The delights of Doris Day

The Doris Day Collection

Warner Home Video, $89 for gift set; $20 each

During the 1950s and 1960s, the perky blond singer was one of the biggest stars of the silver screen. Day, now 81, began her career in the ‘40s as a big-band singer -- she scored a hit with Les Brown’s band on “Sentimental Journey” -- and made her movie debut in 1948’s romantic comedy “Romance on the High Seas.” She was overflowing with enthusiasm and spunk, and audiences quickly embraced the actress born Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff.

After two brief, disastrous marriages in the 1940s, she married her manager Martin Melcher in the early 1950s. Melcher, who ended up producing her later films, signed her up to do movies she had no interest in. At one point she suffered from nervous exhaustion because of overwork.

After Melcher’s death in 1968, Day learned he had squandered her money in bad investments and she was left bankrupt. She left movies that year and enjoyed a five-year run on her own TV series.

The new six-film set runs the gamut of movies she made during her career -- comedies, musicals and dramas.

Young Man With a Horn

Michael Curtiz directed this engrossing melodrama with music about an obsessed horn player (Kirk Douglas) who nearly self-destructs in his search for the elusive high note he hears in his head but can’t seem to play.

Day acquits herself nicely in her first big dramatic role -- a good-girl band singer who falls for Douglas. Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael also star.

Extras: Day trailer gallery

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Lullaby of Broadway

There are a lot of great songs, including the title tune, in this otherwise pedestrian 1951 musical.

Day plays a young musical-comedy performer who returns home to New York after touring Europe only to discover that her mother (Gladys George), a once-famous Broadway performer, is now an alcoholic performing in a honky tonk. Gene Nelson, Billy De Wolfe and S.Z. Sakall star.

Extras: Day trailer gallery

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Love Me Or Leave Me

Day received only one best actress Academy Award nomination -- for the 1959 romantic comedy “Pillow Talk.” But she gave her best performance as famed torch singer Ruth Etting in this entertaining 1955 bio-pic.

Her gutsy turn as Etting, a woman with a chip on her shoulder who furthers her career when she marries a gangster, was a real change of pace from her girl-next-door image. In fact, her legion of fans, shocked by such a radical departure, even sent protest letters.

James Cagney received his final best actor nomination as Martin “The Gimp” Snyder, the Chicago gangster so obsessed with Etting that he nearly destroys her.

Extras: Three vintage shorts, including two from the early 1930s starring the real Etting -- “A Modern Cinderella” and “Roseland.”

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“Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”

Peppy, pleasant 1960 comedy based on Jean Kerr’s bestseller. Day plays the harried mother of four young sons and is married to a former college professor turned Broadway theater critic (David Niven). Janis Paige and Richard Haydn also star.

Extras: Trailer

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Billy Rose’s Jumbo

There are some great Rodgers and Hart tunes -- including “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” -- in this lavish 1962 musical about a traveling circus, but the whole affair just seems a bit tired and over-the-big-top.

In the film, based on the 1935 spectacular staged by master showman Billy Rose, Day plays a trick rider. Jimmy Durante also stars as her father, the circus’ owner. Directed by Charles Walters from a script by none other than Sidney Sheldon.

Extras: The original overture to the film, the Tom and Jerry cartoon “Jerry and Jumbo,” and the vintage musical short “Yours Sincerely.”

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The Glass Bottom Boat

Though this 1966 romantic comedy/spy spoof performed well at the box office, it’s pretty silly, and at 42, Day was too long in the tooth to be playing these pert roles. Rod Taylor also stars.

Extras: Three vintage featurettes on the movie and the Oscar-winning cartoon short “The Dot and the Line.”