Events

Patricia Ward Kelly on Gene Kelly: The Legacy

Patricia Ward Kelly starts her one-woman show, “Gene Kelly: The Legacy,” by addressing a few pertinent questions about her late husband: he was 5′ 8″; he got his distinctive facial scar from a tricycle accident as a kid; and they met while filming a TV documentary series about the Smithsonian. She also candidly addresses the question perhaps most on the mind of curious audience members expecting to see a frail, 90-year-old woman, instead of the vibrant young speaker before them: when they met, she was 26 and Gene was 73.

Continue Reading
Film Reviews

Everything I Have Is Yours (1952)

Generally, when the TV guide describes a movie as “a bit of fluff,” as it did in the case of Everything I Have Is Yours, I’m not expecting much in terms of drama. So, I was perhaps particularly blindsided by this movie, which, although a musical on the surface (and in the TV guide), is also a meditative drama on the volatile nature of relationships, marriage, and family, with a particular focus on the gender roles of its era. Pretty heady stuff for a 1952 MGM musical, especially when I came in expecting a light vehicle for dancers Marge and Gower Champion.

Continue Reading
That's Entertainment

La Fiesta de Santa Barbara (1935)

“La Fiesta de Santa Barbara” is a very colorful, very wacky musical comedy short from MGM, featuring a collection of many of their greatest stars at the time. It ostensibly takes place at a Spanish/Mexican-themed festival in Santa Barbara (though it certainly appears to be a backlot production), and it’s narrated in the classic newsreel style so as to properly highlight all of these famous faces.

Continue Reading
Film Reviews

For Me and My Gal (1942)

Judging by its lofty pedigree on paper, For Me and My Gal should really be one of cinema’s most enduring and classic musicals. Not only was it directed by Busby Berkeley and produced by Arthur Freed, but it was Judy Garland’s first “adult” role, and, furthermore, Gene Kelly’s film debut. And yet it remains one of the more underseen Garland and/or Kelly and/or Berkeley pictures of the era, in part because, well… it’s a bit dark.

Continue Reading
That's Entertainment

The Hollywood Revue of 1929

MGM golden girl Joan Crawford is to thank for a number of uncommon treats airing on TCM this month, including, happily, a rare film featured in That’s Entertainment:The Hollywood Revue of 1929. This film is most notable for being the first onscreen depiction of the now-classic “Singing in the Rain,” but there’s a LOT of other things going on in here as well… and the lack of focus, in turn, is probably why it’s not been seen more widely.

Continue Reading