Deception (1946)

 

Alexander Hollenius, the vain, selfish, childish, sardonic and very witty composer genius in “Deception” (1946) is probably my favorite Claude Rains characterization ever. That’s saying, a lot, I know, with a character roster that includes such favorites as The Invisible Man, Prince John, Senator Joseph Paine, Mr. Jordan, Capt. Louis Renault and Job Skeffington to choose from.

But Rains owns “Deception” from his first entrance, framed in a doorway wearing a cape and looking like the King of the Universe. Which he is, and stays that way for the next two hours. Every scene he is in is pure joy, and even when not on screen, his character dominates the film.

Pretty much a three-character drama, “Deception” showcases Rains as composer Alexander Hollenius, who is working on his newest composition, a cello concerto. Former mistress Christine Radcliffe (Bette Davis) surprises him when she reunites and quickly marries Karel Novak (Paul Henreid), a brilliant cellist whose promising career and love affair with Christine had been cut short by the war.

 

She asks Hollenius to have Karel premiere his new work, while begging Hollenius not to reveal their past relationship. He agrees to have Karel play his new concerto but is not above playing mind games with both Christine and Karel during the rehearsal process, intent on destroying Karel’s confidence in himself and his former mistresses’ relationship with her new husband. 

 

“Deception” was based on a two-character play titled “Monsieur Lamberthier” written by Louis Verneuil.  The Hollenius character (I believe the play had different names) is not a character in the play, just discussed by the other two characters.  The “Deception” screenplay was co-written by Joseph Than and acclaimed novelist John Collier.

The play was made into a movie (currently lost, alas) titled “Jealousy” in 1929 with Fredric March and Jeanne Eagels.

Bette Davis was a huge fan of Jeanne Eagels and was thrilled when Warner Bros. offered her the role. She initially bristled at turning the story into a three-character drama but relented when her “gorgeous” Claude Rains was cast. 

The Great Claude Rains

Who could blame her? Archer Winsten in his review in the New York Post wrote, “Claude Rains, it must be admitted, goes to town with his characterization of the high-living composer and genius. If you wish to call his flamboyant measures hammy, you must add that they have quality, flavor and the so-called inner flame.”

One person’s ham is another person’s filet mignon. For me, Rains perfectly captures the egocentric energy of a musical maestro, one whose life is dominated by music and only music. When messy situations like relationships develops, he plays his audience of two like he’s conducting an orchestra, coaxing them to do exactly what he wants and them grudgingly going along with it.

My favorite Claude Rains scene ever is a marvelous dinner sequence running over five minutes. Hollenius knows that Karel’s nerves are paper-thin on the evening of the first rehearsal, but that doesn’t stop him from inviting Christine and Karel to dinner at his favorite restaurant where he painstakingly delivers a demonstration on ordering the proper meal. (I love the sniffing of the squabs). Christine and Karel become increasingly aggravated but Hollenius blithely carries on, totally oblivious to Karel’s growing impatience. At least we think he’s oblivious but for a quick cut to a very satisfied expression on his face when Karel and Christine start bickering at the table.

Supposedly Rains was so well prepared for his big scene that he delivered his performance in only one take, and when it was over the entire crew burst into applause, Davis gave him a hug and Henreid and director Irving Rapper gave him long and hearty congratulatory hand shakes. 

Irving Rapper was a former dialogue director for Warner Bros. before graduating to the director’s chair. He, along with Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains had scored a huge hit with “Now, Voyager” (1942) so having Rapper as director seemed the right thing to do. But the choice was even more obvious. For a film so reliant on dialogue, both overt and leading, Rapper was an ideal choice. It’s one of his best films.

“Deception” was one of the last films under Rains’ long-term contract with Warner Bros., but it was one of his most satisfying assignments from the studio. John T. Soister, in his book “Claude Rains: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference” (McFarland & Company, Inc., 1999), writes: “The pictures has weathered the years well, primarily because it is so much larger than life that it defies being pigeon-holed into any one time frame.”

The Korngold Factor

For film music fans, the film is must viewing. It was the last original film score by the great Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and because the film is set in the world of classical music, Korngold was an active participant in the film’s production. But when production wrapped, and his Warner Bros. contract was up, he elected to focus on his concert music, despite entreaties over the years to return to the film studios. He only did it once, to adapt Wagner’s music for the Wagner bio pic “Magic Fire” (1954), produced at, of all places, Republic Studios.

