Chicago (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Product Description This Razzle-Dazzle Edition is the ultimate CHICAGO DVD Collection and features the award-winning motion picture and brand-new bonus material! Winner of six Academy Awards(R) (2002) including Best Picture, and starring Academy Award(R) nominee Renée Zellweger (Best Actress, CHICAGO), Academy Award(R) winner Catherine Zeta-Jones (Best Supporting Actress, CHICAGO), Academy Award(R) nominee Queen Latifah (Best Supporting Actress, CHICAGO), Golden Globe winner Richard Gere (Best Actor, CHICAGO), and Academy Award(R) nominee John C. Reilly (Best Supporting Actor, CHICAGO) -- CHICAGO is a dazzling spectacle of unparalleled entertainment! Additional Features DVD features: Strangely, the most valuable special feature comes not on the extras-laden second disc in this "Razzle-Dazzle" edition, but on the first disc. It's what the first DVD release's behind-the-scenes featurette was sorely missing: an inside look at the Broadway stage version, complete with interviews with the original 1975 cast. Chita Rivera (who played Velma Kelly), the late Jerry Orbach (Billy Flynn), and Ann Reinking (who stepped in after Gwen Verdon, the first Roxie Hart, left the production), discuss the tepid reaction Bob Fosse's production first received when it opened in 1975. It's also revealed that Liza Minnelli's one-month understudy role--stepping in when Verdon swallowed a feather--may have financially saved the musical. Minnelli's contribution gets its own featurette on the second disc, in addition to a Chita Rivera tribute and a replay of the VH-1 Behind the Movie: Chicago special. Each of the musical numbers gets the "extended version" treatment, which splices in different camera angles and rehearsal footage. A feature on director Rob Marshall is also interesting, and it?s always fascinating to watch him choreograph and hoof it next to Catherine Zeta-Jones (though this footage gets repetitive after a while). A more in-depth comparison of staging between the Broadway and film versions' musical numbers would have been a worthwhile addition, but the "Razzle-Dazzle" edition is still a leaps-and-bounds improvement.--Ellen A. Kim.