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Epicurus.com - Cairo
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $43.93
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Jeanette MacDonald, Robert Young, Ethel Waters, Reginald Owen, Grant Mitchell
Directed By: W.S. Van Dyke
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786303050072
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6303050077
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Release Date: 1995-02-23
Running Time: 101
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: 1942-08-17
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Walk Like An Egyptian
Comment: This month on TCM the star of the month has been Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald, and good old Robert Osborne has been playing films by this duo every Monday night. And not just the old chestnuts either but the unusual ones that the two stars made when they were apart from each other. I suppose Mayer figured, why put two of them in the same movie, it would be more cost efficient to spread out the love. Thus last night we saw, first, the bizarre, ethereal BALALAIKA which teams Nelson Eddy with the Czech sensation Ilona Massey; and then the action switched to CAIRO, rather a different cut of cloth.
The credits tell the story better than I can. The credits play across a backdrop of Egyptian postcard pictures, the desert sands, filmy desert tents pitched at oases, the Sphinx in the moonlight, and yet schizoohrenically these postcard sketches have been tagged, as if by graffiti, for a child's hand has drawn stick figure pictures all over the scenery, a toy boy and a toy girl dance upon the sands, a dog barks, a gun goes off, with the pop exclamation "Bang" next to it. All of this indicates right away that CAIRO is one spy picture that's not taking itself too seriously.
Jeanette MacDonald isn't looking her absolute best but that's ok, she is still startlingly beautiful and chic; well, she should be, she's playing a movie star, Marcia Warren who for some reason has been stranded in North Africa since the outbreak of World War II. For company she has the incomparable Ethel Waters as her personal maid, Cleona Jones. Watch the fun as Waters attempts to steal every scene she's in from anyone who's around. In pictures like CAIRO Ethel Waters proved that she has more star power than nearly anyone else on the big screen at the time. And director WS Van Dyke nearly lets her get away with it. The looks and comments she throws at Jeanette are howlingly funny and true. Yes, she's the maid, but something fiercely independent rattles through her persona like an icy wind through an abandoned greenhouse.
Robert Young is appealing as usual. In the past few days I've seen three Robert Young pictures and have just begun to realize what a tragically overlooked actor he is! He is, simply put, always good in a variety of roles. Here he plays Homer Smith, a real Preston Sturges sort of character, the everyday guy from back home, Cavity Lake, California, who gets to play boy reporter all over the pleasure spots and bombed out convoys of the Mediterranean. Young is a good match for MacDonald and I wish they had made more films together, for she gives him sex appeal and he gives her a chance to be the homegirl sort of everyday person she always was, deep underneath the diva trappings. Or maybe I'm projecting. People called her the "Iron Butterfly," probably for good reason, but as the years go by she looks more and more like one of the premiere actresses of Hollywood; her singing is just the icing on the cake. When I was a boy I couldn't stand her singing. Now I can tolerate it. However I'd watch her reading (or singing) the phone book, she is utterly enchanting no matter what she does.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "CAIRO"
Comment: Although I'm so old as to have one foot already in the grave, I had never heard of this one before seeing it adverted in Amazon's list. I had first become old enough to go to the show alone the year this movie was made, 1942.Somehow I was fortunate enough to miss it.Musical numbers are as far apart in this movie as are water holes in a desert and good ones are non-existent. A severely truncated version of The Bell Song from Lakme'-a medley done by Jeanette,Ethel Wathers,and Robert Young(1 song) includes, "To A Wild Rose","Beautiful Ohio","Waitin' For The Robert E.Lee" and "Home Sweet Home" which would be a good place to go if it's not 'too late' in your case. Ethel Waters is out of her element in this cinematic quagmire,being so far ABOVE it, she rises to the surface like cream in milk.At one point she says to a would be swain "Don't be lookin' toward me---I aint Mecca--just bow three times and...blow!" At one point Jeanette opines to her maid Cleo,(Ethel Waters).."I"malways left holding the bag." wellduno 'bout always, but...a man snoozing in a movie theater says to a woman who has just sat down in front of him and taken off her big flouncy hat,"Madam,would you mind putting your hat on?" She does and he proceeds to continue napping. Which just abouts sets the tone for this movie,and not the high C (for century note) ofJeanette's which serves to open things for her. Since I can resist anything except temptation (Oscar Wilde) I paid the $... required to sate my curiosity,and since I plan to be lowest priced when I re-sell this one I figure I can say it was good for a laugh and didn't cost me too much. You could do the same y'know not funny 'nuff to play at parties like was Florence Foster Jenkins.I'm awarding this movie 2 stars. One,for having been made,and one for the opportunity to see Ethel Waters who was destined for greatness,and for Lionel Atwill who was his delciously menacing spooky character. Robert Young's name as Jeanette's butler his Juniper Jones, an odd name,but so is this flick. (His real name was Homer Smith)* (correction) "The Bell Song" should be "Les Filles De Cadiz." &"To a Wild Rose" may be instead "To a Water Lilly" By Mc Dowell.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Faten Hamamah Speaks English!
Comment: I knew that Faten Hamamah, the Egyptian superstar, played a role once in am MGM movie. But it didn't know it was Cairo until I had seen the movie. Unlike Omar Sharif, her ex-husband, who became a Hollywood superstar after Lawrence of Arabia; this movie had never been a fare chance for her. Anyhow, still many Arabs, including myself, want to hear and see Faten Hamamah (and some other Egyptian stars at that time) speaks English!
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