(archive footage)
Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.
Self (archive footage)
Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.
From 'Born to Dance' (archive footage)
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.
Violet Ranley
Band singer/race driver Mike McCoy must choose between marrying a beautiful rich girl and driving her father's car in a prestigious race.
Mrs. Watkins
A tiger escapes from a circus truck as it passes by a small town, and hides itself in the surrounding woods. This throws the town into a panic and everyone wants the animal killed immediately, except for the daughter of the sheriff. She wants to capture the tiger and put it in a zoo, thereby saving the tiger's life. Her determination starts a nationwide campaign among children to raise the money to buy the tiger from the circus, but first, she, her father and an Indian tiger trainer must find the tiger before the National Guard do, who have orders to kill it on sight.
Mariah Popham
Disney musical about Mother Carey, a Bostonian widow and her three children who move to Maine. Postmaster Osh Popham helps them move into a run-down old house and fixes it up for them. It's not entirely uninhabited, though; the owner, a Mr. Hamilton, is a mysterious character away in Europe, but Osh assures them he won't mind their living there, since he won't be coming home for a long time yet. The children and a cousin who comes to live with them have various adventures before an unexpected visitor shows up
Mrs. Winemiller
In a small Mississippi town in 1916, an eccentric spinster battles her romantic yearnings for the randy boy next door.
Verbena
Two identical twin sisters, separated at birth by their parents' divorce, are reunited years later at a summer camp, where they scheme to bring their parents back together. The girls, one of whom has been living with their mother and the other with their father, switch places after camp and go to work on their plan, the first objective being to scare off a gold-digger pursuing their father.
Ma Larkin
Tax collector Lorenzo Charlton comes to the Larkins' farm to ask why Pop Larkins hasn't paid his back taxes. Charlton has to stay for a day to try to estimate the income from the farm, but it isn't easy to calculate when the farmer has such a lovely daughter.
Aladdin's Mother
Cole Porter's version of the story of Aladdin--his only musical written especially for television.
Mother
Dodie dreams of marrying a millionaire so that she can live 'the life'. Buzz, her boyfriend, however, is not rich as he is a salesman for a housing development. He proposes and Dodie accepts. Dodie next meets Pete, who she thinks is rich, but she soon finds out that he is just a boat mechanic. They have fun on their date and Pete proposes and Dodie accepts. Then Dodie meets Neil Patterson who is rich. They go to Mexico on his yacht and have fun on their date. Neil proposes and Dodie accepts. Now she has to choose.
Bertha
When a movie star is kidnapped, everyone thinks it's a publicity stunt. It's not.
Mrs. Dugan
Kitschy musical remake of "Bachelor Mother". Debbie Reynolds plays an over-eager clerk in a large department store and Eddie Fisher plays the boss' son. After getting fired from her job, she finds an adorable baby on the steps of the foundling home and the folks inside mistake her for the mother. Fisher, well-meaning, but obtuse, tries to help her out with the baby, and the buds of romance begin to appear. Meanwhile old Merlin, the owner of the store, thinks he just might be a grandfather...
Miss Bedelia Baines
Ma and the kids head out to help Pa's brother Sedgewick with the his farm in Mournful Hollow, Arkansas. Things get tighter when a couple of bootleggers rent Sedge's barn to manufacture moonshine. With Ma and the kids, the bootleggers get their pay.
Sophie Wakefield
A frontiersman and his son fight to build a new home in Texas.
Mom Schneider
Melvin Hoover, a budding photographer for Look magazine, accidentally bumps into a young actress named Judy LeRoy in the park. They start to talk and Melvin soon offers to do a photo spread of her. His boss, however, has no intention of using the photos. Melvin wants to marry Judy, but her father would rather she marry dull and dependable Harry Black. As a last resort, Melvin promises to get Judy's photo on the cover of the next issue of Look, a task easier said than done.
Kitty Riley
Marshovia, a small European kingdom, is on the brink of bankruptcy but the country may be saved if the wealthy American Crystal Radek, widow of a Marshovian, can be convinced to part with her money and marry the king's nephew count Danilo. Arriving to Marshovia on a visit, Crystal Radek change places with her secretary Kitty. Following them to Paris, Danilo has a hard time wooing the widow after meeting an attractive young woman at a nightclub, the same Crystal Radek who presents herself as Fifi the chorus girl. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.
Sister Marie
Jane Froman (Susan Hayward), an aspiring songstress, lands a job in radio with help from pianist Don Ross (David Wayne), whom she later marries. Jane's popularity soars, and she leaves on a European tour... but her plane crashes in Lisbon, and she is partially crippled. Unable to walk without crutches, Jane nevertheless goes on to entertain the Allied troops in World War II.
