
Audio:
This one's in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, with even dialogue split evenly across the front and main speakers. Despite the somewhat hollow sound the quality and the effects aren't bad. Subtitles are in English and Japanese.
Extras:
The only extras are a few trailers, one for this film and others for "It Should Happen To You," an earlier film that Lemmon did with Judy Holliday, "Born Yesterday," another Holliday film, and "Bye Bye Birdie." As with many "oldies" releases, this one comes with no insert(s).
Bottom Line:
Fans of old musicals will find this formula fare to their liking, but be warned that the music isn't memorable. And those who read the credits and get excited to see names like Leigh, Lemmon, Fosse, and Edwards should be warned that this "we're gonna make it" country girls in the city musical is pleasant-enough diversion, but fairly ordinary. Except, of course, for those wild and conga-crazy sailors.
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