Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Musicals Great Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit at MGM (1996), 8

1h 26min | Music | Episode aired 2 December 1996
Great Performances (1971– )
Documentary chronicling Arthur Freed and his unit's contribution to some of Hollywood's most memorable musicals.
Director: David Thompson

Included on disc 2 of Singin' in the Rain ('52).

No songs listed in the Soundtracks, but plenty in the doc'y.

Granted, I probably watched this more than once before, but I'll bet every minute of this was included as a special feature on the dvd for the source film. That lead me to wonder whether this doc'y existed before those special features, or vice versa. My first reaction is that the interviews seemed to have a similarity of style to them: lighting, seating, setting, therefore this probably came first. Another idea: although laser discs were introduced in '78, a couple of years after vhs, dvds weren't introduced until '99. 

This is fun to watch. I didn't keep track of whether every film mentioned is recorded on the IMDb Connections page, but that lists only 21 of his musicals (plus 1 non-musical and 9 titles he didn't produce), and AF has 46 film Producer credits in IMDb, 41 of which have genre Musical. Missing from the Connections (and probably the doc'y) are these 20; I don't remember any of them being discussed:
4. Little Nellie Kelly (1940)
5. Lady Be Good (1941)
7. Panama Hattie (1942)
8. For Me and My Gal (1942)
10. Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
11. Best Foot Forward (1943)
12. Girl Crazy (1943)
13. Meet the People (1944)
18. Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
19. Good News (1947)
20. Summer Holiday (1948)
23. Words and Music (1948)
25. The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
28. Pagan Love Song (1950)
32. The Belle of New York (1952)
35. Brigadoon (1954)
37. Kismet (1955)
38. Invitation to the Dance (1956)
39. Silk Stockings (1957)
41. Bells Are Ringing (1960)

So in 86min they only scratched _half_ the surface of AF's musicals. (BTW, he has producer credit on 5 non-musicals, and Soundtrack credit on 178 films so far with the most recent released in 2016, and 120 TV titles (not including multiple episodes) with most recent being this year (2018).)

IMDb rating 7.6 (146)   

distr. PBS, dir. Thompson; 8
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