acheapmom A good way to have lotsa fun...and to teach history of film choreography/musicals! I do agree that extra time is spent on swimmer Esther Williams (a bit long) but the film pace picks up and there are...so many wonderful song and dance moments packed into this movie. Many great MGM performers are represented!!! Right now, I'm seeing the still modern 'American in Paris" dance number with Gene Kelly and Leslie Canon. Fabulous.Note...this movie came out in 1974 when people were soured over the Vietnam war, over Watergate. You can tell by the great box office $$$ numbers that old is sometimes fresher than new...as baby boomers discovered what their parents loved at the films. And their parents relived great film moments of their youth!Note: One of the best Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney numbers, I think done by Busby Berkley is wonderful except..the actor/singer/dancers are in blackface (ewww!) Here the teacher could explain why blackface was both a compliment and an insult to black performers.

mark.waltz Movies and Broadway in 1974 were in a state of emergency with the lack of family entertainment (exclusing Disney, of course) and the state of society. "Boy Do We Need It Now!", the adds for this compilation of clips from MGM musicals made between 1929 and 1958 exclaimed. From "Broadway Melody" to "Gigi", from "Wedding of the Painted Doll" to "Thank Heavens For Little Girls", from Bessie Love to Leslie Caron. The docu-musical covers the height of the movie musical era, even though musicals continued to be made on a regular basis through the mid 1970's, most of them unmemorable even with the few classics thrown in.MGM continued to make the occasional musical, with film versions of "Bells Are Ringing" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" being highlights, and such later newer classics as "Fame" and "Victor/Victoria". But when you've got Jeanette and Nelson, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell and Esther Williams, to name a few, you focus on that era, and that is what the first of four entries into the "That's Entertainment!" franchise focuses on, with many of the stars providing insight into the behind the scenes of what it was like to work at MGM.Long before Turner Classic Movies, the former stars of MGM ("More Great Movies!" one pre-TCM promo exclaimed) got together to reminisce and show off the highlights of the past. "That's Entertainment!" focuses on the musicals made at MGM (three of which were Oscar Winners) and with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli (representing her parents) narrating, it is certainly nostalgic indeed. This was prior to home video and cable T.V. as well, so unless you had a local channel which broadcast them, you had very little chance to see them. No wonder why this was one of the top box office films of the year. Today's younger fans of this genre are too accustomed to DVD and TCM to appreciate what it was like to have this if you didn't have immediate access to these classics.So in retrospect, getting to see "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" and "Rosalie" on the big screen again with their many extras and Mickey and Judy putting on a show in a barn, Gene stompin' around in the rain as he is approached by a suspicious cop, Fred sailing across the sky while dancing with Joan Crawford, the joy of the arrival of the "Show Boat", Esther descending above a giant pool with smoke all around her and delightful shots of the city of lights with "An American in Paris" and "Gigi", is still a bit of heaven on earth. The delight of the stars to present this years after making these films is never self-gratifying egotism; A lot of hard work was put into making these gems, and now in its 40th Anniversary, "That's Entertainment!" remains one of the top salutes to a golden age that has never been surpassed.

MarkJGarcia This is a great documentary that takes viewers back to a time when the musical was popular in cinema. With different hosts in the film you get a chance to go back in time and look at Hollywood's Gold Age and the stars that made some of the most highly regarded films ever. They don't make them like this anymore thats for sure. There is one part in the film where Frank Sinatra is talking about the dance performances of yester-year and he says you can wait forever but you will never see performances ever again like these, and with that the film cuts to a dance routine by Fred Astaire that has to be one of the greatest dance routines I've ever seen. When you think of all the planning that went into these routines it is just mind-boggling. The steps we see in this film seem to be so perfectly choreographed. An amazing film about an amazing time in Hollywood history.

mountainkath This movie will thrill fans of the MGM musicals and can serve as a great introduction to musicals for those who have not yet discovered them.As noted in IMDb's "goofs" section, there are some biggies in this film. Most notable was Liza Minneli claiming that Jean Harlow was part of some failed deal to get Shirley Temple to do The Wizard of Oz. I cannot believe this wasn't caught in editing or fact checking. The Wizard of Oz was made in 1939. Harlow died in 1937.My other fault with this film is that I wish they had acknowledged that many of the dances were edited. For example: they only showed 5 minutes of the 18 minute An American In Paris ballet and it was a hack job of editing. They also seriously slashed the finale of the The Broadway Ballet from Singin' In The Rain and they didn't even show the most famous part of that dance (Cyd Charisse slinking all over Gene Kelly in that gorgeous green dress).But, I digress.This movie is a fantastic way to spend 2+ hours. Besides the dance highlights, there are the oddball dances. The oddest of all was Clark Gable hoofing and singing to Puttin' On The Ritz. There was also a 1929 Joan Crawford singing and dancing. I love seeing things that are so unexpected! My favorite non-dancing moment in the film occurred during the Debbie Reynolds segment. She talked about the famous 25th anniversary MGM lunch where all of the stars were present. I loved how the camera panned the the table to reveal Crawford, Gable, Astaire, Kelly, Hepburn, Sinatra, Barrymore, Tracy, etc. etc.My favorite dancing moment in the show is the Astaire/Kelly dance from Ziegfeld Follies. Again, this dance is horribly edited, but seeing those two dance together is pure magic. Since they did not dance together again until the sequel to this movie in 1976, seeing them together is a special treat.