Greer Garson
Birth : 1904-09-29, London, England, UK
Death : 1996-04-06
History
Greer Garson, CBE (September 29, 1904 – April 6, 1996) was a British-born actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award nominations, winning the Best Actress award for Mrs. Miniver (1942).
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Self (archive footage)
The story of the gold-plated statuette that became the film industry's most coveted prize, AND THE OSCAR GOES TO... traces the history of the Academy itself, which began in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM, led other prominent members of the industry in forming this professional honorary organization. Two years later the Academy began bestowing awards, which were nicknamed "Oscar," and quickly came to represent the pinnacle of cinematic achievement.
Self (archive footage)
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.
Self (archive footage)
A documentary about the life of Errol Flynn, with recollections from friends and family.
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Stephen H. Bogart narrates the rise to fame of his father, Humphrey Bogart through the use of film clips, written material and interviews of friends and co-workers.
(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
Documentary about the famed Hollywood director.
Archive Footage
While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War II, the majority used their talents to rally the American public through bond sales, morale-boosting USO tours, patriotic war dramas and escapist film fare. Comedian David Steinberg plays host for this star-studded, 90-minute documentary, which looks at the way Tinseltown helped the United States' war effort.
Narrator (voice)
Aaron, the drummer boy, struggles to protect a bellmaker's great silver bells from seizure by Roman soldiers
(archive footage)
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
(archive footage) (uncredited)
Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.
Narrator (voice)
After being kidnapped and escaping, young drummer boy Aaron searches for his camel and finds him in the Nativity of the Baby Jesus. Aaron gives Baby Jesus the only gift he has, a song on his drum.
Cordelia Biddle
A happy and unbelievably lucky young Irish immigrant, John Lawless, lands a job as the butler of an unconventional millionaire, Biddle. His daughter, Cordelia Drexel Biddle, tires of the unusual antics of her father--especially since the nice young men around town all fear him. Wouldn't you fear a father-in-law that keeps alligators for pets and teaches boxing at his daily Bible classes?
Mother Prioress
Belgian nun Sister Ann is sent to another order where she's at first committed to helping troubled souls, like Nichole and little Dominic. When Father Clementi hears Sister Ann's uplifting singing style, he takes her to a talent contest. Sister Ann is signed to a record deal and everyone is listening to her lighthearted songs. She is unprepared for her newfound fame (like appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show) and unwanted side effects, including a wrongful attraction to an old friend.
Mary Anne Disraeli
The rise of the legendary 19th-century British politician and prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.
Greer Garson
Mario "Cantinflas" Moreno is a hired hand, Pepe, employed on a ranch. A boozing Hollywood director buys a white stallion that belongs to Pepe's boss. Pepe, determined to get the horse back (as he considers it his family), decides to take off to Hollywood. There he meets film stars including Jimmy Durante, Frank Sinatra, Zsa Zsa Gabór, Bing Crosby, Maurice Chevalier and Jack Lemmon in drag as Daphne from Some Like It Hot. He is also surprised by things that were new in America at the time, such as automatic swinging doors. When he finally reaches the man who bought the horse, he is led to believe there is no hope of getting it back. However, the last scene shows both him and the stallion back at the ranch with several foals.
Eleanor Roosevelt
The story of Franklin Roosevelt's bout with polio at age 40 in 1921 and how his family (and especially wife Eleanor) cope with his illness. From being stricken while vacationing at Campobello to his triumphant nominating speech for Al Smith's presidency in 1924, the story follows the various influences on his life and his determination to recover - based on the award winning Broadway play of the same name.
Lady Cicely Waynflete
A titled Englishwoman proves more than a match for the fearsome Captain Brassbound.
Regina Giddens
A tale of greed, one-upmanship, family distrust, abuse, apathy, and lost love, set in the deep south at the turn of the twentieth century.
Dr. Julia Winslow Garth
There's a new doctor in old Santa Fe, and it's Greer Garson. Director Mervyn LeRoy's 1955 western also stars Dana Andrews, Cameron Mitchell, Lois Smith, Walter Hampden, Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales, Earl Holliman, Adele Jergens, Robert Wilke, Frank DeKova, Nick Adams, Douglas Kennedy, Ralph Moody and Louise Lorimer.
Self
Live television broadcast of the world premiere. Described by various participants as the biggest world premiere in memory, even bigger than the Academy Awards.
Jan Stewart
An inexperienced female teacher is hired at a private elite school for boys where she raises a few eyebrows among the all-male faculty.
Calpurnia
The assassination of the would be ruler of Rome at the hands of Brutus and company has tragic consequences for the idealist and the republic.
