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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: United Artists
Salesrank: 53984
Released: May 20, 2008 |
| Our Price: $3.00 |
| Used Price: $2.25 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
One of the funniest, most entertaining movies-you-never-heard-of. Jason Robards shines as the well-meaning but manipulative comedian and Britt Ekland is the lovably innocent Amish girl in this affectionately, poignant but lighthearted view of Burlesque and a time gone by.
Description of The Night They Raided Minsky's:
Before The French Connection made him a household name, William Friedkin drafted this love letter to the burlesque era. In 1925, Amish redhead Rachel (Swedish bombshell Britt Ekland) travels from Pennsylvania to New York to dance. On the advice of Professor Spats (The Wizard of Oz's Bert Lahr, who died during filming), she catches the variety show at Minsky's, which is run by the proprietor's son, Billy (Elliot Gould). Comic duo Raymond (Jason Robards) and Chick (Oscar nominee Norman Wisdom) enlist Rachel to perform her Bible routine, billed as the scandalous Madamoiselle Fifi, to make a fool out of moral guardian Vance Fowler (Denholm Elliot), who threatens to sic the vice squad on the theater if they don't tone things down. While helping her prepare, both men fall for "this real religious girl," but Chick, as Raymond puts it, "suffers from "the curse of the three Ds." He's "decent, devoted and dependable," while his partner is "a BFC," i.e. "Bastard First Class." Rachel gets the last word when she accidentally invents the striptease. Adapted from the novel by Rowland Barber (Somebody up There Likes Me) and produced by Norman Lear (All in the Family), Minsky's zips between comedy and drama through the rapid-fire editing of Ralph Rosenblum (The Producers), who inter-cut the newsreel footage in post-production. If the film feels like a battle between opposing sensibilities, i.e. art vs. commerce, warm-hearted entertainment wins out in the end. The only real crime is that this long-awaited title arrives without any extras. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
The Night They Raided Minsky's Reviews:
A GREAT old movie 
2009-11-24 - Minsky's is a great comedy about the days of vaudeville vs. Burlesque and a naive young girls venture into show business. Just a delightful story, a lot of laughs and generally entertaining.
Better than most TV....try it!
the night they raided minskys 
2009-03-28 - yes i receive the night they raided minskys and i just love also i had a vhs tape of it i let someone borrow it they gave it back to me and i just miss it so much and when i saw it on line amazon i knew i had to get it
A obscure classic,,,
2009-02-21 - I first saw this film while I was stationed in Iceland, It was broadcast from Denmark or Norway, A very Late night movie. I remember trying to watch it through static and snow, and never saw it again.. The film is a accurate look at Vaudille for 1925. One of the Minsky family was a production consultant. Brit Ekland is beutiful as always (no plastic surgery on her) Jason Robards was also very convincing as well. One high point is the appearance of Burt Lahr (The cowardly lion) in what I think is his final film. All of the skits that were performed came from actual shows from the 1920's.
Fine Early Effort From Friedkin
2008-10-13 - "The Night They Raided Minsky's" is what I would call a qualified success. It offers some insight into burlesque circa 1925 New York. The dialogue, delivered in rat-a-tat fashion, is hit or miss but gets the bullseye most of the time. What distinguishes the film is the direction of William Friedkin who fluorished in the Seventies only to peter out somewhere around "Cruising". Here, Friedkin is surehanded delivering a film of both style and substance. This is a crisply edited film that delivers eyedropping visuals with it's stunning art direction and costume design. The cast is littered with pros but the film's rapid-fire pacing doesn't really allow anybody to shine though I did like a young Elliott Gould as the show promoter and Denholm Elliott as a legion-of-decency type. This film interested me because of Friedkin's presence behind the camera but others should enjoy it as well. Now if they would only put "The Brink's Job" out on disc.
A Cracked Seltzer Bottle 
2008-08-04 - This movie is a great big flawed bundle of fun, fun enough to make it worthwhile in spite of itself.
As theater history, it's oversimplified and just short of coy. Nudity didn't come to the popular stage by way of Minsky's, and there were far worse shows for raunchiness (Earl Carroll's, anyone?). As for the movie itself, I suspect its inner unity suffered a permanent blow with the unexpected death of Bert Lahr during production. "Professor Spats" was obviously supposed to have a bigger role in the story, and Lahr all but steals the show anyway, even if he's only symbolically present in the final heart-tugging scene.
Lahr is certainly more watchable than a miscast Jason Robards, who is just too old to be sympathetic or even acceptable as naive Britt Ekland's love interest. Robards seems more like a predator than a suitor, making his sudden change-of-heart unconvincing.
The movie totters back and forth from farce comedy to human drama, while its take on history has to be taken with as much salt as those "Genuine Belgian chocolates--with the nuts inside!" However, in what other movie are you going to find Britt Ekland, Norman Wisdom, Elliot Gould, Denholm Elliot, Forrest Tucker, Bert Lahr, Jack Burns (a riot as the candy butcher), dear old Judith Lowry as dear old Mother Annie, a very young Richard Libertini, the voice of Rudy Vallee, and the jovial Dexter Maitland (doing what he did at Minsky's), reviving the shadow of burlesque and doing so with contagious joy? The music itself is worth the cost of this very basic, no-extras disk. And for added fun, try counting how many studio names appear in the packaging and credits.
The only major complaint I can make about this movie is that it didn't include more than a few lines from classic burlesque comedy routines (thank burlesque the next time you enjoy Abbott and Costello, the Three Stooges, and even "The Wizard of Oz"). Overall, this movie still packs some bellylaughs and pulchritude (there is a fleeting glimpse of breasts, so beware if kids are in the room). Whaddya waiting for--go get it.
