- Title: The King and I
- IMDb: link
Re-released on DVD, 1956’s The King and I brought the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musical to the big screen in CinemaScope starring Deborah Kerr as schoolteacher Anna Leonowens who instructs more than just her students when she takes a job teaching the children of King Mongkut (Yul Brynner). Winning five Academy Awards (including a Best Actor Oscar for Brynner), the film holds up.
As has been stated in other corners of the Internet, the DVD version of the film is much crisper and cleaner than the Blu-ray release (where lighting and color are both inconsistent). Fans who don’t own the 50th Anniversary DVD should certainly think about adding this to their collection for the music, Brynner’s performance, and an impressive amount of extras.
The two-disc release includes most of the previous extras such as commentary by Richard Barrios and Michael Portantiere, sing-a-long and score-only audio tracks, trailers, galleries, and a long list of featurettes on the play, film, music, restoration, and historical basis for the story.
[20th Century Fox, $14.98]