NZ

It is. You know those guys. They all steal from one another. Love is Music is pure pop pulp and reconstituted classic but that's primarily its charm. Found it on the web site in a downloadable version but don't like giving my credit card number out to total strangers. Also - would like to own the jacket and end notes that Rhino's releases are justly famous for.

Norma Shearer - hands down. A woman of deep seeded emotions, brooding passions, dark obsessions and stark intelligence. No one would give you a woman like that. You'd have to go out and discover her. Close seconds: Grace Kelly - yeeeeooooww! Jane Powell - for the girl next door, home spun crowd who'd like to hear a bit of grand opera every night Kathryn Grayson - for the high maintenance lady of culture, wealth and chic good taste. Barbara Stanwyck - sultry in a come hither, axe that needs the turkey sort of way. Joan Crawford - I want to have you for lunch and I don't mean a sandwich Elizabeth Taylor - stunning as a child, adolescent, young newlywed and middle aged maven of perfume. Truly, she had it all. Lauren Bacall - darkly aluring but able to tell you where to get off when she's had enough.

Okay, The Awful Truth is not a musical. In fact, Irene Dunne's wacky performance as Cary Grant's loose sister, singing 'My Dreams Are Gone With The Wind' is a sublime comedic gem. But Dunne's other efforts in the musical forte aren't much to snuff at - including Showboat. But 'bad' Eddy/MacDonald?!? Maybe Bittersweet and I Married An Angel are weak - but they're not terrible. I'll agree marginally with everyone's assessment of Dancing Lady - the editing of the numbers is obtusely tragic - I'm still trying to gleen the thought process required to get us from ancient French court a la Nelson Eddy to scantily clad babes in saran wrap dresses and that marvelously tacky carousel of beauties that closes out "The Rhythm of the Day." One or two ideas would not have been bad - but throwing everything but the kitchen sink in makes everything seem like an expensive glossy 'pick n' save'.

TOP FOUR DAVIS FLICKS 1. Now Voyager 2. All About Eve 3. The Little Foxes 4. The Letter PS - whoever said All About Eve was the most boring movie they ever saw has clearly been educated with an air hose and an inner tube. Wit is wasted on the witless. Message was edited by: NZ

I so don't care for Molly Haskell. She's got a slant to her that does not bode well with the classics. It's as though ever compliment she offers in her history comes with the caveat of "yes, but..." Enough with the "these aren't feminist friendly flicks" undercurrent that seems to accompany every overview. YEEEUUCCKK!!!

I'd like to see some of the less played titles get more playtime. I haven't seen Eleanor Powell's Born to Dance or Rosalie in a REALLY long time. I also haven't seen Mario Lanza in That Midnight Kiss or Jane Powell in Holiday in Mexico for quite some time. MORE LANZA AND POWELL AND KATHRYN GRAYSON!!! Some Norma Shearer would be most welcome - The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Smilin' Through, Marie Antoinette, Romeo & Juliet, Idiot's Delight, Her Cardboard Lover, Riptide, The Divorcee.

I agree - far too many. Here are my top picks: BEST OF THE GOLDEN OLDIES Goodbye Mr. Chips (Robert Donat version) Gone With The Wind Union Pacific The Women Red Dust Grand Hotel The Prisoner of Zenda (Ronald Colman version) Marie Antoinette (Norma Shearer version) Lost Horizon (Ronald Colman version) Camille The Letter The Little Foxes Now Voyager How Green Was My Valley The Song of Bernadette Jezebel The Good Earth Wife Vs Secretary Anna Karenina BEST MUSICALS That Midnight Kiss Silk Stockings High Society Singin' In The Rain My Fair Lady Maytime The Great Waltz Nancy Goes To Rio Yankee Doodle Dandy Holiday in Mexico A Date With Judy Meet Me In St. Louis The Great Ziegfeld The Toast of New Orleans Rose Marie (Eddy/MacDonald version) The Merry Widow (MacDonald/Chevalier version) Born to Dance Irving Berlin's This is The Army Rosalie Anchors Aweigh Gentlemen Prefer Blondes You Were Never Lovelier The Sound of Music Funny Girl BEST OF HITCHCOCK Notorious Rebecca Vertigo North By Northwest Rear Window Dial M For Murder Spellbound Lifeboat The Paradine Case Foreign Correspondent Stage Fright The Birds Psycho Marnie (don't hate me for this one) BEST EPICS Lawrence of Arabia Ben-Hur Doctor Zhivago Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert version - Liz version okay too) The Crusades The Sign of the Cross The Ten Commandments The Fall of the Roman Empire Quo Vadis Spartacus BEST OF BOND Goldfinger A View to a Kill Octopussy Thunderball For Your Eyes Only The Spy Who Loved Me Live & Let Die OF NO LESS IMPORTANCE Juarez Suez Lillian Russell Niagara Sunset Blvd. How To Marry A Millionaire The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Night of the Iguana Cat on a Hot Tin Roof The Towering Inferno The Godfather 1 and 2 NEWER 'CLASSICS' Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom Steel Magnolias E.T. Amadeus A Passage to India Remains of the Day Sense and Sensibility Howards End Gosford Park Moulin Rouge

