That’s Entertainment!: 50th Anniversary Remastered Edition (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Feb 17, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Jack Haley Jr.Release Date(s)
1974 (November 26, 2024)Studio(s)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: A
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
During Hollywood’s Golden Age, every major studio turned out its share of musicals. Warner Brothers had Busby Berkeley’s kaleidoscopic extravaganzas and later Doris Day star vehicles. RKO had huge box office success with a series of Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals. Paramount was home to Bing Crosby films. Columbia cast auburn-haired Rita Hayworth in one musical after another. Twentieth Century-Fox featured Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, and Alice Faye in lush Technicolor songfests. But no studio could compare with MGM for its roster of talent, lavishness of production, and high quality. Much of what made MGM the preeminent producer of musicals is on vivid display in That’s Entertainment!
Made to commemorate the studio’s 50th anniversary and directed by Jack Haley, Jr., That’s Entertainment! features excerpts from some of the studio’s most memorable musical productions, with introductions and commentary by stars associated with that era, among them Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, Mickey Rooney, Bing Crosby, Liza Minnelli, James Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter Lawford. The films represented are as early as 1929’s Broadway Melody and as recent as 1958’s Gigi.
Standouts include Gene Kelly’s title number from Singin’ in the Rain, Fred Astaire’s dance on walls and ceiling in Royal Wedding, Judy Garland singing The Trolley Song in Meet Me in St. Louis, the barn raising dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the elaborate American in Paris ballet, and Donald O’Connor’s sensational show-stopper Make ‘Em Laugh. But the film is loaded with gems.
Clark Gable performs the song-and-dance routine Puttin’ on the Ritz along with six chorus girls. Ann Miller taps away among the hands and instruments of musicians hidden below the stage. Debbie Reynolds and Carlton Carpenter duet on Aba-Daba Honeymoon, frenetically speeding the tempo in the second chorus. Non-dancer Peter Lawford and June Allyson lead a college chorus in The Varsity Drag. Sinatra, Kelly, and Jules Munshin sing New York, New York as they wend their way through various locations in Manhattan. A very young Mickey Rooney hams it up in a short, well before he became a star. Gene Kelly dances with Jerry the Mouse in Anchors Aweigh. Dennis Morgan warbles A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody from The Great Ziegfeld as a monstrous wedding cake set revolves, adorned with scores of performers and pretty girls. A montage of Garland’s musical appearances is combined with her Get Happy number from Summer Stock, her last film for MGM.
A highlight of the film is a sequence devoted to Esther Williams, MGM’s swimming star. Starting with Bathing Beauty, the studio kept increasing the production values in Williams’ films because of their enormous popularity. Whether emerging from a pool with surrounding sparklers fully lit, diving into the midst of a floral arrangement formed by female swimmers, magically igniting jets of fire with a wave of her hand as she swims past, or emerging on a trapeze from clouds of yellow and orange smoke, Williams was unique.
Other stars featured in clips include Lena Horne, Jimmy Durante, Kathryn Grayson, Mario Lanza, Jane Powell, Joan Crawford, and Liza Minnelli (making her film debut at age 3 with her mother and Van Johnson in the final scene of In the Good Old Summertime).
Four years before That’s Entertainment! was released, MGM held a famous auction that put its props on the block, including the iconic ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. The most elaborate garage sale ever, with costumes, vehicles, and other items used in studio productions offered to the public, it signaled that the old Hollywood was fading.
The celebrities’ introductions to the clips were filmed on the MGM backlot, then in disrepair and awaiting demolition because the studio had sold the land to a developer. Astaire, in a clip from The Band Wagon, sings as he walks along a railroad platform. The scene dissolves into the modern-day Astaire walking on the same set, now in tatters. With the auction in the rear view mirror and glimpses of structures awaiting the wrecking ball, there’s a feeling of sadness that the world depicted in That’s Entertainment! was no more. Of the celebrities narrating, only Liza Minnelli is still alive, which adds yet another layer of bittersweet nostalgia.
That’s Entertainment! was one of the highest-grossing pictures of 1974. The studio made two sequels and then That’s Dancing—four films in all documenting the great musical performances of a simpler, more innocent time. By choosing clips from numerous sources, Haley and his editing team were able to include shining moments and, for the most part, use complete versions.
That’s Entertainment! is a congratulatory greeting card to fans of the musicals and to itself. The studio was the biggest, with the greatest resources, and it used those resources to turn out picture after picture filled with amazing talent, memorable performances, and pure joy. Filming musical sequences in the grand style of vintage MGM would be cost-prohibitive today, making the film a time capsule showcasing what was possible at the height of Hollywood’s glory.
The host sequences of That’s Entertainment! were shot on 35 mm film with spherical lenses and presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Sequences feature 1.37:1, 1.75:1, 2.35:1, and 2.55:1 aspect ratios. This 50th anniversary remastered edition Blu-ray, which has been painstaking cut together using clips from existing high definition definition masters of the films that its features, looks great. The Technicolor colors are vibrant and feature deeply saturated primary hues. Make-up on the women is flattering. Costumes and sets are lavish, in keeping with the MGM style. The host sequences look somewhat washed out and lack the pristine clarity of the film clips. The disrepair of the backlot structures is a visual commentary on how film making changed from Hollywood’s Golden Age to the mid-1970s.
The soundtrack is English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. English SDH subtitles are an available option. Music dominates the film and sounds rich and energetic. Arrangements had a studio sound that is unmistakable, and it’s evident in the clips. The hosts’ narration is clear and distinct, with little competing ambient noise from the deserted backlot locations. Sequences from Hit the Deck and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers stand out for their excellent stereophonic soundtracks. The overture features instrumental versions of songs in MGM musicals. Additional music was written by Henry Mancini.
Bonus materials on the Blu-ray release from the Warner Archive Collection include the following:
- Just One More Time (8:46)
- 50 Years of MGM (61.00)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (4:12)
Just One More Time – A narrator explains that to celebrate MGM’s 50th anniversary, studio head Daniel Melnick asked Jack Haley, Jr. to assemble a group of editors to pore through more than a hundred films going back five decades and select the best clips for inclusion in That’s Entertainment! Behind-the-scenes footage of filming on MGM’s backlot is shown, along with stars James Stewart, Gene Kelly, Peter Lawford, Elizabeth Taylor, and Donald O’Connor introducing various segments.
50 Years of MGM – This TV special is a promotion for the release of That’s Entertainment!, originally aired on May 29, 1974. Hosted by George and Alana Hamilton, it features interviews with Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Johnny Weissmuller, Jack Haley, Myra Loy, Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Liza Minnelli and shows stars associated with MGM gathering for a series of commemorative photos—sort of an “alumni photo” of studio talent.
That’s Entertainment! is a tour of a time and place that no longer exist. It documents an era of lavish moviemaking when it seemed cost was no issue. Four MGM musicals won the Best Picture Academy Award—Broadway Melody, The Great Ziegfeld, An American in Paris, and Gigi—with many others nominated in that category. The numbers are testament to the collaborative efforts of the men and women who labored to achieve often exhilarating results on the screen.
- Dennis Seuling