Victoria McChesney
After their orphanage burns down, a group of children are being transported west by train to Manitoba. All of them are available for adoption and at a stop at Scourie, Ontario little Patsy meets Victoria McChesney. Victoria and her husband Patrick have no children and she immediately decides to adopt the girl. The only condition imposed on them is that as Patsy has been baptized a Roman Catholic the Protestant McChesneys agree to raise her as a Catholic. Patsy is a well-behaved little girl whose only real problem is a school bully, also one of the orphans, who spreads stories that she set their orphanage on fire.
Jane Hoskins
A former housemaid (Garson) now works as a confidence trickster, but her plans for a big job in California go awry.
Kay Miniver
The Second World War is over, and the Miniver family is trying to keep themselves together in post-War Britain, among continuing shortages and growing tensions within the family.
Self (uncredited)
This short film takes a look at the off-screen personas of screen actors.
Irene Forsyte
Soames and Irene Forsyte have a marriage of convenience. Young Jolyon Forsyte is a black sheep who ran away with the maid after his wife's death. Teenager June Forsyte has found love with an artist, Phillip Bosinny. The interactions between the Forsytes and the people and society around them is the truss for this love story set in the rigid and strict times of the Victorian age.
Julia Packett
Julia and William were married and soon separated by his snobbish family. They meet again many years later, when their daughter he has raised invites her mother to her wedding, with the disapproval of William's mother.
Marise Aubert
A war widow falls in love with the man who informed her of her husband's death.
Emily Sears
A rough and tumble man of the sea falls for a meek librarian.
Mary Rafferty
Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the wealthy Scott family which controls the mill. Mary catches the attention of handsome scion Paul Scott, but their romance is complicated by Paul's engagement to someone else and a bitter strike among the mill workers.
Susie 'Sparrow' Parkington
In this family saga, Mrs. Parkington recounts the story of her life, beginning as a hotel maid in frontier Nevada where she is swept off her feet by mine owner and financier Augustus Parkington. He moves them to New York, tries to remake her into a society woman, and establishes their home among the wealthiest of New York's high society. Family and social life is not always peaceful, however, and she guides us, in flashbacks, through the rises and falls of the Parkington family fortunes.
This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.
Marie Curie
Poor physics student Marie is studying at the Sorbonne in 1890s Paris. One of the few women studying in her field, Marie encounters skepticism concerning her abilities, but is eventually offered a research placement in Pierre Curie's lab. The scientists soon fall in love and embark on a shared quest to extract, from a particular type of rock, a new chemical element they have named radium. However, their research puts them on the brink of professional failure.
Herself - Guest Star
Joan Lyons and her friend Patricia Drew are autograph hounds spending most of their day bumping into, and having tea, with the likes of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. Based on misinformation from a meddling old-maid governess, Miss Featherstone, Joan also devotes some time to working on the no-problem marriage of her parents to the extent of hiring Dr. Hercules, the strong man from a side show to pay attention to her mother in order to make her father jealous, despite the good advice received from Walter Pidgeon.
Paula
An amnesiac World War I vet falls in love with a music hall star, only to suffer an accident which restores his original memories but erases his post-War life.
Mrs. Miniver
English middle-class family, The Minivers, experience life in the first months of World War II.
Mrs. Claire Woodruff
Mary, a writer working on a novel about a love triangle, is attracted to her publisher. Her suitor Jimmy is determined to break them up; he introduces Mary to the publisher's wife without telling Mary who she is.
Edna Gladney
Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.
Self
This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.
Elizabeth Bennet
Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters, and Mrs. Bennet is especially eager to find suitable husbands for them. When the rich single gentlemen Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come to live nearby, the Bennets have high hopes. But pride, prejudice and misunderstandings all combine to complicate their relationships and to make happiness difficult.
Self
This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America. A mother and daughter go to town to buy a new dress. In the dress shop window is a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie. We then go to Hollywood and visit Adrian, MGM's chief of costume design, and see how multiple copies of a single clothing pattern are produced. The film ends with short segments of several MGM features.
Linda Bronson
Sky and Linda meet on vacation and become engaged. When Sky introduces Linda to his best friend, Jeff, Linda and Jeff fall in love and marry. But Jeff's work puts a strain on the marriage and a divorce is planned. Sky uses an experimental memory loss drug to make Linda and Jeff forget their rough times (and the fact that they were married) and they fall in love all over again.
Katherine 'Kathy'
A shy British teacher looks back nostalgically at his long career, taking note of the people who touched his life.
Self
An MGM short showing how materials are shipped by boat 'From the Ends of the Earth' to Hollywood. Featuring footage from the MGM films being made at the time. Such as The Women, Thunder Afloat, Siren of the Tropics, Ninotchka, Northwest Passage, and At the Circus.
A cuckolded husband finds poems written to his wife by her lover, who then tries to explain they were written to a goddess who shares the same name. The husband takes this as an insult to his wife.
St. Clara