The title makes one think that this movie is about stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, when it's really about her pushy backstage mother Rose Hovick, played by Rosalind Russell (even though it was Ethel Merman who made the part famous on Broadway). In fact, the DVD is included in Warner Home Video's Natalie Wood Collection, further confusing the matter.It's Wood that plays the title role, as Rose's youngest daughter Louise, who grows up in the shadow of her singing and dancing older sister June (played by Morgan Brittany, her film debut, and Ann Jillian), who went on to become actress June Havoc. Russell and eventually Wood are equal to their parts as is Karl Malden as Herbie Sommers, a stage director that falls in love with Rose and becomes the manager-agent of her ever growing child stars on the vaudeville circuit.Herbie loses his patience with Rose when he finally realizes that her ambition has become exploitation as she convinces poor Louise to be the star of a burlesque show, where she's transformed into the renowned stripper.This musical drama, which was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and adapted by Leonard Spigelgass from Lee's memoir and the play by Arthur Laurents, features two renditions of the song "Let Me Entertain You", "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and many others. Its Color Cinematography and Costume Design as well as its Score received Academy Award nominations. Harvey Korman appears uncredited as Miss Lee's agent.

I'm reassured that there are a lot of meh reviews of this film. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid, when it was "shocking" given my sheltered upbringing. What a drag it turns out to be. I suppose Natalie Wood does OK, and Baby June is as she eighty be. But Karl Malden and Rosalind Russel do not shine in it.What really annoyed me now that I'm an adult is that ... it appears to have been necessary to show Gypsy Rose Lee's rise to "queendom" depicted as though all she did to get there was this ridiculous tease showing nothing. I suppose on stage it had to be that way (back then) but gimme a break, why not just pull in for a head and shoulder shot while actually casts away her front piece! It's ridiculous as is, rather an insult to the intelligence, eh what? I think the only bit I really and truly loved was in "Ya Gotta Have a Gimmick" the 'finesse' dancer inserts bumps into a quasi-balletic routine, which was laugh out loud funny. Also I liked, as I remembered from childhood, how Gypsy's act evolves into her sultry "rap" version, despite the dire limitations of the rest of the sequence.The rest of the movie you can have...

A movie with an odd trade-off. While its a pity that Ethel Merman's knockout stage performance wasn't captured on film and her vocal renditions are of course inimitable she was never the most subtle of actresses able to convey delicate emotions. Therein lays the trade-off while Rosalind Russell was not an accomplished singer and is dubbed throughout the film she was a far superior actress enabling her to infuse the overbearing Mama Rose with emotional resonance. While she will never be a sympathetic character Roz provides some insight and offers a little understanding into her mad drive. The real Gypsy Rose Lee was assuredly more calculating and tough than she is presented here but that's an author's prerogative. Natalie Wood makes her beautiful, vulnerable and shimmering with star quality but until the great showdown scene near the end the character is really secondary. Karl Malden fills out the only other really important part as Herbie with terrific sensitivity. The music is all sensational and You Gotta Have a Gimmick is wonderfully performed. Unfortunately a few numbers were cut to keep the running time down for theatrical showings but even without them this is a high quality production from the last days when the studios still knew how to effortlessly manufacture this type of musical.

Gypsy is one of the greatest musicals of all time. In fact, I, personally, think the book for Gypsy is the finest of all time. Take away the score to most musicals and a tedious and usually hardly serviceable book is left behind. However, even if you took out all the songs from Gypsy, you'd still be left with a terrific play with great characters, humor, terror, suspense, and heartache. It's everything one would ever want in a musical.How they managed to screw up such wonderful material is beyond me! The orchestrations are lush, the sets and costumes look great, most of the actors are solid and game, but the screenplay and direction are pedestrian at best. Once the screenplay finally decides to get faithful to the source material half way in, the pace tightens up immensely. The direction, however, remains equally as dull from frame one to the last frame of the movie. There's simply no imagination put into the staging of the musical numbers at all. In fact, most of the time, I was hoping they'd just skip past most of the musical numbers and get to the book scenes.This is also, in no small part, due to the fact that no one in the cast can really handle the vocal demands of the score. Natalie Wood sounds just fine in her numbers, even charming, but poor Rosalind Russell had to be almost completely dubbed for her numbers. Strangely, Russell got rave reviews for her performance in the Broadway musical Wonderful Town. Karl Malden has so little to sing that it doesn't really make a big difference.The only numbers that pop a little bit are "You Gotta Get A Gimmick" and Louise's transformation into sexpot stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in "Let Me Entertain You". The rest fall flat. Thankfully, even if they can't handle all the vocals with the best of 'em, they certainly act the hell out of their roles. Russell, while far from perfect, at least doesn't embarrass herself like Bette Midler did in the 1993 TV movie version. Her monologue right before "Rose's Turn" is subtle and well delivered, even if the number that comes directly after it is horrendously executed. Malden is warm and charming as Herbie, Rose's poor bumbling love interest and Wood shines as timid and naive Louise. The final dressing room scene between her and Russell is quite good. This version is really only marginally better than the TV movie version and that's really only for the acting.