Watching this on Comcast On-Demand.Every time I see this musical, I am amazed at the songs...one show-stopper after another.This interpretation is, for me, magical. The songs sparkle...the vocals, orchestrations, and choreography are amazing for a "made-for-TV" movie...better than many stage versions I have seen.The debate over Bette just doesn't make sense. She is Mamma. Her voice is brilliant and yet full of the pathos of the stage mother living through her daughters. I still get tears at the end when she finally has her moment of glory, no matter how faded that glory is.The Tulsa/Louise duet/dance is on now. Fabulous.Stephen Sondheim is the King of musical theatre. His lyrics just roll off the tongue like silk...Styne's music is perhaps the best ever penned for the stage/screen.Thank God we have this masterpiece of the American Musical Theatre captured on DVD.

Based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, who painted a much more affectionate picture of their mother than did her sister, actress "Baby" June Havoc, in her autobiography, "Early Havoc" on which "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" was loosely based. I saw Ethyl Merman in the original Broadway production of Gypsy, and she was great as "Mama Rose" but certainly more "Merman" than Rose. I was disappointed with Rosalind Russell's portrayal in the 1962 movie version. An otherwise excellent actress, Russell was a very wooden substitute for Merman. Bette Midler, by contrast, was better and more believable than Merman and I'd recommend her performance as the definitive one.

Bette Midler, Should have been given an Oscar for her role as the annoying but loverble starmum Rose, her portrayal of this larger than life character, was out of this world, to the degree of thinking she would cause herself an accident by bashing into one of the cameras, im sure she forgot they were there, also her daughter gypsy rose lee, was fantastic, and what a transformation from shy withdrawn girl, to mega confident star, it's just a shame i had never heard of this film untill i bought it 10 years after it was made.

The '90s was such a wasteland for musicals--with Disney animation at least restoring some luster by way of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE LION KING etc. But live-action? Not a prayer. Yet with GYPSY, a modestly budgeted TV-movie version of the Broadway show, with a first rate cast and crew, did an exceptional job showing how such things can still happen. Midler was the necessary powerhouse as Mama Rose, and the entire cast held their own just fine. A musical shouldn't have to be bogged down with socio-political baggage to make it relevant nowadays--a production like this shows what sheer showmanship and celebration of music and dance can still be all about, albeit derived from a forty year-old source. To see a renewal of this kind of exuberant entertainment would be a wonderful thing; at least this GYPSY shows how it can still work.