The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr, Ray Walston, Juanita Hall
Directed By: Joshua Logan

This pop-cultural phenomenon has been performed on stage for more than 50 million patrons in 26 countries for almost 18 years, churning more than US$2 billion in ticket sales. Now that Cats has finally made it to the small screen, attention must be paid not just by fans of this critic-proof show, but also by those entertainment mavens who have somehow avoided Cats until now. The ...

Manufacturer: Universal Pictures UK
Starring: Elaine Paige, John Mills, Ken Page, Rosemarie Ford, Michael Gruber
Directed By: David Mallet

Billed as an updating and retelling of Irish folk legend, Lord of the Dance is less Erin Go Bragh than Hooray for Hollywood. Michael Flatley, lately of Riverdance, gives us the old razzle-dazzle, fashioning a Celtic-influenced spectacular that wanders faraway from its Riverdance roots. The light-show presentation is closer kin to another contemporary Irish musical group, U2. ...

Manufacturer: Vision Video Ltd.
Starring: Michael Flatley, Bernadette Flynn, Daire Nolan, Gillian Norris, Helen Egan
Directed By: David Mallet

Adapted from the long-running stage version, this big-screen Chicago is a non-stop singing and dancing extravaganza that may well herald the welcome revival of the film musical. When the part-time lover of wannabe star Roxie (Renee Zellweger) is murdered, she is banged up with Chicago's most famous singing murderess, Velma (Catherine Zeta-Jones). They compete for the attention of the best ...

Manufacturer: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Taye Diggs, Cliff Saunders
Directed By: Rob Marshall

Starring: RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, LONDON PHILHARMONIC
Directed By: LOUIS FREMAUX

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Anita Loos' old story from the 1920s about a pair of single women in search of husbands, gets a makeover in Howard Hawks' 1953 musical. The remake stars Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe as two friends who go to Paris looking for mates. The film is charged by Hawks's stylish snap, a famous set piece or two (Monroe descending that staircase while singing "Diamonds are ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan
Directed By: Howard Hawks

The winner of 10 Academy Awards, this 1961 musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile delinquency, West Side Story stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers from different neighbourhoods--and ...

Manufacturer: MGM Entertainment
Starring: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno
Directed By: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise

A GI (Gene Kelly) stays in Paris after the war to become an artist, and has to choose between the patronage of a rich American woman (Nina Foch) and a French gamine (Leslie Caron) engaged to an older man. The plot is mostly an excuse for director Vincente Minnelli to pool his own extraordinary talent with those of choreographer-dancer-actor Kelly and the artists behind the screenplay, art ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guétary, Nina Foch
Directed By: Vincente Minnelli

Though it's not in the same league as the classic screen musicals, Annie's heartwarming rags-to-riches storyline, social comment (shallow as it may be) and catchy songs make for an entertaining and unpretentious 90 minutes' viewing. Aileen Quinn is the irrepressible titular orphan, by no means as irritating as she looks in the cover picture; Albert Finney is Oliver Warbucks, the tyrannical ...

Manufacturer: Uca Catalogue
Starring: Aileen Quinn, Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, Ann Reinking, Tim Curry
Directed By: John Huston

Manufacturer: Teldec Video (Warner Classics)
Starring: Josep Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Zubin Mehta
Directed By: Brian Large