If your sense of 'sad' is linked to tragedy in the cinema, then I've got a few examples for you. Without a doubt "How Green Was My Valley" tops my list. Just to hear the opening strains of the Welsh choir doing 'Men of Harloch' under the credits gets a lump in my throat. The final moment where the dead Donald Crisp is hoisted from the collapsed mine with Roddy McDowell's blank wounded expression (the voiceover declaring "Men like my father can never die...) is so wrought with poignancy that once seen it is unlikely to be forgotten. A close second - "The Song of Bernadette" with the innocent Jennifer Jones angelic and ill fated, dying of cancer yet still able to whisper "I love you" to the vision of the Virgin Mary is almost as haunting. I suppose I'm more sentimental than most - I also get choked up over The Bells of St. Marys when Bing Crosby finally confesses to Ingrid Bergman that she is being sent away because she has TB. "Remove all bitterness from my heart," Bergman declares. It's as though the weight of her regret becomes my own. Honorable mention goes to: It's a Wonderful Life King's Row Now Voyager Citizen Kane Gone With The Wind

Does anyone know where I can get my hands on a copy of Rhino Records out of print CD "Mario Lanza At MGM. One chap on Amazon wants a whopping $70 for a CD that sold new for under $20. I really want a copy of the song "Love is Music" with Lanza and Kathryn Grayson from THAT MIDNIGHT KISS. Any info? Send it my way and thanks.

Sincere thanks to everyone who replied.

Sr. belonged to that treasured sect of character actors coddled on the backlot. He usually appeared as Errol Flynn's sidekick in such films as The Adventures of Robin Hood and Dodge City, although he played his enemy in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Jr. is best known as the skipper of the Minnow on Gilligan's Island.

Sorry, I still can't agree with you on your assessment of TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY or WORDS AND MUSIC. The films are full throttle entertainment with blinding star power. They continue to endure and entertain. As for infrequency of musical offerings...there are more than a dozen numbers in each film - ample showcases for the works of Kern and Rodgers and Hart. Outstanding numbers in CLOUDS include the title song sung by Ray MacDonald and danced by he and June Allyson, the colossal Showboat opener - with Lena Horne, Tony Martin and Kathryn Grayson, 'Sunny/Who', and, 'Look For the Silver Lining' with Judy Garland, Van Johnson and Lucille Bremer's 'I Won't Dance', Dinah Shore's They Didn't Believe Me' and 'The Last Time I Saw Paris' and, the massive spectacle that concludes the show with Sinatra's Ol' Man River. In WORDS & MUSIC we get two Perry Como zingers 'Blue Room' and 'Moutain Greenery', the Garland/Rooney pas deux to 'I Wish I Were In Love Again', 'On Your Toes' with Cyd Charisse, Ann Sothern's 'For Everybody But Me', and the Gene Kelly/Vera Ellen 'Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.' I think perhaps you're missing the point of these bios. They're not meant to be factual or accurate; merely showcases for songs and numbers that put the roster of MGM talent on full display. It's part the studio's own vanity and part to showcase their supremacy in the musical genre. NO ONE DID MUSICALS LIKE Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (particularly in the mid to late 30s right on up to the late 50s). You could argue that the studio would have done better to jettison the melodrama in between and just string together the song and dance numbers (as they did in Ziegfeld Follies) but I would suggest that these films are the creme of their crop for bio/fiction/musicals that became all the rage for a brief period in the early 40s. If you ever want to see just how painful and lack luster this hybrid of the Hollywood musical can be, see Warner's Night and Day with Cary Grant as a singing Cole Porter or Rhapsody in Blue - the sort of story of the Gershwins - abysmal doesn't begin to describe the experience!

