Bing Crosby: Screen Legend Collection (DVD, 2006, Franchise Collection 3 - Disc Set)

The Bing Crosby Screen Legend Collection includes five movies on three DVDs packaged in an attractive box. The pictures are Double or Nothing (1937), East Side of Heaven (1939), Here Come the Waves (1944), If I Had My Way (1940), and Waikiki Wedding (1937), the last of which is my favorite. While not the greatest movies Bing ever made, these five titles are enjoyable and have good sound and picture quality.

My two complaints with this collection are that the small packaging requires two DVDs snap in as to overlap, making it difficult to get out the disc underneath, and that the DVDs do not have a scene selection menu, requiring you to fast-forward and rewind the old-fashioned way to watch specific songs/scenes. I thought nearly every DVD by now had scene selection as an option, but these discs do not. It's quite annoying not to have the easy access.

I recommend the Bing Crosby Screen Legend Collection to fans of Der Bingle, who will be glad to have these five pictures on DVD.

Originally saw "Double or Nothing" at one of the four "Academies of Proven Hits" in the Los Angeles area (probably a "Realart Rerelease.") I considered it one of the better pictures that I'd seen. It's one of the early Crosby pictures made in the '30s.
This DVD package includes that picture as well as four others. Four are from the 1937 to 1940 era while the fifth, "Here Come the Waves" was a 1944 film. In 1937, Crosby was about 34 and had been playing parts where the themes, many times, included being a carefree easygoing young man with no burning ambition until circumstances, such as being able to adopt a child in his version of "Pennies From Heaven," (not in this package but available on DVD) forced him to prove himself by struggling for success. He might want to open a nightclub or roadhouse, which would also allow introducing variety acts in a time before they would have enormous television exposure.
While they might not be considered screwball comedies, some of the material might have been influenced by them, made as escapist fare from life at the tail end of the 1929 depression. An example would be the solution to a problem with his new nightclub in "Double or Nothing" being evicted from its location. It was moved by throwing a switch which started numerous motors and pulleys that pulled it into an adjoining empty warehouse. The greedy heirs who were there to witness the closure they instigated were left sitting alone in their now empty warehouse.
The musical numbers were also of a higher quality than might be used in other similar comedy films.
When I received this package, I decided to play the films at intervals instead of all at once. I've played "Double or Nothing" two or three times, repeating the musical number "All You Want to Do is Dance" with Mary Carlisle more than that, have looked at "Waikiki Wedding" which seemed less than I expected and "East Side of Heaven" which seemed more. Still waiting to play "If I Had My Way" and see if the good comments I’ve seen are deserved and "Here Come the Waves" which seems out of place among the other titles, being of a slightly different era when Crosby was involved with the comparatively more contrived, in my opinion, "Road to ..." pictures with Bob Hope and appeared separately as the still easygoing character in more serious situations.
They are all enjoyable pictures but I would have preferred the fifth choice to have been one of his earlier pictures, especially one not available on TV.
I'd seen complaints in reviews about the product that the transfer was not too good. I thought the picture quality very good but had a problem with "D or N" freezing for a short time before continuing and "East Side of Heaven" stopping and having to reverse it before being able to continue on. These pictures are the first ones on different disks so the problem might be in manufacturing with compression and protection worrying my player. I would be interested in knowing if others might have experienced the same problem.
If you check the Crosby filmography on the internet you can find enough pre-40's titles for at least two more collections of this size. Just my opinion, but I hope that these other pictures make it to DVD or maybe cable. At least before "the blue of the night meets the gold of the day"

Enjoyed seeing the films of Bings from 1937 through 1944. This period showed a major decline in his voice during this period. Over the seven year period his voice went from a vibrant lovely sound to a tired wobbly voice by 1944. His naturalness in front of a camera was a delight. Not great cinema,but entertaining.