The Worst Film Ever

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Have just now rewatched That's Entertainment! III on HD DVD and I declare that while the first two compilations had the best musical numbers from the various M-G-M classics, I consider this one the best simply because of the many outtakes/alternate scenes that-for the most part-were revealed here for the first time. Also, the tributes for the studio and the various performers that resided there were much better written then the occasionally stilted one from the original That's Entertainment! Many of those outtakes were quite fascinating to watch like Debbie Reynolds' number called "A Lady Loves" from I Love Melvin where she's a farmgirl as opposed to a more sophisticated figure in the final version. Or Judy Garland's two scenes-"Doin' What Comes Natur'lly" and "I'm an Indian, Too"-from the aborted version of Annie Get Your Gun though Betty Hutton's final versions are more preferable. Speaking of whom, her duet with Howard Keel on "Anything You Can Do" was one of the most hilarious numbers here. And, unlike the previous series entries, TE3 acknowledged the other studios players like Fred Astaire and Ann Miller worked for before coming to the one with Leo the Lion as the trademark. And that one of the movie's hosts-Lena Horne-admitted the limitations of opportunity she had compared to the others because of the Production Code of the time. Great editing on the "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" numbers from Ava Gardner with dubbed voice of Annette Warren to her own good voice to Lena Horne's rendition from 'Till the Clouds Roll By. Oh, and nice unearthed outtake of "Ain't It the Truth" from Cabin in the Sky though I've seen this before on a short called Studio Visit which appeared as an extra on the movie's DVD disc. The other excised Garland numbers-like "Mr. Monotony" from Easter Parade or "March of the Doagies" from The Harvey Girls are also excellent, so much so that one wonders why they were cut. I also liked some of the more obscure performers showcased like Joan McCraken dancing to "Pass that Peace Pipe" from Good News or Delores Gray in the "Thanks a Lot, But No Thanks" number from It's Always Fair Weather. And how about Carmen Miranda-who was once a Fox player-doing the "Baiao (Ca-Room' Pa Pa)" number in Nancy Goes to Rio. All the hosts-Gene Kelly, Esther Williams, June Allyson, Cyd Charisse, Ms. Horne, Ms. Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, and Ms. Miller provided some interesting tidbits during their segments. But the last host, Mr. Keel, delivered the great coda to the M-G-M musical when he talked about the competition with television by mentioning the wide screen furor which segues to the "Stereophonic Sound" number with Mr. Astaire and Janis Page and then mentions the Rock 'n Roll trend as the famous clip from Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock is shown before we go to the last classic M-G-M musical-Gigi. All in all, this was a great enterprise for producers/directors/writers and editors Bud Friedgen (also head cutter on the first two TE films) and Michael J. Sheridan (his associate on both). Oh, and how nice to see Mr. Kelly-in his final feature film appearance-sum the experience like so: "M-G-M's dream factory created a rich, romantic, compelling world of illusion. And although we may not see anything like it again, we're blessed with memories and miles and miles of film. In the words of Irving Berlin, 'The song has ended, but the melody lingers on.'" Truer words have not been spoken. So if you're reading this under my username that you clicked, I may review for the next few days something associated with Mr. Berlin or maybe with any of the contract players like maybe director Vincente Minnelli...

This is the best of the That's Entertainment movies and that's because of all the extras they packed into this film.My favorite extra was seeing Fred Astaire dance the same number in split screen, but in different costumes and different stages. This one clip alone shows what a true professional he was: he was perfectly in synch with himself throughout the whole dance and it was delightful.The oddest extra was the split screen showing of Cyd Charisse and Joan Crawford "singing" and dancing to the same vocal of the same song. Inexplicably, Charisse's was the one cut by the studio and Crawford's was used. Crawford's version was as horrible (she's in blackface, for starters) as Charisse's was elegant.I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing footage of the Vaudeville acts. While I can understand why they never 'made it big', I'm happy they were included in this film.As some other reviewers have mentioned, it was a bit bittersweet seeing the aging MGM stars who hosted this show (especially those who are no longer with us). This hit home for me while watching Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse dance. Gene, of course, has been gone for 12 years, but we just lost Cyd in the past few months. Seeing them together again made me very grateful that we have all of their lovely dances preserved forever on film.As always, I don't agree with some of the choices the powers-to-be made in terms of the clips they chose. For example, they chose the Gene Kelly/Donald O'Connor Fit As A Fiddle dance from Singin' In The Rain. The Moses Supposes dance from that movie is far superior to Fit As A Fiddle. I would also have liked to see more of Donald O'Connor. We only got one other brief glimpse of him during someone else's segment.As with all of the other That's Entertainment movies, this is definitely worth watching. If you have to chose just one TE film, I would chose this one and that's because of all the extras.

