Sweet Home Alabama
List Price:
Our Price: $8.84
You Save: $11.15 (56%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.22 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Candice Bergen, Josh Lucas, Mary Kay Place, Patrick Dempsey, Reese WitherspoonBrand: DIS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-02-04
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Sweet Home Alabama
DVD Review: 8 FRAMES OF JOSH'S BLUE EYES
Summary: 5 Stars
Sweet Home Alabama has been playing on a continuous loop on my dvd player. I just can't seem to get enough of this movie. I don't know why I love it so much...or at least I didn't know until I watched the movie AGAIN but this time with the director commentary.
The genesis for this film came at the behest of the Andy Tennant's dad who was a prodigious letter writer. He once wrote to his son about witnessing the astonishing effects of lightning hitting the sand. That letter and the visuals of the pools of hot sandy glass was at the core of what inspired this movie.
Of course the writers let their imaginations run wild because fulgurites don't usually look like what is shown in the film...but where love stories are concerned fantasy will also beat reality into submission. In the drudgery of the real world this is usually what happens to sand when lightning strikes it
The scene of the marriage proposal at Tiffany's was also based on a real story. A friend of the directors really did propose to his girlfriend at Tiffany's. In the movie that is no set but the real store and the actual employees of the Tiffany store in New York City
The dog. Bryant was portrayed by a coon hound named Baron and according to Andy was the "worst actor on the set". He refused to bark or sit on command and all of the scenes with him were a "miracle of editing"
The scene where Bryant jumps in the lake after a bone and sinks is based on the movies producer who owned a dog who really could dive to the bottom of a pool and retrieve a ball. In the movie however those scenes were done using a puppet and not the real dog. This includes the scene when Bryant pops up having found the bone and is swimming back to the pier. This is the sculptors rendering of the dogs head that was used in the submersion scenes
The dogs names in the film...Bear (the dog that died) and Bryant are both named for legendary Alabama football coach Paul Bear Bryant.
The film was mostly shot in a small town in Georgia called Crawfordville. Jakes fishing cabin, the bank and Stella's Roadhouse really do exist and a lot of the local townspeople were featured in the films party and festival scenes.
Speaking of the roadhouse. The first time we see it is when Melanie has followed Jake there to harass him about the divorce. When she walks in there is a band on stage. That band features Keni Thomas.
Keni is not just a singer but a survivor who lived through the horrors of Somalia featured in the book and film Blackhawk Down. It was his unit that was caught in the ambush in Mogadishu
The popular Vermont glass artisan Simon Pearce was the basis for Jakes character. In fact Jake's own "Tiffany scene" toward the end of the film when Melanie tries to find out more about Southwest Glass features every item from the actual Simon Pearce store
One of the more rollicking yet controversial aspects of Sweet Home Alabama was the story line as to how Melanie came to be known as "Felony Melanie".
That part of the film is also based on fact. Andy Tennant's godfather and namesake was a legendary character actor named Andy Devine
Melanie's childhood is based on Andy's own wild child upbringing and that includes the story of Fuzz the cat that blew up the bank.
According to Devine's relatives;
"...the various versions of the "cat incident" make Andy sound awful, but she says the incident did indeed occur. What actually happened was that one of the local judges offered Andy and a friend 50 cents to get rid of a mangy old cat for him. He emphasized that they do so in humane manner. Fifty cents was a princely sum in those days, so Andy and his friend undertook this assignment.. They knew where some dynamite was, so took cat, dynamite and a long, long fuse to the dump where they proceeded to carefully wrap the cat in dynamite. What could be more humane than instant destruction, they reasoned. They lit the fuse and ran like crazy. They looked around and much to their dismay found the cat following them fuse burning vigorously. The boys ran by the Van Marter house and the cat ran under the house. Andy said he was terrified that the dynamite would blow up the house, but the cat ran out from under the house and into the woodshed. The woodshed blew sky high. No one ever knew what happened until years later Andy, in a personal appearance in Kingman, confessed to the crime."
Even the coon hound cemetery in the film is real, though the one on film is actually a set because producers were worried about traipsing all over the graves of cherished pets. The real coon hound cemetery was established in 1937 and is in Freedom Hills. The cemetery in the film is an exact duplicate of the original right down to the head stones and signs
COON DOG EULOGY
Let not your hearts be troubled,
for in his master's swamp are many den trees.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
He has gone to prepare a place for you
and where he has gone Ole Red will go also.
Dogs, they say, do not have souls.
They only have hide and bones.
But I believe there is a coon dog heaven
and Red is gone were the good coon dogs go.
Anybody that coon hunts has to believe in God.
If you have known the music of coon hounds on a trail
and heard the excitement in their voices when they strike,
and seen their eagerness and determination when they tree,
if you have seen their courage and bravery
in a tough fight with an old boar coon,
if you have heard their anguished cries and howls,
if you have seen the ugly gashes
and bleeding wounds
and witnessed their resolve to never quit,
you know there has to be a God to make an animal like that.