Errol Flynn obviously knew the great impact Korngold had on his classic swashbucklers and tried to coax Korngold out of retirement to score his aborted William Tell movie in the 1950s, but Korngold turned him down. He would devote the rest of his life to his concert music, before his untimely death in 1957.

Brendan G. Carroll, in his invaluable Korngold biography titled “The Last Prodigy” (Amadeus Press, 1997), says Korngold’s finger prints are all over the film, and not just limited to the film’s score: “Deception, however, was a film apart. It has been described as one of the few films about classical music that makes sense. When the characters talk about music, they speak knowledgeably. The dialogue is clearly influenced by Korngold in several key scenes. Near the opening, a student asks Henreid which composers he most admires. Henreid replies: ‘Richard Strauss when I think of the past, Stravinsky when I think of the present – and of course, Hollenius, who combines the rhythm of today with the melody of yesterday.’ (For Hollenius – read Korngold perhaps?) When Davis expresses surprise that Rains has turned off the radio (Beethoven is being performed), he looks at her, with his famous querulous eyebrow, and says: ‘Compose a piece yourself, my dear, and then try listening to Beethoven.’ Contrast this with some of the lines in Humoresque: ‘Martinis are an acquired taste – like Ravel’ or worse still, ‘Bad manners – the infallible sign of genius.’ Deception was at least musically credible.”

In addition to overseeing the musically literate dialogue, Korngold coached Rains in conducting and dubbed Rains when he played the piano. Korngold also taught Davis how to play the opening page of Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata. (Davis was dubbed by a young Shura Cherkassky).  Korngold also supervised the scenes showing the orchestra rehearsals.

(What I’m dying to know but can’t find anywhere is if the orchestra seen on screen in the rehearsal and concert scenes was the actual Warner Bros. orchestra? I’m assuming yes, but don’t know for sure.)

Henreid’s cello playing was dubbed by Eleanor Slatkin, mother of noted conductor Leonard Slatkin, and husband of Felix, who was concert master across town at Alfred Newman’s 20^th Century Fox’s orchestra.

(Eleanor can be easily glimpsed in the Hollywood spoof “It’s A Great Feeling” (1949), which is set on the Warner Bros. lot. A scene filmed of Doris Day singing at the Warner Bros. recording studios is followed by a dismissal of the orchestra by music director Ray Heindorf. The lady seen toting her cello is Eleanor Slatkin).

Bette Davis was in awe of Korngold, according to Carroll: “Although I knew Max (Steiner) more, Erich was a genius, and everyone at Warners was aware of it. The music department at Warners was the absolute best in those day and the work he did on Deception was actually better than the film itself, in my opinion….For his contribution, and my gorgeous Claude Rains as the composer, the film was worthwhile.”

In real life the gentle Korngold was the complete opposite of the imperious Hollenius. Reading about him, one gets the impression he enjoyed being around people and was thrilled when his music connected to an audience. If a cab driver or a laborer at Warners told him how much he liked his music, Korngold would be delighted and likely invite the person for coffee and Viennese pastries.  Childlike in some ways, he was a devoted family man and loyal to his friends. If Warners had decided to make a movie about his life, I could see someone like Herman Bing or S.Z. Sakall (a close friend of the Korngolds) playing him.

My favorite Korngold anecdote involves him during the production of “The Green Pastures” (1936) which he composed (uncredited) some music for. The film showcases the Old Testament through an African-American perspective, with a cast headed by Rex Ingram as “De Lawd.”

Korngold loved working on the project, marveling at the musical excellence of the Hall Johnson Choir. One day at the Warners commissary Korngold wanted to know where the film’s company was, as he wanted to eat with them. Someone told Korngold that the blacks had a separate eating area, and were not allowed inside the commissary. Korngold thought for a moment, picked up his tray and said, “I’m going to go eat with De Lawd.” 

The Movies and Their Concertos

In the 1940s, audiences saw biographies (or, let’s be generous, highly romanticized dramas) of Franz Schubert, George Gershwin, Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Nicolo Paganini and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

I’m fascinated by these 1940s films that are focused on composers and/or feature original concertos written for their films as part of the storyline. I’m surmising here, but I wonder if World War II had anything to do with it, and the hope for a better, more cultured and civilized world once the war and its effects had dissipated.

