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Warner Home Video (WHV) gives three cheers for the red, white and blue, saluting the studio’s WWII legacy
with a special new DVD collection entitled Warner Bros. and the Homefront Collection. Arriving in
stores November 11, Veterans Day, this highly anticipated three-disc set is built around the three
all-star, song-filled extravaganzas made by the studio’s finest talents during the tumult of WWII.
Headlining the collection is the first-ever WHV release of one of the biggest box-office hits of the era,
Irving Berlin’s This is the Army, starring Ronald Reagan, George Murphy and Mr. Berlin himself,
presented in its original roadshow format for the first time since its opening engagements. The
collection also contains the long-awaited DVD debuts of two irresistible musical cavalcades featuring the
biggest WB stars trying their hands at musical entertainment in Thank Your Lucky Stars and
Hollywood Canteen.
The Warner Bros. and the Homefront collection is laden with an impressive array of special features,
including commentaries, vintage Warner short subjects and Looney Tunes classics from WWII. Most
significantly, the collection also contains “Warner at War,” a brand-new documentary which explores the
studio’s fierce patriotism and unswerving dedication to aiding our country’s armed services on the
battlefront, while entertaining those left behind at home.
About the Films
Irving Berlin’s This is the Army (1943)
Irving Berlin showed his abiding love for his country with, among other cultural accomplishments, decades
of Broadway hits, the unofficial national anthem God Bless America (Veterans Day will mark the 70th
Anniversary since the song was first performed and introduced to America and the world on “The Kate Smith
Hour” 1938 Armistice Day CBS Radio Show broadcast, and as recreated in the movie version) and this World
War II spirit-lifter. Originally conceived as a Broadway musical, the original stage production featured
350 real-life GIs, giving their singing-and-dancing all to raise nearly $2 million (then an astronomical
sum) for Army Emergency Relief. At every performance, the highlight of the show was the moment when its
composer, Mr. Berlin himself, would take center stage and sing “Oh, How I Hate to get up in the Morning.”
The show was such an enormous success that Warner Bros. assembled a film adaptation with lightning speed,
in order to spread the show’s unique blend of patriotism and entertainment to audiences everywhere. This
Academy Award-winning screen adaptation stars (future U.S. Senator) George Murphy and (future U.S.
President) Ronald Reagan cast as a father and son producing team who put on one stupendous military
musical revue before the son marches off to war. Most of the same GIs who earned standing ovations every
night on Broadway appear in the film version, along with leading lady Joan Leslie and guest stars Joe
Louis, Kate Smith and even Irving Berlin himself. Directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), This is the
Army was an instant big-screen smash with audiences and critics, and became the top grossing film of
1943. All proceeds from the film were donated by Warner Bros. to Army Emergency Relief, and in 1950, Jack
Warner donated the film itself to that organization. Removed from authorized distribution for more than a
half century, Warner Home Video is proud to make the original roadshow version of the film available,
under exclusive license from Army Emergency Relief and the God Bless America Fund.
DVD Special Features:
• Commentary by Joan Leslie, Dr. Drew Casper
• Edge of Darkness trailer
• Newsreel
• 1943 WB short: The United States Army Band
• 1943 WB cartoon: Confusions of a Nutsy Spy
• All new WHV Documentary: Warner at War
• Original theatrical trailer
Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)
The stars come out to play in the joyous World War II-era Thank Your Lucky Stars. A breezy,
behind-the-Hollywood-scenes story about young talents hoping for a big break glitters with specialty
numbers featuring Golden Era greats. Virtually every Warner star under contract to the studio braved the
opportunity to sing and dance for the good of the nation’s morale, with the result making the film an
instant classic. The one Warner star who declined to break character was perhaps the studio’s biggest,
but Humphrey Bogart’s appearance in a scene being out-tough-guyed by S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall virtually
steals the film. Legendary song and dance man Eddie Cantor takes a leading role in the film’s story, with
Dennis Morgan and Joan Leslie featured as the romantic leads. The film also provided Dinah Shore with her
film debut, taking on several of the film’s great songs by Frank Loesser and Arthur Schwartz. Warner
stars best known for more serious roles let their guard down in memorable musical sequences including
John Garfield, Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Hattie McDaniel, Olivia de Havilland and Miss Bette Davis,
whose witty, wry, jitterbugging rendition of They’re Either Too Young or Too Old is “the cherry on the
top” (Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical).
DVD Special Features:
• Watch on the Rhine trailer
• Newsreel
• 1943 WB shorts: Food and Magic, Three Cheers for the Girls, The United States Navy Band
• 1943 WB cartoon: Falling Hare
• Theatrical trailer
Hollywood Canteen (1944)
The legendary Hollywood Canteen was a massive and glamour-filled nightclub for GIs, located in the
heart of tinseltown. Stars from every studio in town sacrificed any extra hours they could to help
entertain soldiers who were temporarily in Los Angeles. The Canteen was where Joan Crawford might cook
the eggs and John Garfield might scrub out the frying pan. The movie Hollywood Canteen is a
snappy, starry salute to that World War II landmark, built around a storyline involving a corporal who
wins a date with winsome Joan Leslie. Real-life Canteen co-founders Bette Davis and Garfield plus dozens
more luminaries – including The Andrews Sisters, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Barbara Stanwyck and even Roy
Rogers with his horse Trigger – dazzle the troops as well as modern fans in “a great big scrambled
vaudeville show with enough talent to have made a dozen fine movies” (Howard Barnes, New York Herald
Tribune).
DVD Special Features:
• The Conspirators trailer
• 1944 WB shorts: Proudly We Serve, Report from the Front, I am an American
• 1944 WB cartoon: Stage Door Cartoon
• 1945 WB cartoon: Herr Meets Hare
• 1946 WB cartoon: Hollywood Canine Canteen
• Theatrical trailer
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