The Warner Archive Collection has packaged Easter Parade, The Band Wagon, Silk Stockings, and Finian’s Rainbow together in the Fred Astaire 4-Film Collection. All of the packaged films have previously been released on Blu-ray.

Warner Archive has been rather busy releasing Blu-ray collections with some of the stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Other collections include Errol Flynn, Gene Kelly, James Cagney, Greta Garbo, Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Doris Day, James Stewart, Robert Taylor and Spencer Tracy. Upcoming collections include Humphrey Bogart and Tennessee Williams. Many of the included films have been previously released on Blu-ray, but it’s nice to have them all together in one set.

I haven’t seen one of the four films, but it goes without saying that the Fred Astaire 4-Film Collection is a must-own collection for any fan of the actor.

Easter Parade

Synopsis

If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em! When his long-time dance partner abandons him for the Ziegfeld Follies, Don Hewes decides to show who’s who what’s what by choosing any girl out of a chorus line and transforming her into a star. So he makes his choice and takes his chances. Of course, since Fred Astaire portrays Don and Judy Garland plays the chorine, we know we’re in for an entertainment sure thing.

Bonus Features

• Commentary with Ava Astaire McKenzie and John Fricke
• Short Feature: Easter Parade: On the Avenue
• Short Feature: “Mr. Monotony” Outtake
• Short Feature: “Mr. Monotony” Dailies
• Radio Promo
• 3/22/1951 Screen Guild Theater Broadcast
• Theatrical Trailer

DIRECTOR: Charles Walters
SCREENWRITER: Sidney Sheldon, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
Irving Berlin
CAST: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford, with Ann Miller, Jules Munshin, Clinton Sundberg, Richard Beavers

The Band Wagon

Synopsis

Famous musical movie star Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire) fears his career may be on the skids, but his friends, Lester (Oscar Levant) and Lily (Nanette Fabray), have written a Broadway vehicle to kick-start his professional life. Tony is ecstatic — until egotistical director Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan) joins the project and casts ballerina Gaby Gerard (Cyd Charisse) as the leading lady. Tony’s second chance seems to be fading, but he may get more than he bargained for as the show goes on.

Bonus Features

• Commentary with Liza Minnelli and Michael Feinstein
• Get Aboard! The Band Wagon
• The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli
• Jack Buchanan with the Glee Quartet
• The Three Little Pups
• Theatrical Trailer

DIRECTOR: Vincente Minnelli
SCREENWRITERS: Betty Comden and Adolph Green
CAST: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan, with James Mitchell, Robert Gist

Silk Stockings

Synopsis

You’d think chilled borscht pulses in her veins. She’s Nina Yoshenka, a lovely yet severe Soviet envoy sent to Paris to rescue wayward comrades from the perils of champagne and capitalism. But there may be a thaw in Nina’s Cold War. She meets Steve Canfield, a smoothly brash American who won’t take nyet for an answer. Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse recapture the magic of their The Band Wagon pairing in this musical based on the same-titled 1955 Broadway hit and on the famed 1939 Greta Garbo comedy Ninotchka. Set to witty Cole Porter tunes, spiked with laughs and featuring the two leads dancing the Eugene Loring-Hermes Pan choreography into timeless emotion, Silk Stockings shows why elegance and fun never go out of style.

Bonus Features

• Cole Porter in Hollywood: Satin and Silk
• Paree, Paree
• Poet and Peasant Overture
• Theatrical Trailer

DIRECTOR: Rouben Mamoulian
SCREENWRITERS: Leonard Gershe and Leonard Spigelgass
CAST: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre, with George Tobias, Jules Munshin, Joseph Buloff, Wim Sonneveld

Finian’s Rainbow

He wears a ratty old cardigan instead of tails, a battered felt hat in place of a topper — but one glimpse of those agile feet and you know he’s Fred Astaire. The great entertainer sang and danced his last musical lead in Finian’s Rainbow, director Francis Ford Coppola’s exuberant movie of the 1947 Broadway hit. Astaire plays an Irish rogue who plants a stolen crock of leprechaun gold in the soil near Fort Knox to reap what he thinks will be a rich harvest. In tow are his spirited daughter (Petula Clark), a love-struck leprechaun (Tommy Steele) and a bigoted Southern senator (Keenan Wynn) transformed by misbegotten magic. The treasurable Burton Lane/E.Y. Harburg score includes “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?,” “Look to the Rainbow,” “If This Isn’t Love” and “Old Devil Moon.” Watching it, you’ll be in clover. Four-leaf all the way.

Bonus Features

• Commentary with Director Francis Ford Coppola
• Watch Finian’s Rainbow with Francis Ford Coppola: DVD Introduction
• The World Premiere of Finian’s Rainbow
• Theatrical Trailer

DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
SCREENWRITERS: E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy
CAST: Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Don Francks, Keenan Wynn, Al Freeman Jr., introducing Barbara Hancock, with Ronald Colby, Dolph Sweet, Wright King, and Tommy Steele

The Fred Astaire 4-Film Collection is available on Blu-ray.

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