Producers discovered there was gold in them thar concerto hills, and 1940s dramas are rife with newly commissioned concertos. Composer Richard Addensell had scored a massive hit with his “Warsaw Concerto”, written for the film “Dangerous Moonlight” (1941). The short one movement piano concerto, which played an important role in the film, fit on both sides of a 78 rpm, a recording which sold in the millions.

 

Other studios naturally wanted in. English composer Hubert Bath penned a very popular concerto, the “Cornish Rhapsody” for “Love Story” (1944), where fatally ill concert pianist (Margaret Lockwood) falls in love with a former RAF pilot going blind (Stewart Granger).

Back in the states, Bernard Herrmann composed his devilish “Concerto Macabre” for “Hangover Square” (1945) performed at the end as mentally ill pianist Laird Cregar goes insane as his plays his concerto in a frenzied state. It’s a bravura sequence beautifully filmed by director John Brahm.

Composer Leo Shuken wrote a trumpet concerto for Melvyn Douglas to perform in “Our Wife.”

The underrated Leith Stevens composed a very satisfying piano concerto for the soap opera (in the best sense) “Night Song” (1947).

Claude Rains proved no stranger to on-screen concertos in his “Phantom of the Opera” (1943) where his piano concerto (music by Edward Ward) is auditioned with great satisfaction to no less than Franz Liszt (Fritz Leiber).

There was also a mini cottage industry at the time where film composers took their dramatic scores and adapted them into the concerto format. Franz Waxman adapted his music from the Jack Benny comedy “The Horn Blows at Midnight” (1945) into a concert piece titled “Athaneal the Trumpeter Overture for Trumpet and Orchestra”. Waxman also adapted his underscore for Hitchcock’s “The Paradine Case” (1947) into a “Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra”.

RKO staff composer Roy Webb adapted his delicate music for “The Enchanted Cottage” (1945) into a piano concerto, which was performed at the Hollywood Bowl. The most famous was likely Miklos Rozsa’s “Spellbound Concerto” adapted from his Academy-Award winning score for Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” (1945).

The “Deception” Cello Concerto

But the Korngold Cello Concerto is one of the most impressive of these concertos written expressly for their film. Only running about six minutes on-screen (and staged by choreographer LeRoy Prinz with little of the verve of a John Brahm, though not bad by any means), it was later expanded to 11 minutes by Korngold as a one-movement concert work, the Cello Concerto in C Major, Opus 27.

Biographer Carroll again: “Most concertos run about 30 minutes and have three movements. I believe that Korngold could not extend the work further because he had already condensed enough material for three movements into one, and found it impossible to improve on his original. Even at 11 minutes, it is a very satisfying piece. Clearly, he decided to leave well enough alone.”

 

Carroll also explains how the concerto was filmed, using the same way John Garfield fingered the violin so realistically in “Humoresque” (1946): “Henreid wore a special jacket in which holes were cut in both shoulders (for the arms of others to reach through). Two cellists stood behind him out of range, helped by the acute angle of the camera, with their arms and hands visible to the camera: Henreid’s were tied behind his back under the jacket. The two cellists bowed and fingered the piece to a playback of the music on loudspeakers, accurately matching what is heard, watched carefully by Korngold.”

Henreid was always amused that for years afterwards, professional musicians would come up to him at parties and complement him on his superb fingering and playing in “Deception.”

Finally, “Deception” gave the world one of the great quotable reviews, courtesy Cecelia Ager in PM Magazine: “It’s like grand opera – only the people are thinner… I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

For the great Korngold concerto, rich dialogue, over the top characters and one of Claude Rains’ greatest performances, “Deception” is well worth viewing.

Death on the Nile

“Death on the Nile” (1978), based on the Agatha Christie classic, was an all-star follow-up to the hugely successful “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974), and despite the latter’s popularity, I’ve always preferred Nile to Orient. Nile’s cast isn’t as tony as the earlier film, but the mystery is better, the characters are more colorful and the situations are more dramatic. The clues play fair with the audience and the on-location scenery is a delight. It’s a long film, running 140 minutes, but its well paced and never dull.

