A great intro into MGM musicals. Numerous highlights abound, including:

*Cary Grant singing (nicely, BTW) in "Suzy," and then Jimmy Stewart singing (not so nicely) in "Born to Dance" and then Clark Gable singing (not that nicely, but that's the point) in "Idiot's Delight"
*Judy Garland singing "You Made Me Love You" in "Broadway Melody of 1938"
*The unbelievable "Begin the Beguine" number by Eleanor Powell and Fred Astaire in "Broadway Melody of 1940"
*The Trolley Song from "Meet Me in St. Louis" as well as the terminally cute "Under the Bamboo Tree"
*Gene Kelly and Jerry the mouse dancing in "Anchors Aweigh"
*"The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe" number from "The Harvey Girls"
*Kelly and Astaire together in the "Babbitt and the Bromide" segment from "Ziegfeld Follies"
*"New York, New York" from "On the Town"
*Fred Astaire and the hat rack in "Royal Wedding"
*"Dancing in the Dark" from "The Band Wagon"
*"Singin' in the Rain" and "Make 'em Laugh" from the film
*The barn-raising scene from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"
*"Did Ya Evah?" from "High Society"

The film's flaws (actors narrating the films stodgily from scripts, an over-gushingly laudatory tone to MGM) are easily conquerable by the fast-forward button. Other flaws, such as the absence of several great scenes, including the actual "That's Entertainment!" scene from "The Band Wagon" were only remedied by follow-ups.

The second and the third films, while not up to the first one, are still entertaining and both have different pluses and minuses.

The second is hosted by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly and while their routines and patter are pretty darn silly, one does get goosebumps seeing Fred and Gene dancing on screen together for one last time. The second's major problem is its lack of organization--the first did various tributes to stars and genres with some grab bag segments, while this one is kind of all over the place--it even adds in scenes from non-musical films. The organized segments are pretty witty, though: Sammy Cahn narrates a bit about songwriting as seen on screen, plus there's a series of montages showing famous stars saying their catch phrases.

The higlights of volume II include the standard "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Garland, the "Be a Clown" number that was ripped off for the "Make 'Em Laugh" number in Singin' in the Rain, a bunch of terrific bits from Easter Parade, the Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo number by Leslie Caron, the kind of dumb but well filmed human pogo stick bit with Bobby Van, Bing and Louis Armstrong in "Now You Has Jazz," and getting to see a young Bob Fosse dance in "Kiss me Kate."

The third one was done much later; while an ailing Gene Kelly introduces and closes the film, the hosts are mostly younger folks from the second wave of MGM musicals--Ann Miller, Howard Keel, Cyd Charisse, June Allyson, etc. It's nice to see some different faces (including a candid Lena Horne, who does mention the racism she faces), and Cyd and June look pretty darn good too! There really is no theme; the movie shows a few leftover pieces (including some gems unaccountably missed, like "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better") and many "cut" sequences. It seems to me, though, that the clips are much quicker in this edition.

MGM was in deep trouble in 1974. They had a string of flops (Zabriskie Point, The Strawberry Statement), and had sold off their distrubutorship to United Artists. This film (MGM's 50th anniversary celebration, btw) was such a huge hit it probably saved them from oblivion. (In a nice touch of irony, MGM bought United Artists in 1981, after the colossal failure of UA's $40 million western Heaven's Gate sank them)