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One of the most beloved and adorable musicals of the Technicolor heyday, The Band Wagon is quintessential Vincente Minnelli: flashy, exciting, and hospital-room sterile.
Don't get me wrong - I love the musical genre significantly more than many of my cineaste contemporaries - but Minnelli has never proved himself on a par with many of the other greats of the era - Stanley Donen, Robert Wise, etc. Meet Me In St. Louis has an excellent reputation, but I find it to be dull as a butter knife, and while The Band Wagon definitely has higher highs than St. Louis, it also has lower lows.
My issue with Minnelli - even with his more audience-friendly material like Gigi - is that while he effortlessly proves that he knows what to do with a big, splashy musical number, he can't make an emotional connection with earnest cinematic feelings no matter how hard he tries. Disregarding the technical and professional prowess that comes with Minnelli's films, they're too clean and non-toxic to be truly delicious.
Look at something like Singin' in the Rain - that picture isn't afraid to dive headfirst into the moral seesaw of its narrative universe. Sure, Minnelli gets close to concocting a character-driven milieu in An American in Paris (with the exception of Band Wagon, this writer's vote for his finest hour), but that picture's provocatively avant-garde final reel - while exceptionally audacious and fascinating - keeps any kind of viewer involvement to a bare minimum.
But who am I to talk? The Band Wagon has been adored and adored again by many musical lovers who love the way Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dance around in their lovely costumes and on even lovelier sets. Liza Minnelli even calls The Band Wagon on this DVD's commentary track, "The best musical ever." And even though the film doesn't exactly rock my boat, this DVD edition does it great justice and offers an excellent presentation and throws in some excellent bonus features, as well.
Vincente probably would have thought the world of it.
The Video: How Does The Disc Look?
While not the one-two knockout transfer of Singin' in the Rain - still a high water mark for Technicolor transfers - The Band Wagon really looks fantastic, nonetheless. Colors are punchy and vibrant - though skin tones bleed ever so slightly in certain sequences - and line quality is thorough and consistent. Black levels are also powerful and thick, and the print utilized for the transfer is all but completely free of dirt and grime. Band Wagon fans will flip for this transfer.
The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
The 5.1 Dolby Digital upgrade mix still showcases the tinny realities of The Band Wagon's simple mono beginnings, but this fleshed-out mix really lets film's music shine. Dialogue remains fairly tinny and the few sound effects and atmospherics utilized are pretty front-heavy (with the exception of the outrageously strong musical sequences, the surround channels here are rarely utilized), but all in all, this is the kind of sound mix upgrade every film from the 1950s deserves; it swings.
Also included are the film's original English mono track, a French mono track, English, French, and Spanish subtitles, and English closed captions.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
Disc One offers a classic musical lover's secret dream: A screen-specific audio commentary with Liza Minnelli ( "Liza with a Z!" ) and performer Michael Feinstein. There are some great crazy-Liza moments here - every once in a while, she'll let loose with a goofy belly laugh or ridiculously over-amplified and inappropriate anecdote - but after a few minutes, this track gets a little old. Liza-holics should eat this one up, but the rest of us might want to think twice.
Also on this first disc is a Fred Astaire trailer gallery which showcases previews for: Broadway Melody of 1940, Ziegfeld Follies, Easter Parade, The Berkleys of Broadway, Three Little Words, The Band Wagon, Silk Stockings, and Finian's Rainbow.
Disc Two gives us a wonderful 37-minute documentary, Get Aboard! The Band Wagon, a retrospective look at the film and it legacy, as well as a vintage documentary, The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli, which looks less at The Band Wagon specifically and more at Minnelli's overall output during his wonderfully diverse career (it runs about an hour).
Then we get a musical short - Jack Buchanan with the Glee Quartet (6 minutes) - and a look at an unused musical number, "Two Faced Woman," that comes both with a full four-minute outtake and eight minutes of raw dailies footage.
Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?
There are no DVD-ROM features on this DVD.
Final Thoughts
A so-so film with a killer presentation . . . Even if The Band Wagon isn't your favorite musical of all time, this excellent DVD release will keep even fair-weather musical fans occupied for a good long while. The commentary track here is definitely a load of fun - even if it's a little weird. For $26.99, it's a slam-dunk for fans.
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