The Doris Day DVD Collection (Warner)

It may come as a surprise to those who have denigrated her puritanical screen image (the smiling, eternal virgin), but Doris Day was not only a good singer, she was a good actress as well. The evidence is provided by the Warner DVD collection, which includes eight of Day's films,

While at Paramount, George Cukor befriended David O. Selznick, an ambitious young man, who would have tremendous influence on the first decade of his career. Selznick had taken Cukor in hand when he arrived at Paramount, fresh from the New York Stage.  When Selznick left paramount in the fall of 1931, to become RKO’s head […]

After the success of The Royal Family, Cukor’s status at Paramount changed.  His “apprenticeship” formally ended with his next assignment, which marked Cukor’s debut as a solo director.  The film was Tarnished Lady, a breezy comedy written by Donald Ogden Stewart from his short story, “New York Lady.” Conceived as a vehicle for Tallulah Bankhead, […]

Cukor went back to New York after All Quiet.  But once he had tasted life on the West Coast, New York was not the same.  All of a sudden, the busy, congested streets, the noise, and the filth of the big city began to bother him.  He knew that eventually he would settle permanently in […]

In the earlier days of sound, because the technology was new, a dialogue director–who would work directly with the actors–coaching them scene by scene–was sometimes present on the set.  Stage directors were a logical choice for such a job.  With the advent of sound in Hollywood, there was a sizable influx of theater directors interested […]