Not usually stumped but am here. Looking for the name, composer and availability of an audio recording of the lavish spectacle that concludes Abbott & Costello's first movie for Universal - One Night In the Tropics. Moments before the dance number begins a woman runs to a balcony and declares, "The Tarantello!" The song begins, the number follows with Allan Jones warbling a few lines. It's mostly an ensemble piece. Looking for the full version - sans A&C's periodic interuption with witty one liners. I believe it's a Cole Porter tune but I'm not entirely sure. Any information...please send and thanks.

I have a minor problem with Molly Haskell giving critical commentary on TCM for the following reason: she's a devoted feminist whose opinions tend to be skewed toward her own research. Personally, I don't think that any commentator on a classic movie network - 'historian' 'critic' 'author of countless critical feminist literature' - should be given the opportunity to formulate perspectives on such main staples as 'Treasure' that are more in tune with speculative theorizations rather than providing solid historical backdrop on the movie that is being viewed. NOT EVER FLICK CAN BE A CHICK FLICK or PRESENT FEMALE CHARACTERS IN A FLATTERING LIGHT. Such is the fate of appealing to broad tastes rather than narrow theoretical discourse. Robert Osborne is very much a man of unobtrusive knowledge - he provides backstory not backlash to every movie he introduces. He keeps personal opinion to himself and never suggests that his audience keep anything but an open mind while viewing the films showcased on TCM. That's the hallmark of a true film historian and an extremely gifted film critic.

Okay, I'm willing to let that one go, I suppose - though I found the bio turgid in more than a few spots and the musical numbers merely passable. Unlike WORDS and MUSIC or TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY - both of which possessed superlative production values, all star casts and thrilling musical sequences. In my opinion the paramount responsibility of any director undertaking a musical is not to be accurate in their account of history - no film, musical or otherwise, ever is. But entertainment should do what it says - ENTERTAIN. In the case of a musical, the audience has NOT come to the theater for great melodrama or fact. They've come for the moment the emoting stops and the music begins. The aforementioned flicks both have enough music to fill at least four films. They are sumptuous film fantasies of the highest 'musical' order and enchanting time capsules from a studio that truly had 'more stars than there are in heaven.'

Replying to the person who said "Hello Dolly!" was a terrible musical - WHAT?!? It's one of the best and brightest of the 60s - hardly a stellar decade for musicals in general. The production values are sterling. Streisand is too young to be a widow but she is utterly charming in the lead. She turns what was essentially a Broadway caricature back into a flesh and blood woman who is savvy, sassy and ultimately lots of fun to be around. Other "REAL" stinker musical... You Can't Have Everything (1937) and boy, this one didn't! Today We Live (1933) tomorrow we die. The Kid from Spain (1932) the idiot producer from Hollywood. One Night of Love (1934) a life time of total hell. I'll Take Romance (1937) not after seeing this one! We're Not Dressing (1934) and no one would expect anything fully clothed from a film as thinly garbed as this Waikiki Wedding (1937) - aloha! Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) - it's no This Is The Army or Thousands Cheer. Down To Earth - Not a Hayworth classic Lady in the Dark (1944) lights out...nobody home!

There are a bunch of titles that need immediate attention. This is The Army is in a terrible state of disrepair.

In response to film lover's quote that there's nothing new to sequels, prequels, etc. That's true. But the sequels to Universal's horror circuit and virtually all of the other titles you listed were, for the most part B-picture entertainment and they should be distinguished from 'series' pictures, of which MGM did the 'series' picture the best (The Thin Man, The Andy Hardy movies, Young Dr. Kildare, Maisie, et. al). But the sequels you mentions were never intended as A-list product. Today, every gosh darn Hollywood blockbuster or minor faux pas has to set itself up to have its own backstory or sequel told in another 'less inventive and far less compelling movie than the original. My other great pet peeve for our current strain of glorified cartoonish claptrap that's masquerading as entertainment is 'the remake'. YES - remakes have always been a staple of Hollywood film making. But in the past at least, remakes were attempted as a means to update or improve upon films which had not made much of a splash one way or the other. Example: The Maltese Falcon was made twice (unsuccessfully) before John Huston and Bogart made it immortal. Third time's the charm, I guess. The Philadelphia Story and Ninotchka - both exemplary comedies, where transformed into winning musicals of the fifties; High Society and Silk Stockings respectively. In these examples the purpose of the remake was not to simply redo something old that already had a presold title - but to reconstitute the narrative with purpose for a new generation. Occasionally Hollywood can still do this successfully. For example: Scorsese's Cape Fear is a thrilling update/remake/improvement on the old Cape Fear which starred Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum (who appear in the remake in minor roles to nostalgic effect). The Mask of Zorro, with Antonio Bandaras and Catherine Zeta-Jones is a fabulous revision on the old Ty Power 'Mark of Zorro' and the Disney television serial of the 50s. But the update of Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (shortened to Mr. Deeds) transformed the tender and poignant Frank Capra tale of a simple man of the people into that of a dimwitted simpleton who couldn't count to ten and get the same number twice. Currently I hear that The Women, that fabulous 1939 scathingly funny drama/comedy starring Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford is to be remade. WHY?!? A suitable version of that film already exists and it's a classic. If Hollywood is scouring its past to provide for its future it SHOULD NOT BE REMAKING films which have endured - but films that were LESS THAN STELLAR originally, in the hopes of improving on them and offering definitive versions at long last.

