92% (3) The Wizard of Oz 102 min, PG, [Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Musical] [Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Mervyn LeRoy, Norman Taurog, Richard Thorpe, King Vidor] [25 Aug 1939]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 80%, Rotten Tomatoes: 98%, Metacritic: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: Won 2 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 14 nominations.
Actors: Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger
Writer: Noel Langley (screenplay), Florence Ryerson (screenplay), Edgar Allan Woolf (screenplay), Noel Langley (adaptation), L. Frank Baum (from the book by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Website Language: English Country: USA
Plot: In this charming film based on the popular L. Frank Baum stories, Dorothy and her dog Toto are caught in a tornado's path and somehow end up in the land of Oz. Here she meets some memorable friends and foes in her journey to meet the Wizard of Oz who everyone says can help her return home and possibly grant her new friends their goals of a brain, heart and courage.
Rotten Tomatoes: L. Frank Baum's classic tale comes to magisterial Technicolor life! The Wizard of Oz stars legendary Judy Garland as Dorothy, an innocent farm girl whisked out of her mundane earthbound existence into a land of pure imagination. Dorothy's journey in Oz will take her through emerald forests, yellow brick roads, and creepy castles, all with the help of some unusual but earnest song-happy friends.
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85% (2) The Harvey Girls 102 min, Not Rated, [Comedy, Musical, Western] [George Sidney] [29 Apr 1946]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: Won 1 Oscar. Another 1 nomination.
Actors: Angela Lansbury, John Hodiak, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger
Writer: Edmund Beloin (screenplay), Nathaniel Curtis (screenplay), Harry Crane (screenplay), James O'Hanlon (screenplay), Samson Raphaelson (screenplay), Kay Van Riper (additional dialogue), Samuel Hopkins Adams (novel), Eleanore Griffin (original story), William Rankin (original story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: On a train trip West to become a mail order bride Susan Bradley meets a cheery crew of young women traveling out to open a " Harvey House " restaurant at a remote whistle stop to provide good cooking and wholesome company for railway travellers. When Susan and her bashful suitor find romance daunting, Susan joins the Harvey Girls instead. The saloon across the street with its alluring worldly-wise women offers them tough competition, fair and foul, and Susan catches the eye of the Ned Trent, the distant but intense proprietor of the bar.
Rotten Tomatoes: This glorified Technicolor commercial for the Fred Harvey restaurants stars Judy Garland as a 19th-century mail-order bride. Upon arriving in New Mexico, Garland discovers that her husband-to-be is the town drunk. She cuts her losses and takes a job at the local Harvey restaurant, an establishment which endeavors to bring a little civilization and class to the wide open spaces. Harvey's operation is challenged by saloon-owner John Hodiak, corrupt-judge Preston S. Foster, and local-madam Angela Lansbury. With the help of tenderfoot Ray Bolger, Garland and her fellow waitresses foil the corrupt elements in town. Prominent in the supporting cast are Cyd Charisse, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, Kenny Baker and Virginia O'Brien (whose musical numbers aren't quite as rambunctious as the contributions of the others, mainly because O'Brien was pregnant during filming). The songs are for the most part perfunctory, with the spectacular exception of the Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's Oscar-winning "Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe." The Harvey Girls is tenuously based on a more sober-sided historical volume by Samuel Hopkins Adams.
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49% (2) Babes in Toyland 106 min, Approved, [Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance] [Jack Donohue] [14 Dec 1961]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 63%, Rotten Tomatoes: 36%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 4 nominations.
Actors: Annette Funicello, Ed Wynn, Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands
Writer: Victor Herbert (operetta), Glen MacDonough (operetta), Ward Kimball (screenplay), Joe Rinaldi (screenplay), Lowell S. Hawley (screenplay), Anna Alice Chapin (libretto)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Tom the Piper's Son is about to marry Mary Quite Contrary. On the eve of their wedding, evil miser Barnaby hires two henchmen to drown Tom and steal Mary's sheep, cared for by Little Bo Peep, thus depriving Mary and the children she lives with of their livelihood, forcing her to marry Barnaby. The sheep are stolen, but Gonzorgo and Roderigo, Barnaby's henchmen, double-cross him by selling Tom to a band of gypsies instead, leaving Tom with the opportunity to escape and make his way with Mary, Bo-Peep, and other Mother Goose characters to Toyland.
Rotten Tomatoes: Babes In Toyland is Walt Disney's first live action musical. Taken from the Victor Herbert operetta, the evil landlord Barnaby (Ray Bolger) is out to eliminate Tom (Tommy Sands) in order to marry Mary (Annette Funnicello). Tom is driven to the land of no return and presumably killed. Barnaby's henchmen sell Tom to the gypsies, pocket the money and pretend to have murdered the lovestruck victim. A kindly toymaker (Ed Wynn) loses his shop in an explosion, with Tom and Mary coming to his aid. Barnaby faces off for a battle against an army of wooden soldiers that is magically brought to life. Songs and dance are prominent throughout the story.
