Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

MartinHafer If I really loved musicals, I would have probably scored the movie a 9. In fact, that I scored it as high as an 8 is an indication that, for the genre, it was a heck of a film. That's because the story apart from the songs is very sweet and romantic. Plus, the actors are so appealing and good that this certainly improved the film a lot. Judy Holliday was at her best and Dean Martin certainly was able to keep up with her and I really liked him more in this musical than as a comedian. Despite films like MATT HELM, he was a good actor and singer. Now, concerning the songs, it's rare that I have seen a musical with so many songs I have never heard before! But, after hearing them, I liked them a lot more than many of the more famous Rogers and Hammerstein musical scores from other pictures. This is because in addition to having nice music, the words were so often funny and charming. I particularly liked the song all the bookies sang as well as the name-dropping song! They were terrific.The only thing is that watching the film I felt pretty depressed, as I knew that this was Ms. Holliday's last film--cancer limited her ability to act until she eventually succumbed six years later. It's a shame, as I loved her in so many wonderful films.

TallPineTree For all the musicals I have watched in my life I didn't think there were many left to watch, or at least good ones to watch. I wouldn't say this was a great movie, but it is charming in an old dated way.While the basic premise of the movie (one person helps other people unbeknownst to them) is timeless, the gimmick, a telephone answer service operator, is ancient. 1960 may be before answering machines were in use, but seeing Judy Holliday plug and unplug cables into a switchboard to answer phone calls seems so 1930s or 1940s. I guess we won't be seeing this movie remade by Hollywood.I enjoyed the opening montage of why an phone answering service is needed. It was colorful, glamorous, brisk, and I enjoyed seeing the standard phone from that era in all the colors to match the various scenes. I still have a phone like that somewhere.In one of his first movies without Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin looks uncertain - not that his character has much of a story. Judy Holliday is what makes this movie watchable. Her energy and comic talent and voices are a reason to watch the movie. Instead of acting in movies, I think she could have done well on TV and rivaled Lucille Ball.At 2 hrs and 7 minutes this movie runs on too long. I, and I think most people, have less of a tolerance these days for musical numbers that stop the flow of a movie. Musical numbers must be outstanding to be worthwhile. A few songs in this movie had a familiar ring to them and were OK, but this movie certainly has some songs that should have been cut.The story obviously came from a stage play and is constricted because of it. While there isn't a whole lot to this "girl meets/helps boy" story, more could have been done with Judy & Dean's interaction. The time spent at the switchboard should have been shortened. The bookie subplot should have been shortened or eliminated.The women's gowns are colorful and glamorous, and I found the scene cute where Judy slowly takes off items from her dress in order to make it fit in with the style of dresses the other women are wearing at the party. I thought Judy's dress "before" and "after" both looked nice.The scene where the men figure out 'the woman they know is the same woman' actually was interesting. What could have been a quick dull plot point to move the story along was jazzed up by women at the club swirling around the men as the men sang, and the men oblivious to the sexy women as they danced and drew on the men's faces.So, an enjoyable movie when one is in the mood for a 50s/60s style of musical comedy. Watch the movie for Judy, the gowns, and that 1950s innocence. Oh yeah, and Frank Gorshin's Marlan Brando impersonation.

