Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9915 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-05-03
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Greek, French, Dutch, Romanian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 135 minutes

Synopsis
Annie (Bette Davis), an ageing apple-seller, passes herself off as a woman of wealth in order to impress her daughter's fiance. Young Louise (Ann-Margret) has just returned from years in Spain and hopes to marry into the well to-do family of a Count. Assisting Annie in her comic charade is a motley group of small-time-gangsters who love Annie and would do anything to help her. Director Frank Capra re-made his own LADY FOR A DAY for this, his final film.

Customer Reviews

Miraculous
My wife and I saw this film some years ago on a wet afternoon on an English seaside holiday. It hasn't aged at all [unlike us] It is still a very humourous, gentle film with acting of the highest order from Bette Davis, Glenn Ford and Peter Falk. There al strong supporting roles from Hope Lange and Thomas Mitchell plus superb cameo roles from Edward Everett Horton as the butler and a young Jack Elam [always a scene stealer!]

This film wins because all the charcters in it - The Governor, the Mayor, the Police chiefs, the criminal fraternity, everyone in fact is played so that you can believe in them. For example you can believe that David Brian is the Governor of New York State. You can believe that the taxi driver towards the end of the film is an actual New York cabbie.

This DVD is worth every penny of sheer escapism!

Capra comes a cropper
Pocketful of Miracles, Frank Capra's 1961 remake of his 1933 hit Lady For a Day, would be his last film, and it's not hard to see why. It feels stretched out at 137 minutes, as if intended as a musical a la Guys and Dolls only to have the songs dropped at the last minute, and Bette Davis' Apple Annie is very, very hard to root for. While May Robson in the original had an edge behind the sweet old lady act, Davis chooses to play her as a vicious drunken thug no-one in their right minds would put themselves out for, let alone go to enormous lengths to pass off as a member of New York high society so that the daughter she hasn't seen in years can marry a Spanish aristocrat. It's a performance so horrendously misjudged you have to wonder not only what was she thinking but why Capra didn't have a quiet word with her. He should have just waited until Helen Hayes (his original choice) was available instead - she could have pulled the part off in her sleep. Davis is such a total b**** in the film you keep on hoping someone will drive a stake through her heart.

Co-producer Glenn Ford struggles and loses as Dude the Dave, his usual charisma largely gone AWOL here and replaced by too many broad and unconvincing frustrated mannerisms, though Hope Lange fares better as his girl, Thomas Mitchell has a few nice moments in his last screen role and Peter Falk is an entertainingly exasperated sidekick. While there's certainly room for improvement in the original, the film never manages it. The script isn't as witty (Edward Everett Horton's butler never gets a line as good as Halliwell Hobbs' "If I had choice of weapons with you, I'd choose grammar" in the original), once again Capra shows that colour was not one of his fortes and strangest of all, despite the added running time it has less of the flavor of Damon Runyon's short stories than not only the original but any other Runyon screen adaptation. It's certainly watchable enough and not half as dragged out as Jackie Chan's remake Miracles, but despite the odd moment here and there it's nothing that'll stick in your memory.

The UK DVD has an anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 transfer but while the US (non-anamorphic) release includes the original trailer introduced by Ed Sullivan, is extras-free.

A great piece of cinema
I first saw this film when it was released. Recently something reminded of it and I bought the DVD. For my taste, the second viewing was as enjoyable as the first but who could fail to enjoy an offering starring Bette Davis and Glenn Ford? Genuinely worthwhile entertainment which includes so much from which we can all learn.