Marybee223

Written by the ever talented Jack Rosenthal, Bye Bye Baby explores the often hilarious world of a young Jewish lad conscripted into two years National Service, and how he survives the Russians, the Royal Navy and the relationship with the girl back home. Its Leo's job to find the call-sign for the Albatross, the "biggest fish" in the Russian Navy. All the while, Leo is aided and abetted by the most famous sex symbol the world has ever known.

This is a clever charming film set in Edinburgh. The movie uses the device of Ellen (Gina McKee),a successful cartoonist, inviting her friends to a post-divorce party. A series of flashbacks fill in her background and that of her best friend, Cora (Helena Bonham Carter). The quieter of the two, Ellen was married to smooth charmer Daniel (James Purefoy)for three years. Cora's longest relationship was with Frenchman Claude (Julien Lambroschini)for 10 months, leaving her a single mother. During these flashbacks, Daniel turns out to be a serious gambler who was always on the run from moneylenders and Claude an unreliable lover who leaves Cora as soon as she becomes pregnant. Clearly these women share bad judgement in men. Ellen and Cora turn out to be linked in more ways than friendship-the revelation provokes a split between the women. The film does an excellent job in handling and resolving the conflict between Ellen and Cora. I hope this film comes to the North American market soon!

Despite this being a made for TV film of Trevor Nunn's Royal National Theatre staged play, I love the film and I'm a hard to please huge fan of the original cinemascope Oklahoma! over which Rodgers and Hammerstein personally oversaw every detail. This Oklahoma! shines regardless of the limitations of being filmed on a stage. Trevor Nunn's Oklahoma! was such a huge hit and deserved to be memorialized by this film. As the intact original cast of this play is not going to Broadway with the show starting February 23, 2002 at the Gershwin Theater, I am happy that I have the movie with the original cast from the London show. The dvd is a special treat as there are many interviews with Nunn, Rodgers' daughter, and various actors. I enjoyed watching the interview with Nunn in which he explains his understanding of Oklahoma!. I also enjoyed watching Hugh Jackman explain how Nunn told him to speak the lyrics to Curly's songs during rehearsals for several weeks before singing them so that the songs could develop the inflection of dialogue. I think that all the actors in this movie gave new interpretations to the Oklahoma! characters. Certainly Maureen Lipman's Aunt Eller shines as does Hugh Jackman's incomparable Curly.