Art Vandelay
This movie is practically the embodiment of the big MGM musical dragging itself into the 60s on its last legs. The songs are dull and forced. There's no memorable dancing. It comes across as cheap local theatrics. Who was buying tickets to watch this in 1960? People born in the 1800s? Once the thrilling West Side Story - a flawed film version of a great musical - has been committed to celluloid I fail to see how dialing back the clock 5 or 6 decades would sell tickets. Just check out the staircase scene where they're singing about who knows what, with the men in tuxedos and women in their gowns. The women look and move elegantly. But then the men starting singing. Check out the guy in the white tux. He prances around like a Kansas City...well, lets just say he wasn't dating any of those gals in real life. I couldn't bare to watch. And it seems to go on all night.
Lawson
I'm not a musical fan so I always give extra props to the ones I do love. Bells Are Ringing is a Broadway hit brought to the screen and Judy Holliday reprises her Tony Award-winning role in it.The story has a basic Cinderella plot but what's charming about it is Holliday's inimitable bubbly blonde style and the character she plays - an overly-helpful "Susanswerphone" answering service attendant (like a human voice mail service) who likes to give advice to her clients and ends up falling for a playboy playwright, Dean Martin. It also helps that the movie's directed by Vincente Minnelli, who excels at musicals, and written by Broadway luminaries - and close friends of Holliday - Betty Comden and Adolph Green (their most famous work being Singin' in the Rain).I have to say the movie's all the more powerful if you know that it was Judy Holliday's last movie and that she was already ill with the cancer that would eventually kill her five years later at the age of 44. I wish she had made more movies but at least she's been in gems like this one, along with Born Yesterday and Adam's Rib.
moonspinner55
Director Vincente Minnelli gets this stagy adaptation of the Broadway success off to a splashy start; however, like most musicals helmed by the erratic Minnelli, he never quite lives up to that colorful opening. Beginning with a succession of ringing rotary phones--all in kicky colors--the prelude acts as an advertisement for Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service. It looks as though this going be pure genius, until we find out that nervously-wired Judy Holliday is the only operator Susanswerphone seems to have (and she's the kooky type, getting involved in other people's lives because she has nothing going on in her own). Holliday is in love with one of the clients, a Broadway playwright who thinks he's washed up, and feels guilty about dating him under an alias, but her situation doesn't seem exceptionally dire. Dean Martin (miscast) sings a nice, funny version of "Just in Time" with Holliday, but otherwise hasn't much to offer. The stale plot, trite and cozy-contrived, gets a boost from the musical moments, but even those are not staged with much excitement. Too bad...Susanswerphone had great possibilities. **1/2 from ****
perfectbond
Fans of Dean Martino and Judy Holliday (né Tuvim) will enjoy this musical. I am a fan of both of them so I could overlook the awkward staging of the Susanswerphone set, the believeability of Maritn as a writer and the dead weight of the subplot involving the racketeers. Still there are some well-sung songs and good, if not great chemistry, between the stars. For non-fans: 6/10. For fans: 7/10.
AD
