lasttimeisaw Mervyn LeRoy's sound-stage-bound musical is a biographical treatment of the American burlesque artiste Gypsy Rose Lee, neé Louise Hovick (Wood), yet unconventionally, the film puts Gypsy's mother Rose Hovick (Russell) to the forefront prevalently, an egoistic thrice-married single mother in the 1920s, who is spoiling for making her younger daughter June (Brittany and later Jilian) a vaudeville star, with the help of the stage agent Herbie Sommers (Malden, why on earth a benevolent gentleman is always afflicted with an ulcer?), who also offers to tie the knot with Rose when her dream comes true, if only he could foretell how long it would take.Yes, eventually, mama Rose's dream will come true, but not quite as she has expected. Getting sick of being typecast as a singing-and-dancing baby, June will ditch their itinerant group by eloping at the age of 13. But Rose is undeterred and given no other alternative, she nurtures her less talented (sole by vaudeville star criterion) elder daughter Louise as the new headliner, what would she know, eventually, Louise sinks her teeth in the less glamorous burlesque stage and makes her mark there, notoriously for her forte of stripping, but mama Rose is bereft by everyone else during Gypsy's ascending to fame, where will she be in the end of the day? In Rose's touching closing number ROSE'S TURN, she bells out her ambitions and grounds behind her obstinate pursuit in a quite candid register, states that the primacy is not for her daughters' sake, but herself, when her own vaudeville dream has been dashed by grim reality, all she could do is to invest and inculcate her dream into her daughters', often too blind to see clearly whether it is what the girls' want or not, one might call it self-serving, but the film doesn't paper over it with mawkish hokum, that's the spirit pertains to the epochal ethos, however tactless and outmoded, it is an astute take on the character psych in spite of the picture's fluffy genre default. Rosalind Russell's gravelly voice is predominantly dubbed in her singing part, but it is her obstreperous élan that brings down the house, ever so unapologetic-ally brash and brassy, her mama Rose is a woman rebuffs to bow to the vicissitude of fate, even if it means that she would lose the man she loves, it is incredibly rewarding to watch a middle-age woman goes all out without recourse to the opposite sex for help or comfort, especially under that sexist era, which instantly endows the flick with a more time-defiant quality compared to the lion's share of studio-backed Hollywood musical epics. After her gallant act in the Oscar BEST PICTURE winning musical WEST SIDE STORY (1961), Natalie Wood parlays the success into another star vehicle and fortunately, her singing is not dubbed this time, although Russell's gushing versatility is dauntingly all over the place and Ms. Wood seems to be still hemmed in her teen-idol shell, but as the titular Gypsy, she belatedly secures her own footing in the culminating showdown with Mama Rose, a child finally realizes what she wants to be, and trades on what she excels to steer the course of her own life. GYPSY is a sanitized entertaining commodity of Hollywood musical in its core, slightly drawn-out in its length, vaudeville's waning appeal might leave the acts and tunes look and sound mediocre and beyond our times, until the burlesque spectacle arrives, nudge nudge (wink wink), but its rare flair as a female-centered razzmatazz surely instills a distinctive charm to LeRoy's nimble and patient execution, also who can ever forget that iconic show-stopping piece YOU GOTTA HAVE A GIMMICK by three unabashed strippers Tessie Tura (Bruce, in gossamer flirtation), Mazeppa (Dane, with her horn and that throaty voice!) and Electra (Arlen, overshadowed by her lighting bulbs garment)?

Hitchcoc Because I could never accept Natalie Wood as Gypsie Rose Lee, I couldn't get into this musical. I find the songs sort of pedestrian. I know that Mama was a reality in her life and that she had to continually compete with her little sister, but I never really thought that the story was terribly interesting. Stage mothers have been the topic of so many plays and movies and this didn't offer me anything new. I think Rosalind Russell was fine as the mother. She did plenty of shouting and had genuine edginess in her role. She could also express hurt. Natalie is so beautiful, so striking. From what I've seen of film of Gypsie Rose Lee, she wasn't the dark beauty that Wood was. This is one of those movies that I remember, but it doesn't do all that much for me.

