The movie gives the impression of a filmed Broadway show - largely due to the wonderful sets - and it works beautifully. It is remarkably true to its Broadway origins only substituting a couple of new songs. For me, the cream of the crop is Vivian Blaine's portrayal of Adelaide. My only gripe is that the film cuts the reprise of her side-splitting "Lament". How could they NOT include the couplet "so much virus inside, that her microscope slide looks like a day at the zoo."?!!!

pure joy
Review date: 2003-02-07 Rating: 10 out of 10

I'm always looking out for videos to amuse both adults and children, and this is a jewel that my 10 year old adored. The dramatisation of Damon Runyon's classic short stories about small-time crooks, mobsters and chorus girls it starts with a long and very funny sequence tracking a pickpocket ambling through a crowded Times Square and getting away with tourists' wallets etc. The theme of "dolls" having the upper hand over "guys" made into a kind of ballet, and by the time three of the "guys" are gathered to give their illegal betting tips, a mood of 1950s liveliness and innocence established.
Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) runs the "oldest floating crap-game in New York", but gambling is illegal and Brannigan, a cop, is makig life uncomfortable for him just as some big gamblers have flown into town. Nathan can hold his game in a garage only if he pays $1000 to the owner, but how to get the money? He spots Skye Masterson (Brando), who boasts all girls are the same, and bets him that even he can't succeed in getting the prim Salvation Army militant, Sarah Brown, to go out with him that evening. However, Skye succeeds in persuading her by promising to bring "a dozen hardened sinners" to her mission the following night. They go to Havana - only to fall in love. In order to make good his bet, Skye then has to pin his hopes on a single roll fo the dice...

The songs, dances, costumes and script crackle with old-fashioned glamour and wit. Brando can't sing for toffee, but it doesn't matter because he's got everything else. Jean Simmons is perfect - sweet and a bit coarse underneath, and Vivian Blaine as Miss Abigail a perfect combination of cat-like shrewdness and kittenish naivety. Ol' Blue Eyes typecast as a seedy low-lifer. Pure joy.

A Magical Musical.
Review date: 2002-05-13 Rating: 10 out of 10

I would say that anyone who loves musicals will
have seen guys & Dolls-to any one who has not seen this Musical and has no more than a passing
interest in musicals then make the effort- it will
be an experience you will not forget-Marlon Brando singing "A Woman In Love" to Jean Simmons
after he has taken her for dinner in Havana Cuba
is a joy- and Sinatra singing to adelaide the "sue Me " number when she finds that he is running "crap games" and the line of the song "Sue me" -sue me-sue me- shoot bullets through me-I love you- it makes you feel sorr7y for them both-but alls well that ends well when they finally marry in a double wedding ceromony with Brando & Jean Simmons---go out and buy -borrow (-but don't steal,) the video or dvd
and have yourself a ball!!

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