Mary Ann Crabtree
Against the background of the Civil War, sixteen-year-old song-and-dance artiste Lotta Crabtree works her way across America, becoming ever more popular.
Patsy Clifford
Christy Sloane is sent on a business trip to inform radio personality Peter Lockwood that his uncle has died and left him $2 million. Christy, who's in financial straits, decides to try to snag Peter. Zany hijinks ensue and romantic sparks fly.
Glynnie
A rancher's daughter visits Paris to meet her mother and find love.
Emma - Nurse / Receptionist
Dr. Helen Hunt is a physician married to millionaire Peter Judson Kirk Jr., who is jealous his wife is spending too much time with her male patients. He makes a fool of himself trying to prove her guilt.
Miss Irma Gilbert
Radio star Kitty Moran, long married to partner Jack, finds she's pregnant, but miscarries. For a change, the couple turn their act into a series on early TV and try to adopt a baby. Finally they acquiring a girl in a somewhat back alley manner.
Betty Johnson
Ex-baseball player Bill Johnson, failing at many jobs when his ball-playing days are over, reluctantly takes the advice of his father-in-law, Jonah Evans, a retired umpire, and enters an umpire-training school. Assigned to the Texas League, he does fine until the championship play-offs when a riot develops over one of his calls. The involved player is knocked unconscious in the proceedings and cannot verify that Bill made the correct call. Despite lynch mob plans to at least tar-and-feather him, Bill's family - his daughters Lucy (Gloria Henry and Susan and his wife Betty - help Bill reach the ballpark safely the next day through a series of hair-raising encounters.
Widow Weeks
James Craig is torn between his criminal career as the masked bandit named the "El Paso Kid," and the life of a law-abiding citizen with his long-suffering wife Zoe. He repeatedly tells Zoe, "just one more time," but he is unable to stop which angers her greatly. However, he does have brief moments of heroics such as when he helps the Widow Weeks save her farm.
Miss Doberly
McGrath publishes books for children and Uncle Bump is one of the best sellers. Unfortunately, Greg, who is Uncle Bump, tends to drink too much and has not started his next book. Martha won a contest to illustrate the book and the first thing that happens is that Greg gets her soused. To keep her there to illustrate, John gets a juvenile delinquent named Danny to play his son and show how much pressure he is under. The ploy works at first, but Greg's heart was broken by Tillie, and Martha may be the girl who makes him forget all about her.
Mrs.Magnolia Claghorn
Claghorn gets into some financial difficulties and is forced by a machine-political gang to enter a race for state senator against his wife (Una Merkel) who appears to have a good chance to beat the political hack backed by the machine. Claghorn is in to siphon votes and ensure his wife's opponent will win and is expected to run a campaign that will defeat himself and his wife. But, he runs to win and the machine's henchies abduct him.
Patsy Wilkins
A WW-II defense plant worker gets knocked out and dreams about helping the war effort in various ways, including solving a crime.
Una
Harry finds out he is the missing heir to an estate, and is summoned to an old, spooky mansion to collect his inheritance.
Daffy
Una and Gwen get jobs as process servers, and are assigned to serve papers on a prominent local doctor.
Rose Dibble
In WW I dancer Jerry Jones stages an all-soldier show on Broadway, called Yip Yip Yaphank. Wounded in the War, he becomes a producer. In WW II his son Johnny Jones, who was before his fathers assistant, gets the order to stage a knew all-soldier show, called THIS IS THE ARMY. But in his pesonal life he has problems, because he refuses to marry his fiancée until the war is over.
Lydia
Mike Abbott just wants to spend a quiet evening at home with his wife, but her collection of zany friends make hash of his hopes.
Aunt Margaret Wentworth
A fugitive doctor (Lionel Atwill) tries to raise the dead for South Sea Islanders.
Sharon Knight
A young man in a small town wins $5000 in a radio contest. He goes to New York City to propose to his girlfriend, but gets mixed up with a crooked attorney and two con men...
Julia Quimby
Stranded in Africa, Chuck and his pal Fearless have comic versions of jungle adventures, featuring two attractive con-women.
Myrtle Sousé
Egbert Sousé becomes an unexpected hero when a bank robber falls over a bench he's occupying. Now considered brave, Egbert is given a job as a bank guard. Soon, he is approached by charlatan J. Frothingham Waterbury about buying shares in a mining company. Egbert persuades teller Og Oggilby to lend him bank money, to be returned when the scheme pays off. Unfortunately, bank inspector Snoopington then makes a surprise appearance.
