Happy Holidays With Bing & Frank

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• Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby join forces to celebrate th eholiday season for the first time on home video. Happy Holidays With Bing And Frank is a wonderful time travel through two eras - Victorian England and the hip 1950's. Songs include Jingle Bells, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Come All Ye Faithful and many more - inlcuding the all-timeic White Christmas. Rediscover a long lost,ic holid

DVD Reviews of Happy Holidays With Bing & Frank

DVD Review: Slight but nice at the price.
Summary: 4 Stars

As usual, the producers are particularly unhelpful about providing documentation, but by perusing the video contents, it can be determined that the show is from 1957, which should have been "a very good year" for Old Blue. Unfortunately, this is definitely not a performance for making the case that Sinatra was the "Entertainer of the Century." He looks rather tired and stiff, and the voice, at least by Sinatra standards, sounds rough, lifeless and "played out." By contrast, Bing lights up the screen, radiating warmth, looking far more composed than the host, and singing flawlessly.

At these prices (under the cost of many CD's), this is a worthwhile pick-up for the Sinatra-Crosby collector. In fact, it rates above the earlier "Classic Duets" release because of print quality (a stunning clarity, even if the colors are often "wrong"), the extended sequencing (as opposed to stitching together bits and pieces from different Sinatra shows), and the extemporaneous, often surprising, remarks of the Sinatra daughters at a Q&A event following the initial screening of this restored footage. (At one point, in explaining Frank's troubles with TV ratings, Nancy says, "Dad didn't do well on television." Tina responds, "He had to fail somewhere.")

Bottom line: Don't even consider this if you don't already have "The Sinatra Christmas Album" or "A Jolly Christmas." And if it's Sinatra television footage you crave, be sure to pick up first the 1967 special with Frank, Ella, and Jobim. As for the Sinatra family members who, I understand, are largely responsible for this release: how do you explain going to such lengths to restore and mass-market this sort of footage while letting a Sinatra "concept" album like "All Alone," a project worthy of Sinatra's name in every respect, fall into oblivion?

Description of Happy Holidays With Bing & Frank

Miscellaneous Music CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop