Films
/
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) poster

There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

Music, Comedy • 1h 57m

Director: Walter Lang

Cast: Ethel Merman, Marilyn Monroe, Mitzi Gaynor, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Johnnie Ray, Richard Eastham, Hugh O'Brian, Frank McHugh, Rhys Williams, Lee Patrick, Eve Miller, Dorothy Abbott, Lyle Talbot, George Chakiris, John Doucette, Alvy Moore, Ron Nyman, Walter Winchell, Dorothy Adams, Robin Raymond

Best video release

Updated 9 months ago


About the film

Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.

Alternative Titles
No Business Like Show Business

More from Walter Lang

See more →

Director: Walter Lang

Best English-Friendly:

Film Masters Blu-ray

Best Video:

Film Masters Blu-ray HD restoration

Director: Walter Lang

Best Video:

Kino Lorber Carole Lombard Collection II Blu-ray

Director: Walter Lang

Best Video:

Columbia Classics Vol 5 Blu-ray

More from Fox

See more →

Director: James Gray

4K · Solid
Best Video & Audio:

Fox 4K Blu-ray

Director: John Ford

Best Video:

Fox Blu-ray

Director: Mike Judge

Video format: 4K Streaming

Best Video:

4K Streaming on HBO MAX/Disney+ or Fox Blu-ray

Director: David Fincher

Best Video & Audio:

20th Century Studios Blu-ray

Additional Info:

Digipack release includes an Amazing Amy book the standard edition doesn’t have.

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Criterion and BFI very similar

Best Audio:

Fox Lorber DVD

Director: Chris Columbus

Video format: 4K Streaming

Best Video:

Disney+ has Streaming in 4K

Video Notes:

Fox has Blu-ray

Best Audio:

1995 Fox LaserDisc

Director: Terence Young

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly:

WB 4K Blu-ray

Best Video:

WB 4K Blu-ray despite frozen grain

Best Audio:

UK mix: 1984 CBS Fox VHS Hifi but missing one scene
International mix: WB 4K Blu-ray though source origin is unknown

1995 MGM stereo remix: 1998 LaserDisc and 2000 DVD fix gunbarrel dropout

Director: David Butler

Video format: Only Unofficial Sources

Sources: archive.org (opens in a new tab)

Best Video:

The DVD isn't an official one, and according to a user review on Amazon:

This DVD comes from Archive.org, where the movie can be viewed for free. The original source, comes from the Fox Movie Channel

Director: James Cameron

4K · Disappointing
Best Video:

Fox Blu-ray

Sources: movie-censorship.com (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Fox Blu-ray for original cuts without the extra scene added in the re-release and AI upscaling

Newer Blu-ray/4K has the extra scene, but is poor and has excessive AI upscaling

Additional Info:

An additional scene was added to the ending of the movie in the 2022 re-release: https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=493908

Director: Peter Faiman

Best Video:

Australia Cut: Australia Fox DVD

International Cut: Paramount Blu-ray

Encore Cut: Germany Winkler Film 4K Blu-ray, censored but good encoding

Sources: movie-censorship.com (opens in a new tab)

Upcoming Release:

US Paramount 4K Blu-ray, is the International US Cut and not the Encore Cut

Best Audio:

Australia Cut: Laserdisc

Additional Info:

The film exists in three versions:
- the original Australian cut (~104 minutes at 24fps/~100 minutes at 25fps);
- the American/international version (~98 minutes at 24fps/~94 minutes at 25fps) trimming some exposition in the Outback first half of the film and some shorter extensions of a few seconds in the New York section, altering some of the dialogue – including censoring a "fuck" to "screw" – but featuring one additional dialogue extension not in the Australian version (a comparison of the two cuts can be found at Movie Censorship);
- the Australian Encore Cut (~95 minutes at 24fps/~91 minutes at 25fps) which uses the international version source so it already has those alterations but also removes approximately three minutes consisting of parts of two scenes featuring Mick grabbing the crotch of a cross-dressing prostitute and a later sequence when he does the same thing at a party to a woman with a deep voice (a comparison of the international version and the Encore Cut can be found at Movie Censorship).

More Music on Blu-ray

Director: Michael Curtiz

Directors: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

4K · Excellent
Best Video & Audio:

Imprint 4K Blu-ray

Additional Info:

Imprint AU 4K is world UHD debut and encoded by FiM. Part of the The Cinema Of Powell & Pressburger - Collection Two set.

Director: Anthony Mann

Best Video & Audio:

Shout! Factory Blu-ray

Additional Info:

Shout! Factory's Blu-ray has both cuts of the film in addition to the 3.0 stereo and 2.0 mono mixes making it the first time the full theatrical cut is available with the 3.0 mix. The new commentary is good. The 3.0 stereo sounds wonderful and the mono sounds solid.
That's where the positives end. This is the same terrible Universal DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc with a terrible encode making both versions share the disc separately taking up more space. This master was already poor for DVD and is nearly unwatchable here on the Shout! Factory disc. It looks virtually identical to the upscaled DVD most of the time with only a bit less noise due to it being 1080p. This is one of the most appalling cases of "DVD master slapped on a Blu-ray disc" you can possibly find. Absolutely shameful video presentation. This should have never been released this way. Sadly it's still ever so slightly better than the DVD and the only way you get the proper theatrical cut with lossless 3.0 stereo. This is still the best source we have for the film.

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Video Notes:

4K restoration from Original Camera Negative

Director: George Pal

Video Notes:

4K restoration from Original Camera Negative

Directors: Chris Appelhans & Maggie Kang

Best Video & Audio:

Criterion 4K Blu-ray

Additional Info:

"Sing-Along Edition" not included on the Criterion 4K Blu-ray, only available on Netflix Streaming

Director: Masaaki Yuasa

Best Video:

US GKIDS Blu-ray

Video Notes:

Japan Aniplex Blu-ray is severely lowpassed, which is not an issue on the US release

Director: Damien Chazelle

Video format: UHD Blu-ray

4K · Excellent
Upcoming Release:

US Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray re-release announced with Dolby Vision, a new exclusive bonus, and the previously retailer pre-order bonus-exclusive/Hong Kong-exclusive bonus interviews in HD

Video Notes:

Italy Eagle Pictures has DV, better encode, and no brightness shifts compared to Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray

Best Audio:

Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray for the original Dolby Atmos mix

Additional Info:

Hong Kong Panorama 4K Blu-ray has two interviews available in HD that are SD everywhere else and only included as retailer-exclusive pre-order bonus DVDs with the US Blu-ray

Directors: Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Video format: UHD Blu-ray

Best Video:

UK StudioCanal UHD

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Best Audio:

1991 MGM LaserDisc

Edit history

2 edits

Researched and maintained by

vanshady

· last reviewed 9 months ago

Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.