Home :: DVD :: Musicals & Performing Arts :: Broadway  

Ballet & Dance
Biography
Broadway

Classical
Documentary
General
Instructional
Jazz
Musicals
Opera
World Music
Carol Channing & Pearl Bailey On Broadway

Carol Channing & Pearl Bailey On Broadway

List Price: $24.99
Your Price: $22.49
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Two "Greats"
Review: This television special works very well. The diversity of its two stars creates a special chemistry. Carol Channing has a rehearsed, Broadway Star appeal, while Pearl Bailey seems very relaxed, as if she's making it up on the spot.

The show is low-concept, which works wonderfully: Put these two entertainers on a Broadway stage in front of an adoring audience ... Have them sing a couple duets ... Let each one have a solo spot ... then bring them back together at the end for a duet of "Hello Dolly".

When I watched this DVD, I was most amazed that I'd never see Pearl Bailey perform before - although I knew her "name" and reputation as an entertainer. And, although Carol Channing is imitated ad nauseum for her funny voice and deer-in-the-headlight-eyes, she is actually a very entertaining performer. I laughed hysterically at her characterization of a silent screen star with a whistling "S". And her version of "If I Were A Rich Man" is very good.

There is also an under-rehearsed, making-it-up-as-we-go-along quality to the special. Pearl Bailey seems like she likes to work without a net and even tries to through Carol Channing with her unscripted asides. All of this lends an authentic show business feeling to the show - as if Carol and Pearl said "Let's put on a show!"

CAROL CHANNING AND PEARL BAILEY ON BROADWAY is an old-fashioned, entertaining television show, guaranteed to entertain. They don't make entertainers like that any more!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Once in a lifetime pairing
Review: This TV special brings together the two most famous "Dolly Levis" - Carol and Pearl. What an inspired idea! A unique and wonderful experience.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hello, Dollies!
Review: What a gem! Here's a chance to see what made these two great ladies Broadway queens in the Golden Era of musical theater. Pearl Bailey plays second fiddle here, but her solo sequence is marvelous--earthy and torchy, and as risque as television would allow for the time. But the joy here is Channing, panning Marlene Dietrich and Zero Mostel, and showing why she was, and is, one of the theater's most cherished performers. Best of all is the true live performance these two great ladies deliver--again demonstrating not only why they were such big stars, but also showing us what television had the potential to be. Musical comedy fans, especially you young ones who think theater didn't exist before Les Miserables, must grab this recording for a glimpse into an era regrettably long gone. Sheer heaven.


<< 1 2 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates