Musical

<p>They're found, funny and forgotten no more, the answer to Stooges lovers' prayers. Leonard Maltin narrates a wild and woolly compilation of the Three Stooges' earliest movie work, all mayhem-filled moments of the year Moe, Larry and Curly spent at MGM studios as part...

<p>Putting the swing in Swing Parade of 1946 are the hep and jive of Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five and the mellow persuasions of Will Osborne and His Orchestra. Connee Boswell (whose platters included several chart-topping duets with Bing Crosby) offers a romantic...

<p>Taken in by a kindly couple, a six-inch-tall boy takes on a pair of comical crooks in this adaption of a classic Grimm fairy tale. Oscar and Golden Globe-winner Russ Tamblyn ("Peyton Place") and Oscar-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Peter Sellers ("The Pink Panther") star...

<p>A rising opera star's life is as turbulent as the on-stage roles he plays in this emotion-swept musical drama based on a James M. Cain novel and filmed almost entirely in Mexico. As the young vocalist who emerges from the obscurity of the vineyards,...

<p>Songbirds and lovebirds Carl and Sarah Linden (Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald) happily starve in a 19th-century Viennese garret, awaiting the day the world will cheer Carl's operetta. But a lecherous baron (George Sanders, oozing caddishness from every pore) with an eye for Sarah...

<p>Based upon the 1919 Broadway hit, Smilin' Through tells the story of a love that reaches beyond the grave, two generations of lovers finally united after the dark days of the first World War -- one in life, the other in death. Jeanette MacDonald...

<p>Debbie Reynolds ("Singin' in the Rain," "Mother") stars in this inspirational true story of a Belgian nun who writes a song for a motherless boy. Through the help of kindly priest, Ricardo Montalban ("TV's "Fantasy Island," "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan"), she goes...

<p>Prince Karl is in love -- with a barmaid! The ways of the heart clash with the mandates of state-arranged marriage in this regal Hollywood adaptation of the operetta by Sigmund Romberg, the composer whose life was the subject of the biopic Deep in...

<p>Busby Berkeley, the musical staging genius behind 42nd Street and the Gold Diggers series, bid farewell to his original Warner Bros. contract in swingin' style with tunes by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer. Now that's Golden Age name-dropping. The story is a...

<p>Follow the fun, follow the fleet, Follow the Boys with four seagulls -- Navy wives and sweethearts who careen around the French and Italian Riviera in a beat-up jalopy, trying to keep up with their seagoing menfolk. After America's teens made Where the Boys...

<p>Two tickets to Broadway will take you to TV! One of the first films centered on the new medium is also a spirited throwback to '30s musicals all about a determined young miss (in this case, Janet Leigh) with stars in her eyes and...

<p>Wyoming Steve Gibson has wavy hair, a pleasant tenor and a really neat cowboy outfit. He's sure to hit it big as Hollywood's next Singing Cowboy, as long as nobody figures out Wyoming Steve is really an East Coast city slicker who's scared silly...

<p>In 1960, a bright young cast made college musicals hip again with the surf-sand-and-sexcapade Where the Boys Are. Two graduates of that smash hit -- Connie Francis and Jim Hutton -- reunite for this kooky comedy about a girl who can't decide if she...

<p>Friends don't let friends marry golddiggers. So a pal (Edward Everett Horton) whisks Manhattan Madness critic Larry MacArthur (Pat O'Brien) 3,000 miles away from a husband-hunting honey to the sun, song and gaming of Agua Caliente. What neither gent knows is that performer Rita...

<p>Love blooms for a New York reporter (Van Heflin) during a small-town tulip festival when the youngest of the seven Van Maaster daughters (Kathryn Grayson) captures his heart. But Papa Van Maaster (S.Z. Sakall) insists his girls get married chronologically. And since the snooty...

<p>Fred Astaire sails across the pond to meet damsel in distress Joan Fontaine and delightful (if unlikely) dance partners George Burns and Gracie Allen in a musical co-scripted by master wit P.G. Wodehouse and directed by George Stevens (Swing Time). The helium-light story concerns...

If a suitor wants to win the heart of one of the seven Mulvain sisters, he'd better be ready to deadlift 300 lbs. and dine on shredded-parsnip souffle. Combining the then-novel topic of physical fitness with Hollywood song and dance, Athena is an eat-your-veggies...

<p>A story so nice they did it thrice! The Gershwin musical Girl Crazy finds yet another financially strapped out-West ranch in need of youthful showbiz enthusiasm in this star-studded, '60s-tinged movie redo. Connie Francis and Harve Presnell play the young love- and songbirds eager...

<p>With their splendid voices, matinee-idol looks, vivacity (she) and stoutheartedness (he), Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy were America's Singing Sweethearts, "a true team, mixing the chemistry that permits one to accept disguised princesses, dream melodies and beautiful doom" (Ethan Mordden, The Hollywood Musical). Naughty...

<p>Broadway's Gwen Marlowe and Ernest Lane are sweethearts, onstage as stars of Victor Herbert's operetta and offstage as happily marrieds. Then Hollywood beckons, and their fretful stage producer puts the kibosh on any Tinseltown plans by trumping up a romantic triangle that sets the...

<p>Oscar-nominated drama stars Oscar-nominee John Garfield ("Gentleman's Agreement") in his feature debut as a rebellious musician whose romance with one of a small-town patriarch's four daughters causes conflict. Co-starring Oscar-winner Claude Rains ("Casablanca"). Followed by two sequels. Nominated for Best Picture, Screenplay and Supporting...

<p>Moxie Slaight is on the air, teaming with his lovely partner to send jokes and tunes into the living rooms of mainstream USA. But America is tuning out. Moxie needs a fresh gag writer to spark his radio show and an opportunistic agent sets...

<p>"Be sure the story is something you cannot resist," Richard Rodgers once advised Meredith Willson. After considering 100 projects for a successor to The Music Man, Willson found one that was irresistible. And unsinkable. Debbie Reynolds plays the title role, inviting all to Belly...

<p>Posing as purveryors of a snake-oil elixir, Johnny and Steve are really Confederate spies out to nab a major cure-all for depleted rebel coffers: $150,000 in gold from the San Francisco mint. What, you say the war is over? Well, maybe the good ol'...

<p>Mrs. Brown has a long snout, skinny legs and an owner! That's right, Mrs. Brown is a dog, a greyhound to be precise, and Herman (Peter Noone) and the other Manchester boys are eager to make money racing her. But first there's a matter...

<p>The star has injured an ankle, but the show -- and inexperienced stage assistant Polly Browne -- must go on. Break a leg, kid. And don't let the presence of Hollywood director and talent scout Mr. De Thrill add any pressure. And so begins...

<p>Musical fans, we're calling you, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo! Howard Keel and Ann Blyth (who would later team for Kismet) play stalwart Mountie and backwoods hellion in this grand color and CinemaScope version of the beloved operetta. Filmed largely on location in the Canadian Rockies, Rose...

<p>Melvin Hoover is a bumbler (except when he's dancing on skates), a workaday go-fer for Look magazine (except when he fakes being a big-time photog) and in love (without exception) with Broadway chorine Judy LeRoy. Melvin convinces Judy he can send her star aloft...

<p>Lady Luck is in the building. Ever since rancher Chuck Rodman (Dan Dailey) grabbed the hand of a passing ballerina, he can't lose. Hold her hand at the roulette table winner! At the slots jackpot! Take the danseuse to the homestead to meet mama...

<p>Archaeologist Andrew Larabee tunnels below an English meadow, seeking a rare historical relic. His shoveling takes him back to the surface and into the lions' cage during a circus act. Just like that, a star -- or at least a Joey -- is born....

It's fiesta time in Vista Del Rio, and that means much musical celebration. It's also a time of global war. So, in the updated plot of this exuberant World War II-era remake of the 1929 Wheeler and Woolsey romp, that means little Vista Del...

<p>Young Meg Merlin, who hero-worships a dancer at her elite ballet school, is heartbroken when prima ballerina La Darina arrives to rival her idol. So Meg devises a plan. One little tug on a light switch while La Darina dances Swan Lake will ruin...

<p>In this whimsical bit o' blarney from George M. Cohan's 1922 hit, Judy Garland plays dual roles: plucky Irish immigrant Nellie (Judy's first grownup part) and her daughter, Little Nellie. Both Nellies contend with the same cantankerous coot, the laze-about father (Charles Winninger) who...