Set in the 1930s, beautiful Linnet Ridgeway (future Bond girl Lois Chiles) is one of the richest women in England. Her poor but loyal college friend Jacqueline DeBellefort (Mia Farrow) visits Linnet at her estate to tell her she is engaged to be married and asks Linnet to give her fiancé Simon Doyle (Simon MacCorkindale) a job on her estate.

Linnet agrees to give him the job and then some. She and Simon are quickly married, leaving Jackie a huge reservoir of burning resentment. Jackie follows the newlyweds wherever they go on their European and African honeymoon, even surprising them atop an Egyptian pyramid.

Despite their attempts to lose Jackie, she always finds them, even on a steamship traveling on the Nile. Among the passengers is the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov, in the first of his six Poirot performances.)

One particularly violent evening, an over served, quarrelsome Jacqueline accidentally shoots Simon, wounding him in the leg. That same evening Linnet is found dead, shot in the temple.

Jacqueline is the obvious suspect, but she has an ironclad alibi. As Poirot begins his investigation, with the help of his good friend Colonel Race (David Niven), he discovers many of the passengers had good reason to dispose of Linnet.

Not only do all the suspects have motive for killing Linnet, but also means and opportunity. Filmed recreations show how each suspect could have accomplished the murder during a specific time frame.

A wildly eccentric Angela Lansbury plays an author of steamy romance novels who based one of her characters on Linnet, at the price of a potentially costly libel suit.

Bette Davis plays a kleptomaniac who casts an envious eye on Linnet’s jewelry collection.

Jane Birkin plays Linnet’s maid, who is refused a wish to leave Linnet’s service to marry her fiancée, and becomes strongly resentful of her employer.

Jon Finch is a rabid Communist sympathizer who considers the Linnet Ridgeways of the world to be parasites unworthy of living.

The always welcome George Kennedy is Linnet’s American lawyer suspected of embezzling money from her accounts.

Jack Warden is a doctor who is not what he appears to be.

Other suspects are played by Olivia Hussey and Maggie Smith.

Solid professionals one and all, and the behind the camera talent is equally impressive. Director John Guillermin is often hit or miss but this definitely falls in the hit column.

Anthony Powell won an Academy Award for his costumes, while the great Jack Cardiff provided the gorgeous cinematography. Love those long tracking shots of Linnet and Simon riding across the Egyptian desert, to the stirring accompaniment of Nino Rota’s wonderful music. This would unfortunately be one of the great Italian composer’s final scores. (He died the following year.)

“Sleuth” author Anthony Shaffer did a splendid job of adapting the Christie novel, which is a particular favorite of mine.

I suspect that the witty Shaffer is responsible for an early clue that telegraphs the solution to the mystery….if you know your 1930s movie music. Before everyone boards that ship, all the suspects are in a hotel ballroom awaiting dinner. Only Linnet and Simon are dancing to a song that was first introduced in a 1930s M-G-M musical. No vocals are used, and the song is only played as an instrumental. But if you know the song’s title, and its lyrics…I will say no more, and no, I won’t name the song. But it helped me correctly solve part of the murder, and that never, ever happens with me.

Two more murders occur, thinning the pool of suspects before Poirot gathers the remaining suspects in a room, reviews and case and fingers the guilty party. The solution makes perfect sense, but alas, the song is never brought up. I suspect Hercule Poirot spends little time in the dark watching M-G-M musicals.

Ustinov may not physically be the ideal Poirot, but I rather like him in the role. David Suchet in the PBS “Mystery” series remains the definitive Poirot to date, but Ustinov does bring a nice humor to the role.

I’ve seen “Death on the Nile” several times now, and despite knowing the outcome, I always enjoy watching it. With a cast of this caliber, and its exotic Egyptian setting, it’s always a pleasure to sit down with. A winner all the way.

Hollywood Canteen

Wish fulfillment 1940s style is at its peak in “Hollywood Canteen” (1944). Movie stars are just regular folk, eager and helpful to entertain the soldiers at the Canteen, and it’s possible, just possible, that a Marine corporal could meet the movie star actress of his dreams and have her fall in love with him.

Writer-director Delmer Daves lays on the corn a little too thick here for my taste, but it’s not detrimental to the film. It must have pleased his bosses at Warner Bros. however, as the film is a love letter to the studio’s stars, and it became one of the highest grossing films of 1944.

