Easter Parade Review & Giveaway (ends 3/10/13)

I love watching movies. I appreciate and enjoy films from all genres. My favorites are horror movies and comedies, but I do enjoy all kinds of movies. Even classic movies and musicals. That is why I am shocked that I have never seen – or even heard of – a film called Easter Parade.

Easter Parade stars Fred Astair, Judy Garland, Peter Lawford and Ann Miller. It also features around 15 songs by the legendary Irving Berlin.

I love old movies, and I love musicals. How it is that I never heard of this movie before I’ll never know.

Easter Parade is about the dance team of Don Hewes (Astair) and Nadine Hale (Miller). They are a popular dance team, that is until Nadine decides to take off and dance on her own. She doesn’t want to be known as a dance team, but rather have her own show.

When Don finds out about Nadine’s plans he heads off to a local pub to grab a drink so he can digest what Nadine is plans, and figure out what he’ll do next now that he’s without a dance partner.

At the pub Don tells his friends how Nadine wouldn’t be the great dancer that she is if it wasn’t for him. To prove his point he tells his friends he can take any girl and make her into a fabulous dancer like Nadine. He even goes so far as to pick a young girl from the dancing troupe at the pub name Hannah Brown and invites her to dance with him.

Hannah is a small town girl from the Midwest. She is in awe of Don Hewes because he’s a popular dancer and she dreams of being a successful dancer like his former partner.

Don tries to mold Hannah into another Nadine, that is until he realizes that in order for them to make a successful dance team he’ll have to let Hannah be her own person and bring her personality to the dance floor.

As a new team Don and Hannah quickly become popular dancers, so much so they are asked to join the Ziegfeld Follies. There is only one problem – Nadine. She has her own successful show with the follies.

Don has a choice. He can join Nadine and become a part of the Ziegfeld Follies, or stay with Hannah and try to score their own show.

Will Don join Nadine and become a part of the follies, or will he stay with Hannah? To find out you’ll need to pick up a copy of Easter Parade, now available on Blu-ray for the first time.

This is a sweet movie filled with fun musical numbers. Most of the songs I have never heard of before, but there were a few that I have.

Although the movie is called Easter Parade it’s not necessarily an Easter movie. The reason why it’s called Easter Parade is because Don promises Hannah that one year from that day (the same day as the Easter Parade) all eyes will be on her when she walks the parade again because by then she’ll be a famous dancer. The movie starts on Easter day and ends on Easter day one year later.

I enjoyed the movie. My husband is not overly keen about musicals so I didn’t ask his opinion.

I adore watching old movies. I love the fashion and hair styles. I also love how men and women were always dressed up and looked their finest, even when they were just walking around town. Easter Parade came out in 1948.

There are plenty of bonus features included. I love the one called Easter Parade: On the Avenue. It gave you a lot of background on the film including how Irving Berlin came involved in the project (and how another studio almost scored the film), how Judy Garland influenced the ending of the film, and all about the Easter Parade in New York City (which I never knew about).

Other bonus features include Mr. Montony Dailies with more muscial numbers and Mr. Montony Outtake, which is basically Judy Garland singing the same song over and over again (which got boring after a while).

Also included in the bonus features is the original radio promo for the film and the Screen Guild Theater Broadcast which is only an audio feature. They even included the original theatrical trailer. I love old trailers. They are always fun to watch.

Look for Easter Parade where ever blu-rays are sold.

Thanks to Warner Bros. Home Entertainment I have two copies of the film on blu-ray to give to two lucky winners (one copy per winner). Thank you WB Home Entertainment.

This giveaway is open to US residents only and will end on March 10, 2013 at 11:59 PM (EST). The winners will be chosen at random using a random number generator from all eligible entries. The winners will be notified via e-mail and will have three days to reply or a new winner will be chosen in their place.

To enter please comment on why you would like to win a copy of this movie. Easy peasy!

For extra entries you can use the Rafflecopter widget (below) but you must complete the initial entry requirement or the additional entries won’t qualify. Extra entries are optional.

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Kimberly

*I received a free screener copy in order to do this review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced in any way. WB Home Entertainment will be providing the prize.

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