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Rating:  - An Under Appreciated Gem!
One of my favorite musical films. In Rosalind Russell's capable hands, Mama Rose becomes a flesh and blood, living, breathing, and heartbraking character. She gets the pathos and the ambition and the humor and the hurt just right... I love it! The rest of the cast is also first-rate.
Rating: - Gypsy
I remember watching this movie as a child, however, the message is still the same today......you have to make yourself happy. Love this movie.
Rating: - You can't go wrong with Roz
I was ever so cautious about buying this DVD. First, there was the anxiety about potential editing horrors that destroy so many movies on DVD. Then there's the Herculean struggle of resolving who the best Mama Rose really was. And of course, everyone knows that the only movie that ever made full use of the medium to improve a musical was The Sound of Music. So my expectations were already low.
I saw this movie years ago, and the faintness of my memory suggested to me that it wasn't all that great. By then, I had every note of the cast album with Ethel Merman memorized. And probably, I was wanting to hear Merman's voice in the part that Rosalind Russell sings/doesn't sing in the film.
When I recently resolved to buy myself s'more Gypsy, I diligently read everything I could about all the filmed and recorded versions. And settled on this one. That was smart of me.
First, and very importantly, be sure you're buying this widescreen format that beautifully captures the original cinematic exhibition. When you get to the scene at the train station and notice how the cinematography gently echoes Rose's empty and crumbling internal landscape, you will thank me.
Second, there is no rational way to compare Rosalind Russell to Ethel Merman. Of course Merman could sing circles around her and virtually everyone else. But think about it. What would it really be like if Merman had done a film version? Ethel. In close up. Tonsils all engorged. If that had been the movie I'd watched, I think we both know I'd still be cowering under the sofa and unable to write this review. Rosalind Russell is such a very fine (and historically under-rated) film actress that she clearly fills out every inch of Mama Rose's character in the first scene. And her performance of "Some People" is just so good I get all giddy again just thinking about it. It's a pleasure to watch these songs being acted so well. Russell and Wood are the particularly strong actors here. Karl Malden left me wondering if Jack Klugman was really too busy to do the movie or what. He wasn't bad, but he wasn't stellar, and that looks bad next to what Rosalind Russell was doing with her part. Now on one hand, I was thrilled to see that the duet of "You'll Never Get Away from Me" was included in the outtakes--it's one of my favorite theater songs--but on the other hand, wow! Who knew a girl could miss Jack Klugman this much!
If you are struggling, as was I, over which Gypsy to get on DVD, struggle no more. This is the one. Sure, you may be tempted to get Bette Midler. But I caution you to remember how it always gets with Bette Midler. Things seem to be going well for a while, then by the end of the film/show/concert, you're wanting to shake her and tell her to stop making faces. Rosalind Russell won't do that to you. She's just unspeakably fabulous in this role. All the brashness necessary for Mama Rose with all the subtlety necessary for film.
As an extra bonus: If you squint a little, you'll realize that the strangely contemporary and familiar look you notice in Rosalind Russell's face is because she is a dead ringer for Alan Cumming in drag. This, needless to say, makes the film all the more enjoyable on an entirely new level.
Rating:  - Musical
I've always loved this movie. Natalie Wood is one of my favorite actresses. Some people might not like this because it is a musical. But it is a wonderful movie. Rosalind Russell gives a great performance. It is well worth watching.
Rating: - Tragedy and Farce
I remember watching "Gypsy" on television as a child, when it would come on some Saturday afternoon in the days before cable. Much of the wider implications were lost on me at the time but I remember thinking even then that, in spite of the upbeat and carefree score, "Gypsy" is essentially a tragic story. Loosely based upon the life of burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, the heroine does not die in the end; she becomes rich and famous, but she spends her life taking off her clothes for crowds of leering men.
Yes, Gypsy Rose Lee tried to be a lady and perform with artistry and taste. However, by making the striptease "lady-like" perhaps she helped bring into the mainstream what was once only found in seedy theaters and cabarets. The message was that a woman can destroy the mystery and sacredness of her femininity, lavishing herself upon a multitude of men, and still be considered "respectable."
The 1962 film, as I said, always struck me as tragic for it does not so much glamorize the occupation that Gypsy embraced as it does show why she embraced it. For Gypsy, or "Louise Hovic" as she was initially called, was driven by a mother who wanted to live out her thwarted desires for fame on the stage through her children. A mother who, while always insisting that her two daughters came first, fled from the domestic life that would have given her girls the stability that they needed. Traveling throughout the countryside, living in hotels, performing in vaudeville shows, seemed a romantic way to live when I was a young girl, first watching the film. But now I see that Mama Rose put ambition and the desire for fame before what was best for Louise and June, all the while saying that she was doing it for them.
After June, the talented younger sister, runs away, Rose pushes Louise into an unwanted life as a burlesque entertainer, insisting that she be in the theater, no matter what, even if it means being a stripper. Louise, who had spent most of her life as the plain Jane, dressing like a boy, suddenly realizes that to take off her clothes on stage (or at least, pretending to take them off) makes her feel pretty and feminine. And so she takes it up as a career; her mother becomes disgusted. But she had deprived Louise of the tools needed to make a decision to become anything else.
Natalie Wood is perfect as Gypsy/Louise, since Natalie, in spite of her striking beauty, always had the vulnerable aura of an exploited child about her, in my opinion anyway. Rosalind Russell dominates the screen as the obsessed Mama Rose, whose charm, vivacity and stubbornness are as mesmerizing as they are frightening. Frightening in that anyone can see that she is going to make her children famous even if she destroys them and herself in the process. For an ambitious parent can push their child, not out of love for the child and desire for the child's greater good, but out of pride. It is such truths which truly make "Gypsy" a powerful "musical fable" on so many levels, as well as a glimpse into life of the American theater in the days of vaudeville. Tragedy, comedy and farce rolled into one, it has one singing "everything's coming up roses" even as Gypsy (and American society) prance into a future of glamorous (and not so glamorous) degradation.
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