Nan Clark
A young widow lets her baby be the deciding factor as to which eligible bachelor she should marry.
A Tennessee boy (Bob Burns) returns from the big city, runs for mayor and puts his musical kin on the radio.
Lily Belle
When a tough western town needs taming, the mild-mannered son of a hard-nosed sheriff gets the job.
Marcia Giles
Young Pud is orphaned and left in the care of his aged grandparents. The boy and his grandfather are inseparable. Gramps is concerned for Pud's future and wary of a scheming relative who seeks custody of the child. One day Mr. Brink, an agent of Death, arrives to take Gramps "to the land where the woodbine twineth." Through a bit of trickery, Gramps confines Mr. Brink, and thus Death, to the branches of a large apple tree, giving Gramps extra time to resolve issues about Pud's future.
Flo Saunders
Nicky Nelson is a fast-talking sideshow barker with a wax-and-alive concession on Atlantic City's boardwalk. Even with the band of his friend, struggling musician Gene Krupa, playing on the sidewalk to attract the customers, "The Living Corpse" and other low-rent acts aren't enough to lure the seen-it-all boardwalk strollers, and the landlord closes the show in lieu of never-paid rent. Nicky, always promoting, goes to Stephen Hanratty, head of the pier's Dance Pavilion, to plug Krupa's band as an attraction, but Hanratty won't even listen to them. But, while there, he meets singer Lily Racquel, who knows he is a phoney but might have the ability to to talk a radio-station manager into giving her an audition. She gives him a ring to help finance the project; he promptly loses it in a crap-game.
Gertie Robbins
Young Women go through Nursing School together, each with there own motivation for being there. They learn more than how to be a Nurse.
Self
This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.
Daisy McClure
A writer takes a job as a secretary because her scrupulous husband isn't bringing in the dough as an attorney. When her new employer is murdered, she can't seem to make up her mind as to whether she "dunnit" or not.
Mamie Appleby
A clever veterinarian repairs a horse's leg so the animal can run in a big race and save a man's farm.
Fritzi Kiffmeyer
A horse breeder's granddaughter falls in love with a gambler in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Nellie
A small town drunk beats a teetotal banker guilty of a shady transaction.
Nancy Dorsey
After being released from prison, con man Thurston Hall gathers his gang of cronies--along with innocent chump Guy Kibbee--to help him sell worthless stock in a New Mexico gold mine.
Jenny Saks
Ted meets and falls in love with Nora Paige, an aspiring Broadway dancer who tries out for a show starring Lucy James. After Ted rescues Lucy's pet dog during a public relations campaign on his submarine, Lucy falls for him. Ted is ordered to meet Lucy for a date at a night club, who later sees their picture in the newspaper and no longer wants anything to do with him.
Susan Standish
Middle-aged couples try to reclaim their youth at a college homecoming.
Josephine 'Jo' Sanderson
Terry is the chief car tester for Emery Motors and Frank is an Engineer. Jane has just been hired to work in publicity. Frank and Terry both want Jane to be their girl. Terry has designed a new carburetor that should bring him fame and money, but he cannot get it to work correctly. Terry and Gadget have tested it for over a year, but it still is not perfected. Emery Motors assigns Frank to help Terry with the carburetor, but Terry is not happy because Frank is an Engineer and is also vying for Jane. They finish the carburetor, and to test it, they enter a car in the Indianapolis 500 race. Terry is not yet satisfied with the carburetor before the big race even though it has passed all the tests.
Lil
Fisherman Dutch marries cannery worker Hattie. After he is kicked out of his union and fired from his job he leaves Hattie who steals money for him and goes to jail. He gets a new job, foils a plot to dynamite the ship, and promises to wait for Hattie.
Alice Lane Churchill
Con men Calvin Churchill and Clip McGurk know how to fix a horse-race or boxing match. Calvin wants to go straight and win back his estranged wife, but first the men must dodge a dogged IRS agent and bilk a bunch of aviation investors out of the backing boodle for a balloon excursion into the stratosphere.
Kitty Corbett
Lovely, gifted Irene Foster hopes that her childhood sweetheart-turned Broadway producer Robert Gordon will recognize her--and her talent. Gordon is too busy sparring with a dirt-dishing gossip columnist to notice, but his wisecracking, heart-of-gold secretary certainly does. She and Irene must use their wits to show him what he's missing!