theowinthrop Judy Holliday gained Broadway stardom and entry into Hollywood with her performance as Billie Dawn in BORN YESTERDAY. She also would score on Broadway for the last time in the musical THE BELLS ARE RINGING. I find it amazing, given the paucity of her film career, that these two stage performances were preserved, while so many great stage performances (of Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Ethel Waters) failed to get preserved in the Hollywood system. Obviously the saleability of Holliday in 1960 was higher than that of Merman (even after ANNIE GET YOUR GUN), most likely due to her Oscar. One can only be grateful to providence or whatever for coming to Holliday's aid here - one wishes it could have stepped up for the others more often.THE BELLS ARE RINGING was directed by Vincent Minelli, and has some great musical numbers in it: Eddie Foy's "It's a Simple Little System" where his record sales mask a bookie operation, culminating in a mock song spiel of serious music lovers singing the names of race courses to the "Hallelujah" Chorus; the "Drop that Name" number at Fred Clark's party, wherein the only name of a celebrity Judy can recall is Rin Tin Tin; the "Just in Time" song and dance by Dean Martin and Judy Holliday in a mini-park, and it's follow-up of "The Party's Over", probably Judy's best sung tune in her career. Not all the show's tunes are in the movie. Eddie Foy sings a song to Jean Stapleton (Sue of Sue's Answer Phone) to romance her with his mock European elegance - the song is called "Salzberg by the Sea" which shows how phony he really is (Salzberg is in the center of landlocked Austria!).The film is well set in it's period, in two odd ways. One is a gag in the story: Frank Gorshin as method actor Blake Barton, who is an obvious spoof of Marlon Brando. The other is the appearance of Dean Martin as Jeffrey Moss, the troubled composer hero of the musical who romances Ella Peterson (Judy). In the Broadway production it was Hal Linden who played opposite Judy (he appears in this film, in his first film role, singing the song "The Midas Touch" at a nightclub). But Martin was a nationally known singer, and movie star. But he was, in real life, facing a situation exactly like Jeffrey Moss. Moss (before the story of the show begins) has been in a successful theater team, like Gilbert and Sullivan or Rodgers and Hammerstein...or like Martin and Lewis. In fact, Moss's partner just broke up the partnership (and is doing well on his own - like Lewis did at first). Moss's funk is what the public in 1960 thought Martin had faced a few years earlier when Lewis split with him.The movie showcases Judy's comic talents, as she stimulates Martin, Gorshin, Bernie West (the musically inclined Dr. Kitchell), confronts Dort Clarke (the ambitious Inspector Barnes), and aids a desperate Otto when threatened by hoods. She handles the situations well, reminding us of how talented a lady she was. It was a fitting conclusion to her career - but a sad reminder that that career deserved to be far longer than it was.

Nick Zegarac (movieman-200) Vincente Minnelli's "Bells Are Ringing" (1960) generally gets a bad wrap from reviewers and critics alike. While it is true that the film came at the tail end of MGM's reign of supremacy in musical motion picture entertainment – and it is equally true that the film falls short by direct comparison to, say, Minnelli's "Meet Me In St. Louis (an unfair but often used example), all the pistons are firing on this occasion with this delightful story of a phone operator who falls in love with one of her clients.The story concerns lonely Ella Peterson (Judy Holliday in her final performance). Working out of a basement apartment for Susan's-a-phone (a personal message service), Ella longs for the good life and the right fella to fill her needs. However, that doesn't prevent her plucky personality from offering equal portions of good advice and smart talk to her roster of happy clients. Ella's fraternization doesn't particularly sit well with her employer, Sue (Jean Stapleton) who is all dollars and cents, or police detective, Barnes (Dort Clark) who advises Ella that it's illegal to provide unsolicited information in the capacity of a business acquaintance. But Ella is all set to throw caution to the wind when she falls in love with Plaza 0-double four, double nine. That extension belongs to Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin), a once successful playwright who fears that his days of popularity are numbered and has since turned to shallow women and hollow relationships for solace.Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green transform their Broadway original into a sublime cinematic treat. Minnelli directs adroitly and – given the limited budget he had to work with – delivers a film that appears to be on a much grander scale than it actually is. Particularly in his execution of the "Drop that Name" sequence – in which Ella lampoons her association with the hoi polloi, Minnelli's brisk camera work and staging is flawless. The same is true during Eddy Foy Jr.'s charming romp in "Oh, What A System". Delivered with comedic panache and laconic savvy a la the darling Holliday and charming Martin, the rest of the score, including such standards as "Just in Time" and "Drop That Name" is brilliant and bouncy.Thanks to Warner's stunning new transfer, "Bells are Ringing" arrives 'just in time' on DVD. The anamorphically enhanced Cinemascope image is outstanding. Colors are nicely balanced. Image quality is a marked improvement over anything this film has looked like before on home video. Blacks are rich, deep and solid. Whites are crisp, but never blooming. There is a hint of film grain and the occasional shimmer of fine detail but nothing that will distract you from wallowing in the riotous splendor of this musical classic. The audio has been impeccably remastered in 5.1 and delivers an unexpectedly powerful kick during the songs. The one disappointment for admirers of this film is that the featurette on the film "Just in Time" is way too short to be considered a valid supplement. Others include two outtake musical sequences made available previously, and the film's theatrical trailer. Regardless of these shortcomings, "Bells Are Ringing" comes highly recommended as great good time fun.