<p>Academy Award winner* Gene Kelly brings his remarkable talents as star, director and choreographer to this glittering gala of music, dance and pantomime -- and the result is a lush, one-of-a-kind musical flight of fancy. The film has three episodes, each with its own...

<p>Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas star in this sumptuous Oscar -nominated musical based on the 1905 operetta by Franz Lehar. After the King of Marshovia invites her to visit her late husband's homeland, wealthy American Crystal Radek (Turner) takes off for Paris when she...

<p>Fresh from Gone with the Wind, Olivia de Havilland was eager to continue in demanding roles. Those roles (and Academy Awards *) would come. But after GWTW's Melanie came a spun-sugar romp starring de Havilland as talented violin-student Amelia. The doting CEO of Monarch...

<p>What could possibly be inside that gigantic, wrapped-and-ribboned box? A tollbooth, a toy car and adventure! Ride with young Milo through the phantom tollbooth and into a world that combines the enchantment of Norton Juster's classic children's book with sheer visual joy spearheaded by...

"I've waited a whole year to grow claws like these. Jungle Red!" One of film's greatest lines belongs to a wronged wife who wins back her man with the aid an aggressive shade of nail polish. First a hit play, then an all-star 1939...

<p>The music, composed long ago, still speaks to us. It reaches out to tell us of profound struggles and great genius, of aching setbacks and glorious triumphs, of three people whose names, like their music, echo across the years: Clara Wieck, Robert Schumann and...

<p>Two artists who know all about translating America into Americana -- Arthur Freed, who produced Meet Me in St. Louis, and Rouben Mamoulian, who directed the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! -- work some turn-of-the-century magic again with Summer Holiday. This Technicolor -glorious version...

<p>Show business can be burlesque or vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies or smoky dives where a fella sings for drinks. In Show Business, it's all of 'em! Eddie Cantor, George Murphy, Joan Davis and Constance Ford star in a star-crossed story of stardom as small-timers...

<p>There's nothing more volatile than an idea in small-town 1895 America, especially for eager inventor Joe Belden. He's making a horseless carriage that runs on an explosive cleaning fluid called gasoline -- a "gas-o-mobile." Why, it's enough to make John Q. Citizen flip his...

<p>With those gams and that voice, High "C" Susie packs 'em in at a Bowery honkytonk located several blocks and a world away from where her Beantown family thinks she's singing: the grand opera house. Then her prim and disapproving sister comes to town...and...

<p>This season in Paris, Red is all the rage! Red Skelton headlines a joyful Technicolor remake of Roberta as a New York producer who inherits a failing Parisian fashion house. His partners are Howard Keel and Gower Champion and the lovelies they look at...

<p>Everyone who's anyone in Brookford can claim ancestors who were heroes of the Revolutionary War. Everyone that is, except ex-entertainers Sam and Susie Parker. But then the Parkers find a letter from George Washington that acknowledges the heroism of a long-ago Parker patriarch and...

<p>Funnyman filmmaker Carl Reiner, who put Steve Martin, George Burns and John Candy through their comedic paces in one hit movie after another, strikes again with this warmly outrageous musical comedy. The title role gives dazzling Robert Lindsay (Hornblower, Jericho) a screen-debuting showcase that...

<p>Laughs onstage, tears offstage! Playing members of a traveling theatrical troupe, a starry cast -- The Broadway Melody's Bessie Love and Charles King, plus Jack Benny, Marie Dressler and Polly Moran -- hit the road and all the right notes in an early musical...

<p>Roy Erskine (Charles Kaley) is aiming for songwriting stardom. And if he has to use and abuse a lineup of Broadway babies to do it, that's fine with Roy. This smoky-hearted tale of a heel on the rise shows the dark side of the...

<p>This merry musical biography of "Banjo Eyes" will gladden the hearts of Cantor and musical fans alike. It's got fabulous songs, assured direction by Alfred E. Green (The Jolson Story) and elaborate numbers typical of the Ziegfeld stage. Keefe Brasselle plays the energetic kid...

<p>Center stage, singing his heart out -- that's how fans love Al Jolson. And that's what they get in Mammy. It's an ideal showcase for the master showman, giving full rein to Jolson's unique talents in a melodramatic story of a lovelorn minstrel man...