'Toots' Timmons
A traitor is lurking somewhere aboard the USS Carolina, and Lt. Tom Randolph is determined to find the offender. First a revolutionary new piece of technology -- an electric firing device -- is sabotaged. Then one of the cruiser's crew is murdered. In order to catch the killer, the captain locks down the ship. With foreign dignitaries, corporate goons and even Tom's girlfriend, Betty, trapped on the vessel, there is no shortage of suspects.
Millicent Harrington
Thanks to a series of comic mishaps, a timid, small-town office clerk finds himself wanted by the police and labeled by the media as "Public Enemy No. 2." Comedy.
Phoebe
Foxhall Ridgeway, arriving in New York City from the West, stumbles onto a murder in the hotel room next to his. He gets tangled up into the affair, and with the aid of Phoebe, the hotel telephone operator who takes a liking to him, and also Countess Louise Browssiloff, who innocently had left some personal belongings in the murdered man's room and is most anxious to recover the incriminating evidence, Foxhall solves the murder mystery.
Fanni Kerner
Young Austrian Archduke Paul "Gustl" Gustave is in an arranged engagement but his uncle, the emperor, decides to let Gustl carry on a fling with ballet dancer Lisl Gluck.
Slade Kinnicott
Everyweek Newsmagazine editor Richard Kurt pursues famous free-spirited portrait artist Marion Forsythe on her return to the states from Europe, seeking to convince her to write her biography as a feature for his magazine. One of Marion's old beaus, now running for U.S. Senator from their home state, also comes calling.
Amy Drexel
A criminal lawyer's wife faces blackmail when she has an affair.
Queen Dolores
A prince from a small kingdom courts a wealthy widow to keep her money in the country.
Joan O'Day
Sally (Jean Parker) is engaged to be married, loves dancing and kids. But her life is ruined when an accident cripples her and her betrothed magnanimously offers to not back out of the marriage. After rejecting his offer she starts a doll shop and tries to save for an operation. From her doll shop window she watches children and talks to Jimmie (James Dunn) the ice cream man. She wants to know Jimmie better, but is terrified of rejection.
Gwen
Bulldog Drummond finds himself immersed in another adventure when he stumbles upon a corpse in the mysterious London mansion of Prince Achmed. Enlisting the help of his old friend Algy and the beautiful Lola, Drummond uncovers a scheme to ship illegal cargo into the country. He must rely on his cunning to survive when the prince offers a reward for his capture.
Petunia Pratt / Cobb
Naive Ezekial Cobb, brought up by his missionary father in China returns to America to seek a wife. Corrupt politicians enlist him to run for mayor as a dummy candidate with no chance of winning. Their plan backfires as he wins and embarks upon a reform crusade.
Cassie
Expatriates and foreign correspondents mix in a Paris bistro...
Georgia
Ruth Raymond works on the switchboard and her boyfriend is John Blake. It has taken 14 years, but a detective named Murray has found her and confirmed.
Birdie
A family man becomes innocently involved in an embezzlement.
Miss 'Simmy' Simmons
An immensely successful criminal lawyer is blindsided when he learns that his new case involves his ex-wife, who left him.
Mamie
In this brutal prison drama a hen-pecked husband is sentenced to prison after getting caught with his hand in the company till. He is sent to a high-rise facility in LA. It seems the fellow was only following the instructions of his domineering, constantly nagging wife who, as soon as he is put away, takes up with a more successful businessman. This causes her new lover's ex-lover to get insanely jealous and kill the conniving wife.
Mac
A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.
Mrs. Omsk (uncredited)
A chef helps a housewife cook a duck dinner that will not give her husband indigestion.
Flirt in Audience
In this through-the-years saga about a show business family, the fame of husband and wife vaudeville headliners of the 1880s is eclipsed by their son.
Carol Merrick
A beautiful woman lands a job at an exclusive salon that deals with the wives of wealthy businessmen. Her contact with these men leads to a series of affairs.
Hattie
A camp butcher on an Albany night boat dreams of the South Seas.
Bunny 'Bun'
A young woman is on trial for murder. In flashback, we learn of her struggles to overcome poverty as a teenager -- a mistaken arrest and prison term for shoplifting and lack of employment lead to involvement with gangsters. In a brothel, she meets a young lawyer, scion of a wealthy and prestigious family, who falls for her and helps her turn around her life. But her past catches up with her, and she must face the music rather than cause him scandal.
Ilsa Hinrich
An exiled archduke (John Barrymore) tries to renew romance with a former lover (Diana Wynyard) now wed to a psychiatrist (Frank Morgan).
