IMDb RATING
7.8/10
5.2K
YOUR RATING
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favourite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favourite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favourite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
5.2K
YOUR RATING
June Allyson
- Clip from 'Words and Music'
- (archive footage)
Kay Armen
- Clip from 'Hit the Deck'
- (archive footage)
Ray Bolger
- 'Hunk'
- (archive footage)
- …
Virginia Bruce
- Clip from 'The Great Ziegfeld'
- (archive footage)
Jack Buchanan
- Clip from 'The Band Wagon'
- (archive footage)
Leslie Caron
- Lise Bouvier
- (archive footage)
- …
Carleton Carpenter
- Clip from 'Two Weeks with Love'
- (archive footage)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis was among the last MGM films shot on the studio's renowned back lot, of which there were actually six distinct satellite parcels of land west and south of the main lot (Lot 1). Lot 2, the last of them to serve as a working back lot, was in use until late 1978. Development for residential housing on Lots 3-6 began the year this movie filmed its new material with the studio's stars strolling the various standing sets, which had been allowed to deteriorate for well over a decade before their demolition. This is particularly noticeable in the train station set where Fred Astaire gives his introduction, and Bing Crosby refers to the English Lake area as looking rather "scruffy". On the other hand, the entire purpose of the film is nostalgia, and the use of the 'scruffy' facade, clearly aged and unused, helps to set the tone as one of a brief return to the glamour of the past, even though it was all make-believe.
- GoofsAt the beginning of the film, Frank Sinatra says The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) is the "first all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing movie ever made". In fact, it wasn't; the first was The Broadway Melody (1929), which was released in February, nine months before "The Hollywood Revue" was released. Indeed, by the time of That's Entertainment! III (1994), narrator Gene Kelly was now calling The Hollywood Revue of 1929, "one of the first all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing movies."
- Quotes
Liza Minnelli: Thank God for film. It can capture a performance and hold it right there forever. And if anyone says to you, "Who was he?" or, "Who was she?" or, "What made them so good?" I think a piece of film answers that question better than any words I know of.
- Crazy creditsProducer Jack Haley Jr.'s credit appears over a still image of his father, Jack Haley, as the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.
- Alternate versionsSome TV prints extend Bing Crosby's segment by adding the musical number "True Love" from "High Society" (1956).
- ConnectionsEdited into American Masters: Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer (2002)
- SoundtracksThat's Entertainment
(1953) (uncredited)
Music by Arthur Schwartz
Lyrics by Howard Dietz
Performed by the M-G-M Studio Orchestra Conducted by Henry Mancini
Review
Featured review
showcasing MGM's finest
In the mid-seventies, when MGM as a producing force in studio history was pretty much dead, a couple of researchers started to put together a compilation of the greatest moments from the birth of the talkie to Gigi's glut of Academy Awards at the end of the 1950s. The idea of this first 'That's Entertainment!' was to showcase the cream of the musicals, using a number of MGM's former contact stars (Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney et al) to link segments together.
The result was so breathtaking and brilliant that two further sequels followed; one almost immediately, and the third after a gap of twenty years, in time for MGM's seventieth birthday. This first compilation shows us sequences from 'An American In Paris', 'Singin' In The Rain', 'The Harvey Girls', 'Hollywood Revue', and on, and on. It has special segments devoted to Astaire, Kelly, Garland, Garland with Rooney, and, er, Esther Williams. It should give any viewer the appetite to seek out full movies they haven't seen, and to reflect with affection on those they have.
The result was so breathtaking and brilliant that two further sequels followed; one almost immediately, and the third after a gap of twenty years, in time for MGM's seventieth birthday. This first compilation shows us sequences from 'An American In Paris', 'Singin' In The Rain', 'The Harvey Girls', 'Hollywood Revue', and on, and on. It has special segments devoted to Astaire, Kelly, Garland, Garland with Rooney, and, er, Esther Williams. It should give any viewer the appetite to seek out full movies they haven't seen, and to reflect with affection on those they have.
helpful•162
- didi-5
- Jul 5, 2003
Details
Box office
- 2 hours 15 minutes
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Top Gap
By what name was That's Entertainment! (1974) officially released in Canada in English?
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