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Singin' in the Rain
: essential video:No one even bothers to argue about it any more--by any standard and international consensus, this is the best movie musical of them all. Its arcane, unlikely milieu is Hollywood during the transition in the late 1920s from silent to sound motion pictures. Its reason for being was producer Arthur Freed's desire to use the catalog of songs he had written with Nacio Herb Brown in the '20s and '30s for various shows and movies. But, ironically, it's now the soundtrack that seems cobbled together from disparate sources, while ...
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Brigadoon (P&S)
: essential video:Anything is possible in Brigadoon, the Lerner and Loewe musical put to celluloid in 1954 by director Vincente Minnelli: a village can reappear for only one day each century, and Gene Kelly can tap-dance on a dirt path. Kelly and Van Johnson play a pair of New Yorkers who go on a hunting vacation in the highlands of Scotland. But what Tommy Albright (Kelly) captures is the heart of a bonny Scottish lass, Fiona Campbell (Cyd Charisse). The catch: Fiona lives in Brigadoon, an enchanted town that appears for ...
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Words & Music
: :The plot is a hokey whitewash of the careers of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with characters talking in stilted phrases ('Gee, Larry, that's marvelous, really and truly') and complexities reduced to ground zero. But Rodgers and Hart comprised one of the greatest song-writing teams of the 20th century, and Words and Music (1948) is an excuse for a gang of Hollywood's top performers to have their way with the tunes. Mel Tormé croons a melancholy 'Blue Moon,' June Allyson twinkles through 'Thou Swell,' and a climactic ballet to 'Slaughter on ...
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Party Girl (1958)
: :The plot is a hokey whitewash of the careers of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with characters talking in stilted phrases ('Gee, Larry, that's marvelous, really and truly') and complexities reduced to ground zero. But Rodgers and Hart comprised one of the greatest song-writing teams of the 20th century, and Words and Music (1948) is an excuse for a gang of Hollywood's top performers to have their way with the tunes. Mel Tormé croons a melancholy 'Blue Moon,' June Allyson twinkles through 'Thou Swell,' and a climactic ballet to 'Slaughter on ...
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Black Tights
: :The plot is a hokey whitewash of the careers of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with characters talking in stilted phrases ('Gee, Larry, that's marvelous, really and truly') and complexities reduced to ground zero. But Rodgers and Hart comprised one of the greatest song-writing teams of the 20th century, and Words and Music (1948) is an excuse for a gang of Hollywood's top performers to have their way with the tunes. Mel Tormé croons a melancholy 'Blue Moon,' June Allyson twinkles through 'Thou Swell,' and a climactic ballet to 'Slaughter on ...
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That's Entertainment III
: :Some of the most impressive numbers from the golden era of MGM musicals are contained in this video, the third of the That's Entertainment films. Have no fear that the studio was scraping the bottom of the barrel when assembling these clips after having produced two earlier films using the same formula. In fact, it can be argued that this particular compilation would be attractive to a general audience of today, as it contains a wealth of material that hasn't been widely seen. And almost none of it would be produced ...
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Silencers
: :Austin Powers undoubtedly stole a few moves from Matt Helm, the swinging secret agent embodied by Dean Martin in four intentionally dopey late-'60s movies. The Silencers is the first and best of the bunch--but at that, it's barely a movie. Dino is first seen reclining in his automated bed, and he hardly wakes up for the remainder of the picture. (When a stunt double performs athletic moves in the action scenes, you rub your eyes at the impossibility of Martin moving that quickly.) And yet Matt Helm manages to stave off ...
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It's Always Fair Weather
: essential video:The third collaboration between Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, It's Always Fair Weather falls short of the classics On the Town and Singin' in the Rain, mostly due to a slow plot and middling songs by Andre Previn, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green. In a story reminiscent of On the Town, Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd play three GIs who return from the war vowing to stay buddies forever. When they reunite 10 years later, however, they find they have little in common, other than having given up ...
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Meet Me in Las Vegas
: essential video:The third collaboration between Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, It's Always Fair Weather falls short of the classics On the Town and Singin' in the Rain, mostly due to a slow plot and middling songs by Andre Previn, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green. In a story reminiscent of On the Town, Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd play three GIs who return from the war vowing to stay buddies forever. When they reunite 10 years later, however, they find they have little in common, other than having given up ...
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Harvey Girls
: :Sometimes lively, sometimes pokey, this Technicolor MGM musical inspires mixed feelings in aficionados of the form--except on one point. No viewer will question why 'On the Atchison, Topeka, & the Santa Fe' won the best song Oscar for 1946. This is a brilliant, inventive song given an epic staging. Director George Sidney pulls out all the stops for this wowser--even Marjorie Main sings, an eardrum-testing sound. The real-life Harvey Girls were waitresses imported to the far-flung Fred Harvey Hotels, civilizing oases along the railroad lines out west. The fictional Harvey Girls ...
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