Liberace: Greatest Songs

A half-century after the fact, it is still impossible to comprehend how the conformist, conservative and rabidly homophobic American public embraced the fruity showmanship of Liberace, making him one of the decade's top television stars.

Viewed today, Liberace's weekly TV series is subversively funny with its unapologetic injection of blatantly gay camp into the often-stodgy confines of classical music.

This two-disc DVD grabs bits and pieces of segments from Liberace's show and throws them around in no particular order. The mix of music banged out by the pianist's bejeweled fingers is dizzying in its diversity: classical, folk, light jazz, pop tuns and even an occasional spiritual number.

It doesn't matter what is being played, since Liberace's shtick rarely varies: gushy introductions in his nasally voice, followed by endless winks and grins at the camera accompanied by busy shoulder shaking and ridiculously rapid hand gestures across the 88 keys.

A small orchestra - mostly a bunch of lumpy men led by Liberace's brother George plus a strange woman on the harp - provide back-up instrumentals and occasionally score a bit of camera time for themselves.

Some of the shtick is so outlandish that it is impossible not to laugh, particularly an in-your-face rendition of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" (with the chorus of "Dinah won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow your horn...horn...horn?").

And some of it is pure 1950s corn, particularly a puppet interpretation of "Glow Worm" that accompanies Liberace's ivory tickling. But when the excess is put in check, Liberace often amazes with a genuine talent - his renditions of "Saber Dance" and "My Old Kentucky Home" are truly astonishing with their depth of artistry.

Of course, if Liberace (pardon the pun) played it straight, he would've been just another pianist. In his guise as the overly colorful, bouncing bundle of musical joy, he managed to stand out both as a genuine talent and as the ultimate anti-establishment statement of a repressed era.

While this five-and-a-half hour serving is clearly too much to endure in one sitting (or two, or three), it nonetheless offers a tantalizing time capsule of a distinctive talent who raised eyebrows and secret smiles with each stroke of the piano key.