Antonius Block Gypsy is a bit of a mixed bag. Rosalind Russell plays her part well and dominates the movie, at once a stage mom, independent woman, and a bohemian, but her singing voice is so deep and flat it seems like she's Tony Curtis in drag belting out her musical numbers. The idea of Natalie Wood playing the part of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee is intriguing and she's as cute as ever, but the movie is not balanced; for 2 hours we see her as "one of the boys" and nothing but sweet and innocent, then in a flash she's a fully independent and very successful stripper. The music by Styne and Sondheim includes some classics, "Let Me Entertain You" and "Everything is Coming Up Roses", but most of the performances (not just Russell's) are jarring on the ears – the notable exceptions being Wood's performance of "Little Lamb", and Paul Wallace's performance of "All I Need is the Girl". Gypsy Rose's childhood is not unhappy, at least in this account, and in fact it's touching in some ways, though certainly different. She didn't get an education, and didn't even know her real age, as her mother needed her to remain under twelve well into her teens, because of child labor laws. We see her out of sync in the early group performances, and in the shadow compared to her younger sister June (Suzanne Cupito and later Ann Jillian), who her mother says has the "real talent". A funny scene shows her relegated to the front end of a cow costume, mooing out replies to June in one of their barnyard numbers. It's interesting to see this bygone world of vaudeville, and the Broadway number where Russell pantomimes June as she auditions is entertaining in its own right.Unfortunately, there is a veneer of feel-good dishonesty to the entire movie. One exception, however, is stage manager and boyfriend Herbie's (Karl Malden's) shocked reaction to the mother's decision to have Rose fill in for a missing stripper. She is so stubborn, refusing to admit that it's over, and never taking no for an answer. The look on Malden and Wood's face when she pushes Rose into it instead of leaving that final night and settling down into quiet, married life is priceless. Her own daughter! She says there is an invisible barrier between the crowd and the stage, and that she'll be an artist – but Malden knows better, while Wood, resigned, simply begins changing into a hurriedly put together outfit. She comes out in a blue dress, of course immaculate, and transformed. Wood is seductive as she slinks around the stage, increasing in confidence over time until she's practically purring "Let Me Entertain You", but the performances are ridiculously tame, even for the period. The movie needs something – editing (at 243 minutes it's too long), or more of an edge, or better vocal talent, or more honesty – but there is enough here to make it worth watching.One 'quote', the lyrics to "Let Me Entertain You", my goodness: "Let me entertain you / Let me make you smile / Let me do a few tricks / Some old and some new tricks / I'm very versatile ... And if you're real good / I'll make you feel good / I want your spirits to climb / So let me entertain you / And we'll have a real good time, yes sir / We'll have a real good time"

HorrorCreepshow Gypsy is one of the greatest musicals of all time. In fact, I, personally, think the book for Gypsy is the finest of all time. Take away the score to most musicals and a tedious and usually hardly serviceable book is left behind. However, even if you took out all the songs from Gypsy, you'd still be left with a terrific play with great characters, humor, terror, suspense, and heartache. It's everything one would ever want in a musical.How they managed to screw up such wonderful material is beyond me! The orchestrations are lush, the sets and costumes look great, most of the actors are solid and game, but the screenplay and direction are pedestrian at best. Once the screenplay finally decides to get faithful to the source material half way in, the pace tightens up immensely. The direction, however, remains equally as dull from frame one to the last frame of the movie. There's simply no imagination put into the staging of the musical numbers at all. In fact, most of the time, I was hoping they'd just skip past most of the musical numbers and get to the book scenes.This is also, in no small part, due to the fact that no one in the cast can really handle the vocal demands of the score. Natalie Wood sounds just fine in her numbers, even charming, but poor Rosalind Russell had to be almost completely dubbed for her numbers. Strangely, Russell got rave reviews for her performance in the Broadway musical Wonderful Town. Karl Malden has so little to sing that it doesn't really make a big difference.The only numbers that pop a little bit are "You Gotta Get A Gimmick" and Louise's transformation into sexpot stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in "Let Me Entertain You". The rest fall flat. Thankfully, even if they can't handle all the vocals with the best of 'em, they certainly act the hell out of their roles. Russell, while far from perfect, at least doesn't embarrass herself like Bette Midler did in the 1993 TV movie version. Her monologue right before "Rose's Turn" is subtle and well delivered, even if the number that comes directly after it is horrendously executed. Malden is warm and charming as Herbie, Rose's poor bumbling love interest and Wood shines as timid and naive Louise. The final dressing room scene between her and Russell is quite good. This version is really only marginally better than the TV movie version and that's really only for the acting.