In Old Chicago

YES, the DVD will include the RARE UNCUT Version !!!!
SIDE 1
Theatrical Version (96 min.)

SIDE 2
Roadshow Version (109 min.)
Additional Release Material:
Bonus Shorts - MovieTone News (4 Segments)
Biography - Don Ameche

As much as I have always loved this Best Picture Oscar nominee, I have always been very disappointed never to have seen the original, longer "roadshow version", which includes almost fourteen minutes of additional footage. Finally, after years of waiting, it appears that my chance to see the entire movie in all its glory will be coming with the DVD release of this movie from Fox Home Video. As noted above, the disc will be two-sided, and will contain both versions of the film ... the familiar "Theatrical" version which has played on television all these years, and the rarely screened original "Roadshow" edition which was a box office smash ... and earned Alice Brady the Best Supporting Actress Oscar back in 1937. Thank you in advance, Fox Home Video ... this is exactly...

Classic Tyrone Power Role With Superb Special Effects
By late 1937 Tyrone Power was rapidly climbing towards being the top Box Office King of Twentieth Century Fox Studios. After a string of romantic comedies with costars Sonja Henie and Loretta Young the studio showed their absolute faith in him by mounting the first of a series of very elaborate costumes dramas with this spectacular version of the (fictional),lead up to the great fire of Chicago in "In Old Chicago". Conceived by Darryl F. Zanuck as a spectacular effort to out class MGM's "San Francisco", he had earlier failed to borrow Clark Gable and Jean Harlow for the roles eventually taken by Tyrone Power and Alice Faye. That failure however really provided Tyrone Power with his "A" class breakthrough role, playing against his usual type here in a production that cost a staggering 2 million dollars which also included in its final 20 minutes some of the most spectacular effects depicting the fire raging through Chicago, that had yet been seen on screen.

Based on the...

A much better film
"In Old Chicago" was a blockbuster movie made in 1937, a box office smash which contributed significantly to the emergence of 20th Century Fox as a major studio. The film mirrored MGM's 1936 smash hit "San Francisco" and while Tyrone Power, Alice Faye and Don Ameche do not have quite the weight of personalities of Clark Gable, Jeanette Macdonald and Spencer Tracy, they were 10 to 15 years younger in Faye and Power's case so this is understandable.

Seeing the roadshow version of the film makes one wonder why Fox bothered to put the shorter version on the DVD because you may never view it again. All of a sudden, the dramatic portions of the film make better sense, with the smooth continuity of a Henry King directed film and notably missing from the shorter version. All the principals' performances improve too because what seemed quite superficial now has more depth. For example, instead of being told Don Ameche is an honest lawyer, we SEE him in action; instead of being told...

Click to Editorial Reviews