Cats

Cats
by David Mallet

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Product details

Actor: Elaine Paige, John Mills, Ken Page, Michael Gruber, Rosemarie Ford
Director: David Mallet
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 115 minutes
Release Date: 1998-10-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Polygram Video
Studio: Polygram Video

VHS Movie Reviews of Cats

Movie Review: CATS dvd
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a must, must buy. If you have ever seen it live on stage, this dvd will clear up any questions about the storyline. The upclose expressions of the characters are priceless. ALW outdid himself. You will watch this over and over again.

Movie Review: Cats: A Love/Hate Affair
Summary: 4 Stars

I really enjoy most of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals, but this one didn't really interest me. As expected the music and choreography were great and the acting was wonderful. Where Cats seemed to lack was storyline. After watching the film, I'm not exactly sure what the story was about, other than a bunch of Cats. I have never seen Cats on stage, but it seemed the DVD captured the stage experience fairly well. Overall, good job on the music, dance, acting and transfer to DVD. A more defined plot is what would have pushed this to the next level.

Movie Review: Awesome musical!
Summary: 5 Stars

I have seen the musical on stage, and this captures it well, especially if you never had a close-up view. My daughter, who is 5, watches it over and over. We just took her to see the musical live, and it was amazing, of course, but she had to watch the DVD as soon as we got home.

Movie Review: A great item!!
Summary: 5 Stars

The movie is great. It dose have a sound problem in the Pekes and the Policle song. It only happens in this song and the problem is only on the side noises. This problem has nothing to do with who you buy the movie from, it is just how the movie is made. But this should not detour you from buying it. The bonus features are amazing.

Movie Review: Thoroughly Enjoyable
Summary: 4 Stars

As a longtime fan of "Cats," I have seen the musical multiple times on Broadway in New York City in addition to traveling companies in Wilmington, DE and Philadelphia, PA.

I cannot tell you how excited I was when I first heard that "Cats" was going to be released on video in 1998. I remember buying the video the week it came out and watched it many times. Now that the world has largely transitioned to DVD, I recently bought the DVD version of this great musical, and here is my review.

Seeing the musical shot in such close proximity gives you a view of the stage and the cats themselves that you simply cannot experience from a theater seat. The costumes are brilliantly designed, and the stage props and lighting is elaborate.

While I enjoy the additional musical instruments in the orchestra, my feelings are divided about how the cast was brought together for the film. The cast is a mixture of members from Broadway and international companies, and while the voices blend fairly well together overall, there are parts of the musical where the differing voices and accents are somewhat distracting. I feel that some voices/characters in this cast are not up to par with the Original Broadway Cast that I grew up listening to, the most notable being the voices behind "Skimbleshanks," "Jellylorum," and "Mongojerrie and Rumpleteazer." Other voices/characters are equal to and even surpass the Original Broadway Cast, including the great "Mr. Mistoffelees," "The Rum Tum Tugger," "Munkustrap," "Grizabella" voiced by London original Elaine Paige, and "Old Deuteronomy" voiced by Broadway original Ken Page.

I am glad that Webber decided to film additional musical sequences that were cut from the Original Broadway Cast recording, including musical outros for songs like "The Old Gumbie Cat" and "The Rum Tum Tugger", additional verses & dance for "Bustopher Jones," "Skimbleshanks," and "Mr. Mistoffelees," and the hilarious "Awful Battle of the Pekes and Pollicles" in its entirety, which was completely cut from the Original Broadway Cast due to time constraints.

However, the fact that "Growltiger's Last Stand" was omitted from Act 2 is a disappointment, to say the least. This song is one of the highlights of Act 2 and it is a shame that it was not included for this film. But, given the choice whether to have "Growltiger" or "The Pekes and Pollicles," I would probably choose the "Pekes" simply because we have never had a recorded version of this song before.

Despite these small criticisms, this film is a wonderful adaptation of the famous Broadway musical and has high recommendations from me.

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Summary of Cats

This pop-cultural phenomenon has been performed on stage for more than 50 million patrons in 26 countries for almost 18 years, churning more than $2 billion in ticket sales. Now that Cats has finally made it to the small screen, attention must be paid not just by fans of this critic-proof show, but also by those entertainment mavens who have somehow avoided Cats until now. The video version has been restaged but, alas, not really reconceived for its new medium.

The video cast, assembled from London, Amsterdam, and New York productions, is competent. Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy, Jacob Brent as Mr. Mistoffelees, and Elaine Paige--the original London Grizabella, the Glamour Cat well past her prime--are a great deal more than that. Paige has toned down her theatrical belting of her big number, "Memory," and allowed the faded ruin of her character's soul to prevail in close-up. For all the "covers" of her signature song, Paige's version remains definitive. The video is, by definition, more intimate, not always a good thing: costumes are even more Halloweeny in garish close-up, the cats less cuddly without that all-important interaction, the stage's appropriately midnight lighting transmuted to a Las Vegas neon. And the chorus of cats in production numbers is even clunkier and more amorphous in two- and three-shots.

The one complete newcomer to the cast is the 90-year-old icon among English actors John Mills, a delight as Gus the Theatrical Cat. Sir John and his character show the youngsters how it's done in close-up, largely behind the eyes, abetted by a heart-tugging delivery of his one song. Yet virtually all of the songs are lip-synched, further robbing the video Cats of its onstage seeming spontaneity. It's clearer than ever that Lloyd Webber's music is mostly twaddle, with the important exception of "Memory," which instantly and rightly became one of the genuine theater standards not dependent on context, in the vein of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns." On the plus side, most of the Cats characters and lyrics, from T.S. Eliot's 14-poem Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, are far better defined and understood from the video version. --Robert Windeler

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