And a God that that would make a coon dog
won't forget him when he is gone.
There is a coon dog heaven and Ole Red is there.
And every night he runs
and the den trees are there in the old swamp
and the old hunter's moon hangs low in the west
and the coons don't go up no slick barked trees
and the carbide don't run out
and there ain't no bull nettle and saw briars
and old master always knocks the coon out
and lets Ole Red grab him and give him a good shake;
and then he gets a pat on the head
and climbs back into the kennel in the back of the pick-up truck
and goes home and sleeps all day.
'Cause he knows in coon dog heaven he can hunt again
when the sun goes down and the tree frogs holler.
May the bones of Ole Red rest in peace,
through the mercy of God
and may the coon hunters light perpetually shine upon him.
AMEN
And so we come to the eight frames of Josh's blue eyes.
If you have seen the film, this particular scene happens when Jake comes down stairs in his store to find Melanie there petting Bryant and staring up at him.
Andy says in the commentary that he's a guy and did not realize how gorgeous Josh was until he cut a few frames from this scene just to save some time. Apparently one of the female editors on the film had such a conniption fit about this that he immediately put them back. So when you watch the movie with his commentary he is practically giggling while he literally counts the full 8 frames of Josh's blue eyes.
My all time favorite part of the Sweet Home Alabama is at the end. Andy talks about the wedding cake saying that Rock-em-Sock-em Robots are a rather hilarious representation of the passionate relationship between Jake and Melanie.
I don't really want to get married but I sho nuff would like to have a party at a honky tonk with that 3 tiered cake topped with robots.
Sweet Home Alabama really is the very essence of the word sweet. I guess that is why I appreciate it so much. Usually when Hollywood goes south we end up with a 2 hour film full of negative stereotypes ala Deliverance. But here Andy Tennant has taken ALL of the stereotypes and presented them in a brighter light. His commentary is BRILLIANT because he is not talking AT you but with you so by the end of the film you feel like you just watched this movie with your best friend.
Ultimately I think Melanie and by extension the films viewers got the same lesson that Dorothy did...that sometimes what you want and what you need is right there in front of you and there really is "no place like home"
Description of Sweet Home Alabama
This delightfully entertaining romantic comedy stars Reese Witherspoon (LEGALLY BLONDE) as sophisticated Melanie Carmichael, a rising New York clothing designer who suddenly finds herself engaged to the city's most eligible bachelor. But this is no fairy tale romance for Melanie. She has skeletons in her fashion-filled closet that include Jake -- the backwoods husband she married in high school who refuses to divorce her. Determined to end their marriage and sever all ties with her past once and for all, Melanie returns to Alabama. But home starts to tug at her heartstrings, and what she thought she wanted may not be what she wants at all.As formulaic, utterly inoffensive romantic comedies go, Sweet Home Alabama could be better, and could be worse. It's a variant of Julia Roberts's Something to Talk About, with all the same strengths and weaknesses, and Reese Witherspoon is definitely its saving grace. As an Alabama country girl turned hot New York fashion designer, Witherspoon finds the genuine emotions hidden under a blandly familiar plot, making her character's romantic indecisiveness seem not only credible but disarmingly appealing. She's just agreed to marry the Camelot-bred son (Patrick Dempsey) of New York's no-nonsense mayor (Candice Bergen), but first she has to officially divorce the husband (Josh Lucas) she left behind years earlier... only to discover that their love is stronger than ever. The rest, of course, is a foregone conclusion, but with a sharp supporting cast and a few charming moments, Sweet Home Alabama will satisfy anyone who prefers safe, reassuring entertainment. --Jeff Shannon
Bestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Legally BlondeSony; Release date: 2001-11-06; Published: 2001-11-01; DVD
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops:
Hope FloatsBULLOCK,SANDRA; Release date: 2003-01-14; Published: 2003-01-01; DVD
Best price: $3.32
Price in other shops:
My Best Friend's Wedding (Special Edition)SONY PICTURES HOME ENT; Release date: 2001-08-28; DVD
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops:
The ProposalRelease date: 2011-10-19; Amazon Instant Video; Movie
Best price: $9.99
Maid in ManhattanLOPEZ,JENNIFER; Release date: 2003-03-25; DVD
Best price: $3.36
Price in other shops:
The Proposal (Single-Disc Edition)Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2009-10-13; DVD
Best price: $9.05
Price in other shops:
While You Were SleepingBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 1998-02-04; Published: 1998-02-01; DVD
Best price: $2.88
Price in other shops:
The Wedding PlannerSony; Release date: 2001-07-03; Published: 2001-07-01; DVD
Best price: $3.79
Price in other shops:
The NotebookWarner Brothers; Release date: 2005-02-08; DVD
Best price: $3.69
Price in other shops:
How to Lose a Guy in 10 DaysParamount; Release date: 2009-08-25; DVD
Best price: $4.06
Price in other shops: