Product Description
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Includes That's Entertainment, That's Entertainment Part
2, That's Entertainment III, and a bonus fourth disc entitled
That's Entertainment: Treasures from the Vault, available
exclusively with the Giftset featuring more than five hours of
exciting extras including three great documentaries, premiere
night coverage and salutes to the great behind-the-camera
talents, TV specials, making-of featurettes, plus an extensive
video jukebox of rare, star-packed musical outtakes from classic
films, and more!
.com
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In an era when we have an unprecedented number of movies
and other diversions at our fingertips, is there still a need for
a clip show like That's Entertainment? Certainly, because the
film series, beginning in 1974, was an unabashed peddler of
glorious nostalgia, not only collecting many of the most
memorable moments in the magical history of the MGM musical--and
therefore in the history of film--but bringing in many of the
original stars to introduce them decades later. And another few
decades after the series was released, the nostalgia is that much
greater since many of those stars are now gone. In addition, the
sheer number and variety of clips (though they're often too
short) would be hard to match in any collection or in the span of
an evening's viewing. Where else could you enjoy Gene Kelly
singin' in the rain and also James Stewart crooning "Easy to
Love"? Or follow fun trends like the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland
"let's put on a show" pictures, of which Rooney says "only our
names seemed to change"? Following the surprising box-office
success of the initial film, Part 2 was released in 1976 and it
still had plenty of famous and obscure clips (remember Bobby
Van?), and even a nod to the nonmusical films of the era such as
the Hepburn-Tracy pictures. It topped everything off with the
irresistible pairing of hosts Kelly and Fred Astaire, who share a
dance--for only the second time in their careers--at the ages of
64 and 77, respectively (and a more graceful 77-year-old you
never will see!). The third film wasn't made until in 1994 (host
Kelly is strikingly older), but it offered more of the usual fare
plus a variety of cut numbers by such stars as Judy Garland, Lena
Horne, and Debbie Reynolds. A half-century later, Hollywood's
valentine to the movie musical was still shining strong.
The DVD trilogy set offers all three films with the choice of
widescreen anamorphic or full-screen formats (don't worry, the
clips are in their original aspect ratio). There's also a
two-sided fourth disc with supplemental material, most
interestingly the "musical outtakes jukebox," a 16-song,
49-minute collection of numbers that were cut from musicals of
the era. None of the selections are Great Songs, but it's hard to
discount any musical number from the MGM vaults, for example,
three selections by Garland and two by Horne (only one of which,
Garland's "Mr. Monotony," appears in TE3, and there in a slightly
shorter form). The rest of the content is behind-the-scenes
documentaries, the most significant being "That's Entertainment:
The Masters Behind the Musical" (37 minutes, profiling the talent
behind the films such as Arthur Freed and Michael Kidd), "That's
Entertainment III: Behind the Screen" (1994, 53 minutes), and
vintage black-and-white footage of MGM's 25th anniversary
celebration (10 minutes). Not included in the set: the 1985
compilation That's Dancing, which was released separately in
2007. --David Horiuchi