TCM is a gem - not a perishable commodity. It glistens like no other cable network channel in the realm. AMC's shift from classics to 'everything' makes it a cheap movie channel substitute with no selling feature other than it shows some generally bad movies - mixed in with a few good ones - but sadly chopped up by commericals. That's not entertainment. It's boredom with an attitude. TCM is the REAL DEAL. Enjoy.

At last, someone who understands that the earth shattering box office returns on James Cameron's Titanic did not an instant classic make. That movie's script is a slap in the face to all Titanic survivors. High marks for set design. Low marks for acting. And how is it that no one realized how inarticulate and dragging the middle hour of the film was (post pulling out of South Hampton/pre-iceberg)?!? Other overrated flicks - Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, Superman Returns and every single Batman movie from Michael Keaton on.

Look who's talking about hype. Titanic had one of the greatest media blitz in recent history. And since when does a movie get into the history books as art simply because it made a lot of money. Citizen Kane made practically no money at all - it's flawless. You could give be about 40 billion more in box office receipts for Titanic and it still won't make the script sparkle.

A bit steamed about this one - have to tell you - having already purchased Vol. One. Since Vol. 2 will not feature the bio on Fred and Ginger I have to repurchase the whole box again - that's not fun and it would behoove the good planners at Warner to rethink their marketing strategies on further releases of this kind. I didn't mind repurchasing the Thin Man in the box set nearly a year after the original Thin Man was released as a stand alone disc in one of their awful clip cases. That was an upgrade in packaging at least. But having someone junk an entire box of five movies just so that they can get the documentary disc that is 'essential' is not smart. Ditto for the recent repackaging of already released titles for the pending Henry Fonda and James Stewart boxes. What cheek...and I don't mean "...to cheek"!!!

Alright, we're into the old apples and Buicks discussion again. Can't compare. Cagney is numero uno tough guy 'top of the world, ma' psychopath with a twinge of empathy - just to keep things real. He's also a real charmer when he sings and dances (Footlight Parade, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The West Point Story). Can you picture Bogart singing 'Give My Regards to Broadway'?!?!?! Certainly not. Bogart was the working man's cynic, a down and out loner who didn't care if you cared, but would be willing to buck you up when the chips were down. That he and Cagney both started their careers at Warners' murderer's row is about the only corelation I can deduce between their two careers. So who do you like better - Rock Hudson or Pee-Wee Herman?

No kidding - I think it's just criminal that the Joe Pasternak unit does not get credit for their masterful contribution to the great MGM musical. Pasternak may not have been as 'sophisticated' in his tastes as Freed, but his musicals were certainly just as entertaining - occasionally, more so!!!!!

Technicolor has a website of their own that I am certain would have the complete catalogue of films shot in their patented process. Keep in mind - I think you're referring to films shot in 3-strip Technicolor. Films in 2 strip Technicolor always left me feeling a bit queazy. Ditto for the crappy (but much cheaper) Eastman Kodak stock that studios switched over to in the mid 50s and continue to use since - although after mid-80s films started to have much better color processing from this stock as well. Still, I'll agree with you here - Technicolor IS king! Some of the best current examples of Technicolor on DVD are: Gone With The Wind (Warner 4 disc SE) Wizard of Oz (Warner 3 disc SE) Leave Her To Heaven (Fox Studio Series) Meet Me In St. Louis (Warner 2 disc SE) Singin' In The Rain (Warner 2 disc SE) Weekend in Havana (Fox) Can't Help Singing (part of The Deanna Durbin Collection from Universal) Good News (Warner) Anchors Aweigh (Warner) Summer Stock (Warner) The Harvey Girls (Warner) Enjoy.