Having seen the previous two installments of this series about MGM's great years, we hadn't seen the last one, but thanks to TCM, which showed it recently, we now have completed the cycle. The documentary, directed by Bud Friedgen and Michael Sheridan, brings us back to the golden years of the studio that boasted it had more stars than any one else in Hollywood.This new version concentrates on the singing and dancing stars. Its 113 minutes running time flies by without noticing because of the quality of the material selected to be shown.There is a magnificent black and white sequence showing Eleanor Powell performing a number and at the same time on a second screen we are taken to the actual filming of the routine as the technicians worked on it. Even for the time when it was filmed, it was revolutionary. Also, we see a dance routine by Fred Astaire with two different costumes and the same music shown on split screen where the "master" himself performs the exact same steps in both sequences. Amazing!The only sad note of the documentary is to see how Lena Horne, a talented and gorgeous black woman who was employed by the studio, but was never given a starring role on films that involved other white actors. In fact, it's a shame she lost a plum role in "Showboat" because of the discrimination at the time.It was great to watch the MGM stars narrating the different segments. Thus, we saw June Allyson, Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Esther Williams, Howard Keel introducing the different production numbers in the documentary.Without a doubt, Hollywood was a factory of dreams and MGM was the best place where they came true.

Part 3 of the Ted Turner compilation of MGM footage and in celebration of the studio's 70th anniversary (thus the Overture, one gathers), this documentary written and directed by Bud Friedgen and Michael J Sheridan, and hosted by various surviving contract players is notable mostly for the out-takes and alternate takes of musical comedy numbers. That MGM was required to release one film a year and that they had no competition from television at their height, is still no excuse for the mediocrity that blights a lot of the historical footage here. It's hard to ridicule vaudeville and novelty acts like the athletic Ross Sisters, who tumble erotically as one joined mass, when the alternative are people as limited as Eleanor Powell, Esther Williams, and June Allyson. One questions the reason given for the unfinished March of Time, begun in 1930, as audience interest in technicolor musicals had fallen, though the editors goof when they supply a montage of black and white "Hollywood Parties" of the period and include Garbo in Two Faced Woman. The use of split screen to show alternate takes works best with Fred Astaire using identical choreography for Dancin' Man from Belle of New York. The footage of stage hands taking the set apart to allow the camera to move and follow Eleanor Powell dancing Fascinatin' Rhythm from Lady Be Good is done in too long a shot for us to make a comparison with Powell's closer shot. The choices between Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon and Joan Crawford in Torch Song both dubbed to India Adams singing Two Faced Woman, and the alternate takes of Debbie Reynolds doing A Lady Loves from I Love Melvin, both reveal awful numbers, though Crawford's "tropical" makeup and disposal of her wig a la Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria has camp appeal. Ava Gardner's own vocal of Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man from Showboat is preferable to the generic dubbed Annette Warren vocal, even if Lena Horne sours the idea of Gardner's casting by telling us the Production Code of the time banned interracial romances. Horne had performed the number in Till the Clouds Go By, but had been passed over for the film. She scores some unintentional laughs by not be able to match her younger vocal of Where or When from Words and Music, and practically falling over the musicians chairs in the recording stage, though her Aint it the Truth cut from Cabin in the Sky sees her naked (supposedly) in a bathtub, which the Production Code also objected to as being too riske. The credits are removed from the opening of The Barkleys of Broadway so we can see the Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing The Swing Trot, even if Rogers looks uncomfortable and looking at her feet. Remember Barkleys had been planned to re-match Astaire and Judy Garland after Easter Parade, but Garland was too exhausted and subsequently replaced. However we see her Mr Monotony number cut from Easter Parade, which pre-figures the same outfit she would wear for Get Happy in Summer Stock, with Mr Monotony featuring an extreme close-up of Garland, surprising when MGM musicals never went for this kind of intimacy. We also get Garland's cut March of the Doagies from The Harvey Girls, and an edited version with cut-aways of her I'm an Indian Too from her aborted Annie Get Your Gun.