Lorraine Fleming
A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.
Dolly Winslow
Buckley is an unethical reporter who manipulates the news for his own benefit as much as he reports it. When he is in Paris to get a medal for being rescued from his alleged kidnappers, he finds that his boss, Stevens, at the Chicago Globe is going with his old gal Dolly. When Stevens learns that Dolly is staying with Buckley in Moscow, he fires Buckley. To get his job back, Buckley and Lefty stage a great news story about the shooting of the last Romanoff, but the plan backfires and they are now in line to be shot by the Commissar.
Ella
A murder trial reunites a former chorus girl and her son, a grandson of an English aristocrat.
Toby Van Buren
A mystery writer and his sweetheart are held hostage by a fugitive gangster, who hopes to enlist their help in devising the perfect crime.
Molly
An immigrant and his wife arrive in America hoping to make it big in the world of music. Shortly thereafter, though, the husband finds out his wife is having an affair with a local lowlife; when he turns up dead, the husband is jailed for his murder, even though he protests his innocence.
Dixie Dare
An innocent, young, small town church organist is thrown out of her home, told she was adopted and that her mother was an evil woman. She follows a crush to the big-city and left fending for herself.
Sally
Lil works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her.
Coach Malcolm
Tony, the son of Italian immigrants, works in a smoky steel mill in Gary, Indiana. He wins a company scholarship which will enable him to attend Yale college. Over the four years of his college career he learns about football, love, and class prejudice.
Ruth 'Ruthie' Holman
A female editor of a magazine falls in love with her male secretary.
Betty Merrick
A maid's dream comes true but are not quite what she expected.
Mary Taylor
Impoverished Jane Miller is loved by millionaire Roger and newspaperman William. Though William warns her otherwise, she goes with the millionaire to his French chateau where she risks terrible cruelty and even death.
Lois Martin
A wealthy, cheating husband is found murdered in his penthouse apartment. The police soon arrest a suspect, but the victim's downstairs neighbor believes the man is innocent and sets out to prove who really committed the murder.
Sibyl Chase
Amanda and Elyot are one another's former spouse. Elyot remarries to Sibyl, Amanda weds Victor. Unexpectedly, both honeymooning couples arrive to a hotel on the same day and are put in rooms with adjoining terraces. Things go well until Amanda sees Elyot on the adjacent terrace.
June
Margot Rande, a basically decent woman, is led down the path to perdition by her bank robber husband.
Etta
A father changes jobs with his son, and each learns he has made a mistake.
Sally McBride
Wealthy Jervis Pendleton acts as benefactor for orphan Judy Abbott, anonymously sponsoring her in her boarding school. But as she grows up, he finds himself falling in love with her, and she with him, though she does not know that the man she has fallen for is her benefactor.
Effie Perrine
A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.
Margaret Rogers
Troubles begin for the Sterlings when they buy an expensive car and friends start pressing them for rides.
Tallulah Hope
At a big party, Roger Fallon, now a woman-hater, right to the core - this all due to a failed marriage and disastrous love affairs - talks to Herbert Drake. Herbert who is happily married, bets Fallon that the next woman who walks into the room, whoever she is, won't let Fallon kiss her for 48 hours. Fallon takes the bet. Suddenly, a very beautiful and sexy woman walks in. It's Herbert's wife, Jeanne Drake...
Princess Katerina
Prince Alexis of Kordovia refuses to do his duty under threat of war. Recently arrested actor Peter Fedor conveniently bears a striking resemblance to the prince. The King and Queen hatch a plan to force the prince to do his duty.
Dale Van Gorder
Infamous burglar "The Bat" commits a daring jewelry theft despite heavy police presence. Soon after, a bank theft occurs, which may be the work of the criminal as well. Meanwhile, Cornelia Van Gorder has various people arrive at her old mansion, including her niece, Dale, a bank employee, and police detective Anderson. When guests start turning up dead, Cornelia begins to suspect that The Bat may be lurking around the estate.
Sybil LaGrange
The Eyes of the World is a 1930 American pre-Code drama film directed by Henry King and written by Brewster Morse and Clarke Silvernail. The film stars Eulalie Jensen, Florence Roberts, Una Merkel, and Nance O'Neil.
Ann Rutledge
A biopic dramatizing Abraham Lincoln's life through a series of vignettes depicting its defining chapters: his romance with Ann Rutledge; his early years as a country lawyer; his marriage to Mary Todd; his debates with Stephen A. Douglas; the election of 1860; his presidency during the Civil War; and his assassination in Ford’s Theater in 1865.