Joan Leslie plays herself, or an idealized version of herself, who is the object of rapt adoration of Marine Corporal “Slim” Greene (Robert Hutton). Recovering from wounds, he is on leave in Hollywood and wants to see movie stars. A friendly short-order cook recommends the Hollywood Canteen, open only to servicemen, where he can see all the movie stars he wants.

The Canteen was a real place, founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield, where members of the armed forces could enjoy a meal, hear live bands and mingle with movie stars, all without costing them a penny. All the studios backed the idea, and many of Hollywood’s top stars could be found dancing with the troops, chatting with them about their girls back home, or serving coffee and donuts.

The movie “Hollywood Canteen” celebrates the place, but since this is a Warner Bros. movie, the stars Slim and his pal, Sgt. Nowland (Dane Clark) meet are mainly Warners stars. That’s too bad. Having stars from other studios sharing screen time would have made it a star gazers delight. We do get musical numbers from non-Warners stars The Andrews Sisters (Universal) and Roy Rogers and Trigger (Republic Pictures), but that’s about it. Oh, and Kitty Carlisle sings a reprise of “Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart” in the film, introduced by Joan Leslie earlier in the film.

I’ve often wondered why Rogers and the Andrews Sisters appeared in the film, but stars from other studios didn’t. I wonder if the Andrews Sisters performed so often at the Canteen that it was a natural they should be in the movie. Rogers sings the Cole Porter song “Don’t Fence Me In” which is later reprised by the Andrews Sisters. Republic must have been thrilled to have one of its stars appear in a Warner Bros. movie. I wonder what those negotiations were like?

There’s much to enjoy in the film, music-wise. Dennis Morgan and Joe E. Brown perform “You Can Always Tell A Yank”, a rousing number and Carmen Cavallaro and his band play “Voodoo Moon.” Jimmy Dorsey and his band play a few numbers as well. Classical violinist Joseph Szigeti does a duet with the “noted American violinist” Jack Benny, who is chagrined that Szigeti does not know “Love in Bloomioso.”

Warner Bros. stars are portrayed as pretty swell types. When it’s learned Slim has a crush on Joan Leslie, Bette Davis, John Garfield and Jane Wyman conspire a plan for her to give him a special kiss. Later, when Slim becomes the Millionth Man to enter the Canteen, he is practically given the key to the city, as well as the chance to have any actress in town as his date for the weekend. Naturally he chooses Joan Leslie. (I would have picked Rita Hayworth, but with my luck I would have been the Millionth and One Man).

I think the film would have worked much better if Joan Leslie played a fictional actress, and not herself. Dramatically it would have worked better. Here, it’s kind of odd and off-putting. Slim goes to Joan’s house to pick her up and he meets her parents. Dad is played by Jonathan Hale (Mr. Dithers in the Blondie movies). All moviegoers knew who Jonathan Hale was, so all pretense of this really being Joan Leslie is thrown out the window.

Hutton and Leslie do play well together – indeed they could not be more All-American – but I wish she had played a fictional, up-and-coming actress. After all, Janis Paige doesn’t play herself, but Angela, a studio messenger who catches the eye of Sgt. Nowland.

I always enjoy Golden Age movies set in Hollywood and we get to see the backlots of the studios, and “Hollywood Canteen” is no exception. Naturally Warner Bros. gets to show off their backlot, and its here we get to a musical number that stops the show dead in its track, a dreadful number called “Ballet in June” performed by Joan McCracken and company. We do get to meet dance director LeRoy Prinz, and I was amused to note that he somewhat resembles Busby Berkeley. Prinz routines were often the bane of Warners musicals (“Yankee Doodle Dandy” (1942) being the exception), and “Ballet in June” does nothing to dispel that notion.

Enough carping. There’s other good comedy on display here, notably Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet lampooning their sinister screen images. Their scene together is one of the highlights of the film.

As can be seen by the still above, we have, left to right, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, John Garfield and Bette Davis signing autographs and visiting with the men. Was it like this every night? Probably not. I don’t doubt that many stars put in many hours at the Hollywood Canteen – and its East Coast counterpart the Stage Door Canteen, also the subject of a movie a year earlier – but this film posits that the place was crawling with stars every night of the year.

