MGM

Synopsis

There’s nothing really to summarize about these films. Their reason for being, after all, is simply to present clips from classic MGM musicals. The first film, released to huge success in 1974, set the pattern, with various big stars (Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly and so on) narrating different segments of a potted history of the MGM musical. That’s Entertainment, Part 2 (1976) broadened its scope to include comedy and romance scenes as well. The third film didn’t arrive...until1994, and dug deeper into the vaults to feature many scenes that were previously unseen because they were cut from the original releases. There’s something a little bit dubious about watching just the big numbers from famous films and stripping them of context (and the clips are very frequently not presented in their entirety anyway), and anyone looking for a serious documentary about MGM is better off looking elsewhere. There is still an enormous amount of material here, much of it now rare or hard to find. Simply bear in mind that the effect of watching these films is not unlike viewing a multi-hour marathon of Oscar night tribute compilations.