DVD/150: GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (Howard Hawks, 1953)

Nearly 70 years old and one of my favourite screen musicals still crackles with great one-liners, eye-popping colour and two iconic performers showing the power of female friendship.

Jane Russell had been a star longer than Marilyn and showed a flair for comedy with Bob Hope in THE PALEFACE films but here she shines as the wise-cracking, practical, protective Dorothy.

This was Marilyn's breakthrough year: after starring in the thriller NIAGARA. she brought her lumious presence to the glorious Lorelei, the archetypal dumb blonde who also is canny enough to know of her seductive power over the poor rich saps.

Showgirls Dorothy and Lorelei sail to Paris unaware that they are followed by a private detective hired by the disapproving father of Lorelei's befuddled fiancée to spy on her onboard behaviour.

Dorothy finds love while Lorelei's belief that "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" leads to trouble!

Shelf or charity shop? Currently strutting and shimmying along the shelf - which reminds me, Hawks admitted he wasn't interested in filming the musical numbers so we can credit them to choreographer Jack Cole and his assistant, the one and only Gwen Verdon. Marilyn and Jane Russell make a wonderfully subversive duo who confound the men around them, including Elliott Reid's dull detective, Charles Coburn's letcherous diamond mine owner and Tommy Noonan as Lorelei's bedfuddled fiancée - the exception is the gravel-voiced 8-year old George Winslow who steals all the scenes he is in.  Loosely based on both the Anita Loos bestseller and the Jule Styne-Leo Robin Broadway musical, Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Adamson added "When Love Goes Wrong" and Jane Russell's solo "Ain't There Anyone Here For Love", possibly one of the campest musical numbers ever filmed.  Of course the stand-out musical number is Marilyn's "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" which of course inspired Madonna's "Material Girl" video.  A special mention must go to Travilla for his classic costumes. What the film illustrates is that what gets lost by the non-ending speculation on her life and death and the Warhol-ish iconography is that Marilyn was a genuinely loveable screen presence and a fine comedienne. 

DVD/150: MADONNA: THE CONFESSIONS TOUR - LIVE FROM LONDON (Jonas Akerlund, 2007)

My favourite Madonna tour is immortalised in this exhilarating, sometimes maddening, tv film, shot over two nights during her 8-night residency at Wembley Arena.

Released with a live cd lifted from the soundtrack, for all Akerlund's editorial faults, it takes me right back to the three nights I saw it and still leaves me in pure Madonna Heaven.

CONFESSIONS was a sensory explosion of colour, music, lights, costumes, choreography and video which Aklund attempts to recapture but several times, mostly at the start, he superimposes so many visuals on top of rapid editing that you simply cannot just enjoy the performance.  As usual, the worst casualties of the frantic cutting is the excellent work of the dancers - they were exciting enough, trying to generate a fake excitement never works.

Divided into four 'acts': Equestrian, Bedouin, Never Mind The Bollocks and Disco, Madonna delivers unforgettable, iconic, non-stop, glorious performances.

Shelf or charity shop?  Are you INSANE?  Despite Aklund's visual schizophrenia, what a way to relive the glorious CONFESSIONS tour.  Iconic performances of GET TOGETHER, LIKE A VIRGIN, LIVE TO TELL, LIKE IT OR NOT, RAY OF LIGHT, LET IT WILL BE, MUSIC INFERNO, EROTICA, LA ISLA BONITA, LUCKY STAR and HUNG UP light up the set-list but there is not a dud among them and the show is augmented by Stuart Price's great music arrangements and the non-stop dancers including the marvellous Daniel 'Cloud' Campos (aka Skater Boy).  One of the most exciting shows reliveable whenever I want...

DVD/150: IM GOING TO TELL YOU A SECRET (Jonas Akerlund, 2005)

14 years after TRUTH OR DARE, Madonna repeated the process for I'M GOING TO TELL YOU A SECRET, this time filmed during the 2004 Re-Invention tour and, intentionally or not, there are quite a few echoes from the previous film.

In the ensuing twelve years Madonna had released five albums, toured twice, experienced the EROTICA controversy, won a Golden Globe for EVITA, and became a mother.

Whereas in TRUTH OR DARE Warren Beatty edged out of the frame, here Guy Ritchie elbows his way in to interview fans, chill backstage, and sing Irish songs.  Madonna usually is on hand to deflate his bragging.  Indeed it is insightful to see her boredom celebrating his birthday in a Mayfair pub.

Again her father is featured midway through but her dancers are kept in the background this time.

But her Kabbalah-influenced visit to Israel at the end is depressingly thick-eared.

Shelf or charity shop?  Of course it's a keeper - the Re-Invention tour was never released on dvd so the vibrant colour footage allows you to see again her magnificent versions of HOLIDAY, VOGUE, LAMENT, LIKE A PRAYER, NOBODY KNOWS ME, MOTHER AND FATHER and the HOLLYWOOD (REMIX) which showcases her excellent dancers.  Madonna is also great to watch in the offstage footage especially when she squirms with embarrassment in having to swear when holding her father's hand and her scenes with Lourdes and Rocco are touching.  She also seems to have a genuine rapport with Stuart Price which of course came to fruition in her next album CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR.  But the post-tour visit to Israel ends the film with a crashing thud. For all her talk of spiritulism and being humble etc. it all goes out the window when having been warned by her security team against visiting some ancient tombs, she goes anyway and of course causes a media scrum.

DVD/150: MADONNA DROWNED WORLD TOUR 2001 (Hamish Hamilton, 2001)

Madonna's DROWNED WORLD tour, her first in eight years which I saw at Earls Court, showcased RAY OF LIGHT and MUSIC.

It's interesting to revisit as I usually think of it as not one of her best shows. 

It had four sections: Rock 'n' Roll, Geisha, Cowgirl and Spanish/Ghetto but I have always felt it starts on the wrong foot with tired apocalyptic steampunk, squalling guitars and distressed punk drag.

'Geisha' - while visually splendid - again fails to ignite with an over-reliance on album tracks and a clumsy CROUCHING TIGER retread.

I started to relax in the Cowgirl section but in retrospect the choice of three ballads unbalances it.

But it finally erupts with a Spanish WHAT IT FEELS LIKE FOR A GIRL morphing into a flamenco-flavoured LA ISLA BONITA topped by a glorious HOLIDAY (sampling Stardust's MUSIC SOUNDS BETTER WITH YOU) and a crunching version of MUSIC.

Shelf or charity shop?  It has to be a shelf even if some of the show disappoints - the tour was pulled together in just three months which I have always felt might explain some of it's odd song sequencing. Directed and choreographed by Jamie King, Madonna was joined by fan favourites Niki Haris and Donna De Lory on backup vocals, but this was the last tour for Haris.  On keyboards in the onstage band was Madonna's future co-producer Stuart Price.  Sadly the filmed concert - in Madonna's home state of Michigan - has muddy photography which doesn't do justice to the show's visuals.