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80% (1) The Entertainer 105 min, [Drama, Music] [Donald Wrye] [10 Mar 1976]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 80%, External Reviews
Actors: Jack Lemmon, Ray Bolger, Sada Thompson, Tyne Daly
Writer: Elliott Baker, John Osborne (play)
External Links: IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A vaudeville entertainer approaches middle age still not having attained success or stardom.
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71% (1) That's Dancing! 105 min, G, [Documentary, Musical] [Jack Haley Jr.] [18 Jan 1985]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Gene Kelly, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ray Bolger, Sammy Davis Jr.
Writer: Jack Haley Jr.
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A documentary film about dancing on the screen, from it's orgins after the invention of the movie camera, over the movie musical from the late 20s, 30s, 40s 50s and 60s up to the break dance and the music videos from the 80s.
Rotten Tomatoes: Nine years after his last compilation of musical-movie highlights (That's Entertainment, Part II), producer Jack Haley Jr. offers another enjoyable nostalgia-fest, That's Dancing. Unlike his earlier films, which were confined to the output of MGM, That's Dancing offers vignettes from the best of Warner Bros. (the Busby Berkeley extravaganzas, On Your Toes), RKO (Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers), 20th Century-Fox (The Nicholas Brothers, Carmen Miranda), Universal (1969's Sweet Charity) and United Artists (the "Cool" number from West Side Story). There are also highlights from the top musicals of the 1970s and 1980s, which with such rare exceptions as Saturday Night Fever (1977) can't hold a candle to Hollywood's vintage songfests. Host/narrators Gene Kelly, Sammy Davis Jr., Mikhail Baryshnikov, Liza Minnelli and Ray Bolger help put the clips in their historical perspective, though all five stars seem tired and unenthusiastic. The real money scene in That's Dancing is Ray Bolger's "wind" dance, which was cut from the final release print of The Wizard of Oz (1939). In answer to the excellent audience response to this vintage sequence, Haley's next compilation, That's Entertainment III (1995), incorporated several such "lost" musical gems from the MGM vaults.
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65% (1) Sweethearts 114 min, PASSED, [Musical] [W.S. Van Dyke, Robert Z. Leonard] [30 Dec 1938]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 65%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 2 wins.
Actors: Frank Morgan, Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Ray Bolger
Writer: Fred De Gresac (book), Harry B. Smith (book), Robert B. Smith (book), Dorothy Parker (screen play), Alan Campbell (screen play)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A musical comedy duo in their 6th year on Broadway receive an offer to perform in Hollywood making films. The change of lifestyle is inviting to the Sweethearts as the move will take them away from relatives and friends who want to engage them in countless performances. However, when it comes to signing their Hollywood contract they do not sign as Gwen has been perceived into believing her seetheart and husband is engaged in an affair with their personal assistant. The Sweethearts split up and carry on performing their musical production around America with their understudies as their co-stars. Eventually they are united in a Broadway Show.
Rotten Tomatoes: Contrary to popular belief, the Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald Technicolor confection Sweethearts is not based on the 1913 Victor Herbert operetta of the same name (though most of Herbert's songs remain intact), but a Dorothy Parker-Alan Campbell brainstorm about a popular Broadway singing duo, starring in a long-running production of Sweethearts. The early portions of the film take place during a purported presentation of the Herbert piece, with Eddy and MacDonald singing their hearts out and Ray Bolger providing comic relief. We then segue into a long sequence wherein producer Frank Morgan, celebrating Sweethearts's six-year run, insists that Eddy and MacDonald attend a lavish party, where the weary performers are called upon to continue singing throughout the evening. Hoping for a few moments alone after escaping the party, Eddy and MacDonald are besieged at their apartment by friends, co-workers, hangers-on and sponging relatives. Seeking peace and quiet, the couple agrees to leave Sweethearts for the comparative calm of Hollywood. But their entourage, fearing that they'll lose their meal ticket if Eddy and MacDonald leave New York, arrange to inaugurate two profitable road companies of Sweethearts by contriving to split up the loving couple. Cleverly sidestepping the sugary sweet sentimentality that one might expect from an MGM musical of the era, the delightful Sweethearts is hampered only by its overlength.
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60% (1) Just You and Me, Kid 95 min, PG, [Comedy] [Leonard Stern] [13 Jul 1979]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 60%, External Reviews
Awards: 3 nominations.
Actors: Brooke Shields, George Burns, Lorraine Gary, Ray Bolger
Writer: Oliver Hailey (screenplay), Leonard Stern (screenplay), Tom Lazarus (story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: George Burns stars as a former vaudevillian who befriends a young runaway, played by fourteen-year-old Brooke Shields, who is being chased by drug dealers.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this comedy, an elderly ex-vaudevillian is surprised to find a naked young woman in the trunk of his car. He soon discovers that she is a runaway fleeing from both the police and an enraged drug dealer she cheated out of $20,000. Meanwhile, the codger's daughter continually attempts to get him committed because of his overly generous support of his former colleagues.
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