Lady in the Dark (1944) + Lady in the Dark (1954) DVD-R

Get the original film, Lady in the Dark (1944) and the remake Lady in the Dark (1954), for 20% off their individual prices!

Lady in the Dark (1944)

Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Warner Baxter, Jon Hall, Barry Sullivan
Directed by Mitchell Leisen

Print: Color
Runtime: 1h 40min.
Genre: Musical
Language: English

Life has become a series of headaches and bad dreams for Liza Elliott, the successful editor-in-chief of Allure fashion magazine. She is being romanced by publisher Kendall Nesbitt, but he is married and slow in obtaining a divorce. And her second-in-command, Charley Johnson, is a cut-up who drives her so crazy with his jokes, Liza ends up seeing him in her craziest dreams at night. Reluctantly going into psychoanalysis with Dr. Alex Brooks, she discounts his theory that something from her past has caused Liza to take a no-nonsense approach to life and avoid all attempts at ever being glamorous. Colleagues swoon when Hollywood movie star Randy Curtis arrives at Allure for a photo shoot. Kendall abruptly claims to be free at last, but Liza holds him off by accepting a dinner date offer from Randy instead. Aware that he doesn't care about her looks, the Allure editor becomes quite alluring herself in a beautiful dress for a change. Charley quits to work for a magazine where he can be in charge. It turns out that all Randy is interested in is Liza running his studio's production company. While trying to persuade Charley to stay at Allure, she suddenly finds herself kissing him, the last man she'd ever expected to love.

Lady in the Dark (1954)

Ann Sothern, James Daly, Luella Gear, Paul McGrath, Shepperd Strudwick
Directed by Max Liebman

Print: Color
Runtime: 1h 25min.
Genre: Musical
Language: English

Mycroftmy Lady in the Dark is a musical with music by Kurt Weill, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin. It was produced by Sam Harris. The protagonist, Liza Elliott, is the unhappy female editor of a fashion magazine, Allure, who is undergoing psychoanalysis. The musical ran on Broadway in 1941, in the United Kingdom in 1981, and was also made into a 1944 film and this 1954 television special. The musical was broadcast on NBC Television on September 25, 1954, as part of an intermittent series under the umbrella title Max Liebman Presents. Ann Sothern played Liza, and Carleton Carpenter played Russell. The musical's theme of psychoanalysis is said to be based on the author Moss Hart's own experiences with psychoanalyst Gregory Zilboorg. Except for the final song, all the music in the play is heard in three extended dream sequences: the Glamour Dream, the Wedding Dream, and the Circus Dream which, to some extent, become three small operettas integrated into a straight play. The final song, "My Ship", functions as a leitmotif for Liza's insecurity: as each dream commences, a snippet of the tune is heard, as it is a haunting melody which Liza recognizes but cannot name, or sing with words, until her anxiety is resolved.