The Alice Faye Collection

Barely remembered today, apple-cheeked, full-figured contralto Alice Faye was one of the top-grossing movie stars of the late 1930s and early 1940s. In fact, several of the songs she introduced in her big-budget musicals were nominated for Oscars (one of them, “You'll Never Know,” was the winner for 1943 and remains a standard). Four of her lavishly mounted films for 20th Century Fox are included in this long overdue collection. Faye actually has third billing in On the Avenue (1937), but she sings one of the niftiest tunes from Irving Berlin's hit-packed score: “This Year's Kisses.” Lillian Russell (1940), one of several period pictures in which the actress played historical figures, is a Gay Nineties extravaganza crammed with favorite songs and graced with a marvelous supporting turn by top-rated character actor Edward Arnold, playing Diamond Jim Brady. In That Night in Rio (1941), shot in the old Technicolor process, Faye plays a baroness whose stuffed-shirted husband is impersonated on and off stage by a famous nightclub entertainer (Faye's frequent costar, Don Ameche). Although it's not specifically a Faye starring vehicle, The Gang's All Here (1943) is arguably the best film in this boxed set. A vivid musical directed by Busby Berkeley, it's the ultimate manifestation of wartime escapism: loaded with nonsensical plot points and campy production numbers (including the Carmen Miranda classic, “The Girl in the Tutti-Fruitti Hat”). Faye retired from the screen in 1945 to concentrate on motherhood, after which younger, brassier Betty Grable became Fox's preeminent musical star. But in her prime Faye was a huge box-office draw, and this four-disc set should win her some new fans. DVD extras include deleted scenes, featurettes, and a radio show segment. Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)