My dad served in the Navy in World War II and visited the Hollywood Canteen on leave one night. He didn’t remember the band that was performing there – odd, as his memory for such details was remarkable – and that night there were no stars there. He did remember getting served coffee and donuts by an exceptionally pretty girl there. After the war he went to the theater and saw “Holiday in Mexico” (1946), an M-G-M musical, and noticed one of the cast members. He remembered her as the girl who waited on him at the Canteen.

She turned out to be Linda Christian, probably best known today as the second Mrs. Tyrone Power. She had a short-lived acting career. I remember her fondly from the gloriously absurd “Tarzan and the Mermaids” (1948). It was Johnny Weissmuller’s last appearance as the Ape Man, and boasts a grand Dimitri Tiomkin score, beautiful on-location photography in Mexico and George Zucco as a high priest of a pagan cult. Co-starring in a movie where George Zucco plays a high priest trumps appearing in a Best Picture winner anytime, but that’s just my opinion.

Rating for “Hollywood Canteen”: Three stars.

A Missed Opportunity for Warner Home Video

I was very pleased to read that Warner Home Video (WHV) will be releasing in July a box set called “Home Front Collection” featuring “Thank Your Lucky Stars” (1943), “Hollywood Canteen (1944) and “This is The Army” (1943). Pleased, but also thinking that a better collection could have been offered featuring the first two titles. Let me explain.

“Thank Your Lucky Stars” and “Hollywood Canteen” are Warner Bros. contributions to the all-star musical genre. These movies were a studio’s showcase of their biggest stars and contract players in musical numbers or comedy skits. There might be up two dozen (or more) stars in each movie.

Paramount did it with “Star Spangled Rhythm” (1942), M-G-M offered “Thousands Cheer” (1943), United Artists contributed “Stage Door Canteen” (1943) and Universal gave us “Follow the Boys” (1944).

They’re all hugely enjoyable, if incredibly corny. They show that Hollywood’s biggest stars are really just regular folks, ready to drop everything and help our armed forces by staging an elaborate show or benefit.

The Warner Bros; contributions are among the most enjoyable, especially “Thank Your Lucky Stars”, which is loaded with great songs and comedy, and showcases stars like Errol Flynn and Bette Davis as surprisingly capable song and dance performers. It’s one of my favorite movies. In fact, when WGN ran it one night against the 1975 Oscars, I passed on the annual ceremony and opted for “Thank Your Lucky Stars” instead. (I never did see Jack Nicholson or Louise Fletcher pick up their Oscars for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”)

So I’m glad to see these titles coming out, but wish WHV had included them instead in an all-star musical box set. Besides the aforementioned “Hollywood Canteen” and “Thank Your Lucky Stars”, the set could include “Thousands Cheer” and two Warner Bros. entries that came after World War II, “It’s a Great Feeling” (1949) and “Starlift” (1951).

I thought such a box set was what WHV may have been planning, since they have already released most of Doris Day’s musicals, but “It’s a Great Feeling” was not among their earlier two box sets of Day titles. That’s another marvelously entertaining film, with gorgeous Technicolor and most of action taking place on the Warner Bros. back lot. We get to see such directors as Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh and King Vidor in amusing cameos, and fun glimpses of the studio back lot. What a marvelous time capsule of sights. Edward G. Robinson has a funny scene, and there’s a riotous Errol Flynn cameo. For film music fans, it’s a treat to see a sequence filmed on the Warner Bros. soundstage, where all those glorious musical scores of Korngold, Steiner and Waxman were recorded. We even get glimpses of the orchestra members. Look, there’s cellist Eleanor Slatkin, who performed the Korngold Cello Concerto in “Deception” (1946).

“Starlift” has not been seen anywhere, to the best of my knowledge, in decades. It’s one of the very few James Cagney screen appearances I’ve never seen. I don’t know if there are rights issues involved with this title, but a lot of film buffs would love to see “Starlift” and would spring for the box set just to get that title.

Kudos to WHV for at least releasing two of these all-star musical gems. It will also be nice to a see a restored “This is the Army”, which has been languishing in public domain hell for too long.

Still, I hope they will eventually get around to releasing “Thousands Cheer”, “It’s a Great Feeling” and “Starlift”, but what a lost opportunity to include a marvelous collection of all-star musicals in one box set.