Johnny Mercer: The Dream's on Me | 
| Director: Bruce Ricker
Actors: Bill Charlap, Harold Arlen, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Jean Bach
Studio: Turner Home Ent
List Price: $29.98
Buy New: $24.49
as of 11/23/2009 15:03 CST details
You Save: $5.49 (18%)
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 1387
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5
UPC: 883929100682
EAN: 0883929100682
ASIN: B002LII6E6
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
Release Date: December 8, 2009 (In 15 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet released
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| Customer Reviews:
TCM Does It Again! November 13, 2009
G. Misthos
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
With all the crap and garbage on TV these days, thank God for Turner Classic Movies. They have done it again, with a splendid documentary on the underrated (my opinion) and great song writer, Johnny Mercer. He wrote an astonishing number of great songs, a few where he wrote the music and lyrics by himself, but mostly writing the lyrics and working with many melody writers, including Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Richard Whiting, and later, Henry Mancini.
There are some wonderful clips of Johnny with Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, and many others, and lots of clips of singers perfroming his songs. Two minor complaints: There was only a brief clip of Sinatra, singing "One For My Baby"--should have had more of him. And they chose to show a simply dreadful rendition of "Day in-Day Out", "sung" by Lena Horne--couldn't they have shown one of Sinatra's versions?
That aside, this is an entertaining and informative documentary that lovers of great music will enjoy very much. I highly recommend it.
 What talent! November 8, 2009
CJS (Hagerstown, MD USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an excellent look at the career of the greatest lyricist of all time - Johnny Mercer. His songs are so much a part of American life from Hooray for Hollywood, You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby, Jeepers Creepers, One for My Baby and One for the Road, Laura, Autumn Leaves, Glow Worm, Moon River, and Days of Wine and Roses - to name just a few. He had a way with words that no other lyricist has been able to repeat. This documentary contains numerous clips of Mercer - who had a great voice - along with other greats such as Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and so many others. You get a good look at Mercer's career. My only criticism is I would have liked to have known what happened to his wife and son. Like so many biographies, it did not tie up the loose ends of those important in his life but I would still highly recommend it.
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ating Mr Mercer .. and nicely done too!! November 6, 2009
J. Bryce (Toronto, Canada)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Clint Eastwood gives us a loving and carefully produced look at one the true musical geniuses of the 20th Century. This is as much a celebration of Johnny Mercer's life and music as it is a biography. It plays out like a catalogue of all the great songs, performers and writers that we grew up with. Mr Mercer seems to have had some involvement in virtually every facet of "The Great American Songbook" and he excelled in all of them. Most of all this is an enormously enjoyable and entertaining 2 hours that I could watch over and over again. That's what makes this DVD worth buying. You'll want to take it off the shelf and play it regularly.
DON'T TELL ME HE WROTE THAT, TOO! November 5, 2009
Bellabell (Oklahoma)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
We sat watching the documentary on Turner Classic Movies: "The Dream's On Me." The "dreamer" was Johnny Mercer, the songwriter whose name has cropped up time and time again in my life whenever I found a song I really loved.
We sat there, stunned to realize how much a part of our lives this Southern gentleman had been. "Did he write THAT!" "My gosh! Was THAT his too?" "Wow! I learned 'Jeepers creepers' in the fourth grade!"
"Lazybones" and "Day In and Day Out," "I'm An Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande" and "That Old Black Magic"--all by the same writer? "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "Autumn Leaves"?
The documentary features great clips by the best singers of the 20th century, vocalizing or playing with Mercer or while he listens: Bing Crosby, the Mills Brothers, Andy Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland (found out something about her we didn't know!), Tony Bennett, Nat "King" Cole--on and on.
The documentary follows Mercer's career into the Seventies, when music trends changed and his kind of ballad passed from popularity, and when I no longer learned the words of dozens of songs. More than any other lyricist in the world, Johnny Mercer was the man who gave my generation its love songs. What a debt we owe him! His tombstone uses yet another of his unforgettable phrases: "And the Angels Sing." Indeed they did.
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