Roxie Hart (W. Wellman, 1942) DVDRip VOSE

[bzoler]

http://imdb.com/title/tt0035272/

Rogers is Roxie Hart, a brash, perpetual gum-chewer, who admits to a murder that was obviously committed by her weak, rat-fink husband. Not, however, the story of a strong woman sacrificing herself on the altar of love and marital devotion, but that of a sly minx, banking on attracting invaluable publicity for her so far non-existent dancing career. This long shot in the name of ambition is based on the premise that 'a Chicago jury would never convict a pretty woman'; an over-riding vein of cynicism that filters down from the gaggle of fickle press scribblers, interested only in hot news, never the truth, to the posturing defence counsel, who never defend the innocent. The total lunacy culminates in a courtroom melodrama with a difference, where Roxie crosses and uncrosses her legs for the jury's benefit, faints, cries, but always manages a radiant smile for the courtroom photographers, and where justice ultimately depends on the wrinkling of a pert nose. Subversive, outrageous, but always very funny.

This hilarious comedy saw Ginger Rogers solidifying her status as an actress and comedienne after winning an Oscar for Kitty Foyle two years earlier. It's the 1942 version of the play Chicago, a farce about slick lawyers winning not-guilty verdicts for incredibly guilty female murderers with the the help of the newspaper media system. It's from the same source as the musical version of a year ago. Ginger kicks her heels up in a couple of terrific dance scenes, but it's not a musical per se. And it's funny in the tradition of The Front Page - fast, cynical, and witty. It may not be a Studio Classics presentation, but it's a heck of a lot lighter-spirited than The Grapes of Wrath or The Ox-Bow Incident - a "classic" from the same director. This goes on the shelf next to My Man Godfrey and Sullivan's Travels.

Roxie Hart must have been a dynamite morale booster in the early months of WW2: It pure escapism from contemporary problems. The constantly-funny script uses a flashback structure that reaches a mere fifteen years into the past to find Chicago a completely different world of gold-digging flappers. The news media is out of control and even the prosecutors and judges vie for publicity. The completely amoral newsmen use Dixie as a circulation builder and her fame snowballs accordingly. The husband is shut away from his own wife (can't have him mucking up the defense or the headlines), the jury foreman (William Frawley) falls immediately in love with the accused, and the young reporter (Montgomery) discovers that Roxie's fallback witness has died, throwing her absurd defense into a tailspin.

Nunnally Johnson's delightful dialogue is just as witty but easier on the ears than the Hecht-MacArthur machine-gun patter style of ten years before. Adolph Menjou wraps himself around at least 50 great lines. Phil Silver's corps of jolly cameramen jump like vultures at every phony courtroom revelation. Reporter Lynne Overman covers the courtroom proceedings on live radio like a boxing commentator. Cadaverous Milton Parsons cuts in for frequent commercial announcements.

Vivacious Ginger Rogers is introduced as a pair of legs sneaking down a fire escape. Chewing bubblegum with a game smile, she pushes the limits of what was acceptable to the Hays office, all the while summoning fake tears and sobs on cue and grinning slyly at her own delicious wickedness. There's some cheating with the original details to appease the censors, especially who actually murdered who. But the spirit is all there, even Roxie's opportunistic gambit for sympathy - when her publicity threatens to fade, she pretends to be pregnant.

It's a necessary ploy to wrest the headlines back from a new media sensation, a Bonnie Parker-like rural gunslinger (in jeans, no less) called "Two Gun Gertie" (a wonderfully slummy Iris Adrian). Unlike the musical, the competition between gorgeous inmates is kept to a minimum. Roxie has an opening catfight (with cat yowls on the soundtrack!) with the previous star prisoner and spars a bit with Gertie, but hilariously tough prison matron Sara Allgood (Sara Allgood?!) intervenes like Wonder Woman and calmly konks the combatants out cold.

The music is limited to real songs from the period and is nicely introduced in the 1942 wraparound bookend segment when a broken player piano suddenly revives and spits out a snappy 1927 tune. Ginger displays a little sexy dancing (The Black Bottom!) but wows us with a wonderful tap on the steel steps to the jail cells that integrate nicely with George Montgomery's growing infatuation. And then there's a silly number where Ginger and the press celebrate good times in the interrogation room with an all-out Charleston. Spring Byington (as gossip maven "Mary Sunshine"), Sara Allgood and a raft of square-looking newshounds cut a fancy rug. Seeing all the middle-aged actors dancing is a real treat ... they probably all learned the steps when they were brand new!

Roxie Hart is so funny it gets to have its cake and eat it too. It neatly sidesteps the problem that Roxie is a tramp who'd sleep with practically any of her admirers. The wrap-up barely establishes who's bamboozled who and the final flash-forward to the present ends things on a strictly Tex Avery gag basis, which for this story is perfect. 2

William Wellman's direction is flawless - light and breezy but with a strong dose of nostalgia. Everyone in the cast gets their fair share of choice moments, with William Frawley receiving special attention - his character has a direct association with the present-day story. The picture moves so quickly we hardly have time to think that it stays confined to an apartment, the jailhouse and a courtroom. Ginger Rogers doesn't hog the center of attention as would any star in today's power-driven movie world: In the comedy dance number we get a dozen great angles of jazz-age dancing, but it isn't Ginger's scene alone

ESS standalone friendly.

File Name .............: Roxie.Hart.1942.William.A.Wellman.avi
File Size (in bytes) ..: 730,718,512 bytes
Runtime (# of frames) .: 01:14:31 (107198 frames)

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B-VOP, N-VOP, QPel, GMC ......: [B-VOP]...[]...[]...[]

Audio Codec ...........: 0x0055(MP3, ISO) MPEG-1 Layer 3
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No. of audio streams ..: 1

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for those who doesnt have access to Kargarga
A share by Zenkoan

english and spanish subs ( to be converted, too lazy to do it myself)

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Roxie.Hart.1942.William.A.Wellman - Ginger Rogers.avi

Roxie.Hart.1942.William.A.Wellman.rar

http://www.opensubtitles.org/es/download/sub/3147937

[theycame2001]

Unos carteles y unos subtítulos para esta gran película de Wellman!!




Tenéis que ver esta insólita comedia negra. Es como un precode, con 9 años de retraso, o lo que es lo mismo, una película que se les escapó a los censores.

Todo el reparto está en plena forma, y Wellman se luce con una narración verdaderamente ingeniosa. Y ahora, con el dvdrip, es imperdonable perdérsela.

Curiosamente, me ha costado mucho trabajo pasar los subtítulos españoles a SRT, pues al extraerlos, no había manera de que quedaran bien.

He tenido que recomponerlos, y resincronizarlos.

¡Pero la peli bien lo merece!

Roxie Hart. Subtítulos españoles, descarga directa.

[bluegardenia]

Tema separado del VHSRip, recordad la segregación atendiendo a la fuente de ripeo.

Un saludo.

[Tragamuvis]

Jubilo mi VHSRIP, gracias.

[Nalekh]

He visto imagenes de esta pelicula en un documental de Ginger Rogers y me pica la curiosidad. Voy a por ella. Gracias por los subs Theycame.