That’s Entertainment – The Complete Collection (HD-DVD/Warner Bros.)
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: B Films: B+
The
Hollywood Musical is making a comeback, with big screen adaptations of Chicago, Dreamgirls and Hairspray
(all on HD-DVD and/or Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) but like The Western,
there was a time when Musicals were very, very common. The record business was not the giant
business it became until the 1960s, there was no MTV and no Internet. From the introduction of sound to the arrival
of color TV, the genre was huge, even after it began its slow decline in the
1950s. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the
number one studio in the Classical Hollywood era and they were the biggest
producer of them all.
By the
late 1960s, the studio started to sell off assets and other entertainment took
over. In a genius move, MGM decided to
release a compilation in 1974 of highlights of their greatest Musicals and the
result was a hit in That’s Entertainment. Like the reissues of Gone With The Wind and The
Wizard Of Oz over the years, the result was a hit by showing enduring
filmmaking of the past. The result was
also one of the first signs that Hollywood wanted to get back to escapism, as
the posters (missing from the cover of the HD here) declared “Boy. Do we need it now.”
That
could be read as “we need distracted from reality” as it became in the 1980s
though if you have ever seen the best MGM Musicals, it would mean great
filmmaking of the highest A-level. It
also speaks volumes to all of Hollywood embracing that particular genre blindly
as if it were the ultimate expression of what all the studios want to
embrace. That’s Entertainment was so successful that 1976 brought a That’s Entertainment, Part 2, loaded
with as many great scenes.
In 1986,
Ted Turner bought MGM/UA (the two studios had merged by then) and permanently
separated the content of the studio’s film catalog from the rest of its assets
when he sold it back to other hands. In
the years following, he restored and took care of the catalog, which also
included some amazing vault discoveries.
Enough interesting material was unearthed that he released That’s Entertainment III in 1994 as a
prestige follow-up that unlike its predecessors, was purposely booked in
limited release to enhance the mystique of the material and he was also
charging top dollar for the rentals.
In all
three cases, you get hundreds of Musical clips, with the first two focusing on
the unbelievable number of feature film triumphs the studio had since sound
arrived. Many turn out to be in black
and white, but they are so compelling that they just flow with the rest of the
new and classic color footage. The first
two films rolled out some of the biggest names in the history of the industry,
from Frank Sinatra to Jimmy Stewart to Gene Kelly among others, at the MGM
Studio while they still owned it. Part 2 continued this strategy and now
more than ever, are very valuable crash courses in what the film’s in classy
form never claim as a great American art form.
By III, it was more obvious as films and
their memorabilia suddenly became valuable, though to this day, people still
underestimate it all. However, Turner
could have subtitled this “rarities” and it inadvertently complements the first
two nicely and ending it where they did was a smart idea. In combination, the three are an early,
welcome and high class box set addition to the HD market. So good are the clips that Warner should
prepare to be bombarded with requests of the full length films.
Highlights
of the first disc include an opening collage of performances of Singin’ In The Rain, Esther Williams Aqua-Ballet, New York, New York, The
Trolley Song and a slightly shortened version of the ballet from An American In Paris. The second includes A Night At The Opera, Inka
Dinka Doo, Paris medley, There’s No
Business Like Show Business and unusual/unlikely Musical moments from
non-Musical stars. III has Gene Kelly, Esther Williams, June Allyson, Cyd Charisse,
Debbie Reynolds, Lena Horne, Anne Miller and two versions of Two Faced Woman you have to see compared
to believe. Whether you have seen them
before and especially if never before, you will want to catch this trilogy in
HD, even with some limits.
The 1080p
digital High Definition image offers various aspect ratios for the first time
in either format (and this is also available in Blu-ray) from 1.33 academy
aperture to the original 2.55 X 1 CinemaScope format. Some of these clips look great, but
unfortunately, many are plagued by too much grain from older optical reprinting
and in the case of the many color clips that were originally in dye-transfer,
three-strip Technicolor, they are only here in grainier, single-strip, Kodak-at-the-time-type
MetroColor in the way these films were originally released. The discs boast the first two films as being
in MetroColor and accurately so, but sadly, no one at Warner or Turner struck
dye-transfer Technicolor prints for all three films (the third in regular when
the company revived the format from 1997 to 2001. The time has come for a revival.
To
compare, the HD-DVD Adventures Of Robin
Hood is more accurate in the 1.33 Technicolor cases, while (despite some
inaccuracies in the color) the HD-DVD of The
Searchers of a widescreen example, both of which are reviewed elsewhere on
this site. Much has happened to
Hollywood and the MGM catalog since the first film, but fortunately, Turner
himself saved the films and they results ironically look better than the clips
presented in the first two films. As for
the black and white, the prints can be grainy, but in the case of Jailhouse Rock on III, it means a lack of detail, flatness of image and limited
depth. As compared to the terrific
HD-DVD release, which is a revelation by comparison, shows how many problems
even the last volume has picture wise. I
cannot imagine how good or bad the first two looked in their 70mm blow-up
editions.
Those
films also included 6-track magnetic stereo on those 70mm prints, with five of
the tracks behind the screen in what is known as the old Todd-AO configuration,
while III was exclusively in DTS
5.1, but none of them can hide the usually monophonic nature of the vast
majority of the clips. The Dolby TrueHD
5.1 mix on all three stick the monophonic voices in the center channel and that
does not always work; III has the
best sound by default, but not by much.
Using Jailhouse Rock on
HD-DVD again, Warner issued that in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 as well, but that disc’s
title song sounded better there than here as well as looking better. Maybe Warner should have re-edited and
updated the films a bit, especially considering how much time and money (and
work by groups of uncredited people headed by George Feltenstein) they have
spent to save the individual films to date.
They
still look and sound better than a standard DVD-Video, with III having less grain and more accurate
color by comparison, but I was a bit disappointed with the performance all
around. The good news is that these are
not basic releases without bonus features.
Extras
include trailers for each on their respective discs and introductions by TCM
host Robert Osborne. Part 1 adds two vintage featurettes: Just
One More Time and That’s Entertainment! 50 Years Of MGM, plus the MGM
25th Anniversary Luncheon Newsreel. Part 2
adds the featurette The Masters Behind The Musicals, a vintage Mike Douglas Show clip with the star hosts of this sequel and
vintage featurette The Lion Roars Again. III adds jukebox access to the rare
clips and That’s Entertainment III – Behind The Scenes featurette. Unfortunately, I was hoping for some expert
commentary on all three films, which would have enhanced the priceless value of
the films. Also, the spin-off film That’s Dancing from 1985 that offered
mixed results, but could have enhanced, re-edited and covered this key component
from Musicals. That will have to be a
separate release.
- Nicholas Sheffo
