DVDTIMES:

[quote]Warner Home Video have announced the Region 1 DVD release of The Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Collection: Ultimate Collector's Edition on 25th September 2007. Warner celebrates the incomparable talents of the legendary dynamic entertainment duo, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland with this new set which features Mickey and Judy singing, dancing, clowning and lifting spirits in the four “backyard musical' extravaganzas that forever cemented their reputation as one of Hollywood's most beloved screen teams. The M-G-M musical classics in this collection, finally making their first appearance on DVD, are the duo's most famous and successful teamings: Babes in Arms, Babes on Broadway, Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy.

This new five-disc DVD collection also includes a separate Bonus Disc of special features, with nearly three hours of essential viewing for Rooney & Garland fans, including Private Screenings with Mickey Rooney, an in-depth, deeply personal interview hosted by TCM's Robert Osborne, and The Judy Garland Songbook, an unprecedented collection of 21 Garland movie musical numbers, both famous and rare, spanning nearly 20 years of her amazing screen career, with all songs presented in complete form. The bonus disc also features an extensive Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland trailer gallery.

Each movie in the collection has a newly-filmed, exclusive introduction by Mickey Rooney as well as vintage comedy shorts, cartoons and radio promos. Memorabilia that no fan will be able to resist rounds out the set with a portfolio of 20 collectible rare behind-the-scenes photos and a collectable guide to the set, featuring vintage memorabilia, promotional advertisements, and other rarities, along with production notes written by noted film historian John Fricke. Fricke also provides commentary on two of the films. The Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Ultimate Collector's Edition will be sold as a complete set only, in beautiful keepsake packaging, for $49.92 SRP.

“Our “Ultimate Collector's Editionâ€

I'll be interested in seeing that restored FDR scene in Babes in Arms. I wonder what "keepsake" packaging means?

Now, I know that these 4 movies are the best ones out of the 16 (?) Andy Hardy movies that were made. But calling this set The Ultimate Rooney and Garland Collection is a bit of a stretch particularly when everyone knows they made more movies together.

Still, sounds like a great set.

Actually, these are not Andy Hardy movies. It is expected that all of the Andy Hardy movies will be released together in a set, including the ones with Judy: Love Finds Andy Hardy (previously released), Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Life Begins for Andy Hardy, and Andy Hardy Comes Home (if you count that one because Judy only appears in a clip from a previous movie).

I stand corrected. I always mix them up, anyway. Not much difference in plot lines, is there?

Well, not a whole lot. These particular films are all really similar, though. Of the "let's put on a show in the barn" variety. I'm not really a big fan. I dislike Rooney intensely, Judy had not yet come into her own, and Busby Berkeley as director shows none of the imagination that made him famous at Warner Bros just a few years earlier. There is some scandalous blackface in Babes on Broadway, though.

what are the other WB "Ultimate Collector's Edition"s? The Superman and Forbidden Planet sets?

(EDIT: I had animation on the brain and wrote "Fantastic" instead of "Forbidden")

Just thank the lord Warner didn't include any Andy Hardy pictures. They're the pits - pure and total Louis B cheese. Insupportable! (as in the French.) The titles in this set only just come alive in a few of the dance numbers.

But the old Queens seem to adore Judy in that adolescent phase. Because she never gets a man? POOR Judy!

Those, plus the complete Astaire and Rogers collection and the deluxe editions of The Searchers and Rio Bravo.

Kudos to WB, but they might as well have included Throughbreds Don't Cry.

I can't help but wonder if they're gonna comment on the blackface musical numbers in these films. Our office worked on these DVD's. At least two of those films have them.