Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: March 15, 2005
Running Time: 126 minutes
Sales Rank: 28206
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1960
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Judy Holliday's final film, Bells Are Ringing, is, fittingly enough, a tailor-made vehicle for her brassy talent. She'd won a Tony for the Broadway version of the show, playing an overly sympathetic telephone receptionist who gets involved in her customers' lives. Betty Comden and Adolph Green adapted their stage musical, amusingly framing the film as a TV commercial for 'Susanswerphone,' the answering service Judy works for. Director Vincente Minnelli, in one of his less inspired outings, seems content to showcase Holliday's crack comic timing, which appears to have been transferred almost intact from the stage. Despite the somewhat muted tone, there are delightful bits: a typical Comden & Green showbiz party (with a number about name-dropping), Frank Gorshin's send-up of a Brando-inflected actor, and Dean Martin crooning while shouldering his way through a Manhattan crowd. 'The Party's Over,' that unforgettable end-of-the-evening lament, and 'Just in Time' are the Jule Styne standards from the score. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Just In Time...Bells Are Ringing is on DVD!
Back at a time when there were no answering machines, all smart New Yorkers solved there problems by subscribing to Susanswerphone.
Ella Peterson (Judy Holliday) is the switchboard operator for Suanswerphone, along with her cousin and owner of the business, Sue (Jean Stapleton). Ella, also known as Melisande Scott, is very committed to her job and enjoys helping out each subscriber in a personal way - whether it be a muster plaster for an opera star with laryngitis, a suit for an aspiring actor, or a break for a dentist composing songs on an air hose. But the subscriber Ella spends most of her time on is Mr. "Plaza O Double 4 Double 3" a.k.a Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin), a struggling play writer who fondly refers to her as "Mom." They have "the perfect relationship. She can't see him and he can't see her." But that's about to change! And does Jeff get a surprise when he finds out that "Mom" isn't an old lady at all, but a very cute and charming blonde.
Judy Holliday's film career got started with the help of Katharine Hepburn, who Judy starred with in Adam's Rib (1949), along with Spencer Tracy. Bells are Ringing was Judy Holliday's final film after winning a Tony for her Broadway version. It was also the final musical that director Vincente Minnelli and screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green did together.
So, now that the party's over, I may as well say - This movie is a whole lot of fun for everyone!
Rating: - fun stuff
Bells Are Ringing it is very much a time piece but that can be what is fun they're great and the dance scene is very special.
Rating:  - Small Stage Musical Fans Only.
This is a wonderful movie for those of us who love musicals, Dean Martin, or Judy Holliday. It is not as cinematically filmed as it might have been. This is probably due to the fact that the play writers wrote the screen play. So the whole thing is cut like you are whatching the stage production. But the performance of Judy is incredibly charming, and who can resist the mellow tones of Dean's crooning.
Rating: - What a perfect relationship! (recommended)
Throw away your mobile phones. Smash your answering machines. Turn back your clock to 1960 when Suesanswerphone makes a pitch to improve all aspects of your life by preventing you from missing a phone call. An office full of Ella Peterson (Judy Holliday) voices filters incoming calls and forwards subscriber messages. Ella offers a unique personality for each client, making the establishment sound much grander than it is. Despite instructions to the contrary from her boss, cousin Sue (Jean Stapleton), but to the delight of subscribers, Ella goes beyond phone answering; she becomes a confidant and advisor.
A typical disaster on blind dates, Ella falls in love with the "disembodied voice" and circumstance of "Plaza-0 Double-4 Double-3" -- playwrite subscriber Jeffery Moss (Dean Martin) with whom she speaks in the voice of an elderly mother. "What a perfect relationship; I can't see him and he can't see me!"
Sue is swooned into sharing her office with shady Titanic Records owner J. Otto Prantz (Eddie Foy, Jr.) while Suesanswerphone is being investigated under suspicion of providing lonely-hearts-club service. Inspector Barnes (Dort Clark) warns Susanswerphone personnel not to have personal conversations or arrange meetings with male callers. Aware of these restrictions, Ella's concern for clients soon transcends the switchboard as she goes undercover in a variety of voices and costumes to pass along helpful information affecting the careers of such characters as beatnik Blake ... Read More
Rating: - Bells Are Ringing
Musicals are the best! Dean Martin and Judy Holliday, what a perfect pair! Its just a feel good movie...love it!
Browse for similar items by category:
|
