Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory, Volume 3 (Hit the Deck/Deep in My Heart/Kismet/Nancy Goes to Rio/Two Weeks with Love/Broadway Melody of 1936/Broadway Melody of 1938/Born to Dance/Lady Be Good)

I haven't finished watching all of the set yet. MOSTLY because I can't stop playing Kismet.Some people seem to pooh-pooh this film, but I am thoroughly enjoying the music (slices of Borodin from his various works turned into wonderful songs), the beautiful baritones of Howard Keel and Dolores Gray (heh, I'd argue for calling her range baritone - but I'm not try to bend any gender lines here - she's pure high-class vamp seducing Keel's character), the excellent voices of the juvenile pair (Vic Damone and Ann Blyth), and the incredible colors of Vincente Minnelli and the Technicolor system (Minnelli directed, but you can see his visual sense in every moment if you've studied his work a little, as I guess I have). The plotline is hysterically funny if you pay attention (the twists of "fate" - they even give us a song to point this out early in the program).My favorite melody is "Night of My Nights" which is incredibly short (less than 2.5 minutes), so I tend to repeat the chapter (#20, fyi) before going to the next scene.I'd have loved a commentary track (that's how I learned about Minnelli - from other DVD's), but I do enjoy the extras provided. Most interesting: the deleted (censored! Ha!) Rahadlakum prelude, and the television program (MGM Parade) segments promoting the film. (It's funny to hear Jane Powell, on another disk, telling us that MGM wouldn't allow stars to be photographed next to a television set, but here's a TV program created by MGM specifically to promote their movies; perhaps she was referring to an earlier time).For people who don't want to invest in the entire box set, I've seen rumors that individual disks might be released in July.Also, if you'd like a deeper appreciation of "Hit the Deck", I'd suggest you read what's been written on the soundtrack album page.  Hit the Deck: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Re-release of 1955 Film)

Apart from the exquisite Kismet, nearly all of these film musicals look very dated and a little boring in most cases.Although they seem to be sincerely produced and directed, many of them do not provide the quality entertainment that Hollywood is famous for - especially the later musicals, which were in colour and contained excellent choreography and well presented musical scores and singing.These musicals appeared before the American Film Musical Industry matured into world class entertainment.

Yes, a factory it was, with an assembly line that churned out quality products regularly, year after year, like Ford turned out automobiles, and this package provides an entertaining overview of the lesser musicals MGM marketed from the nineteen-thirties to the fifties. I'm sure they weren't meant to be 'lesser' products at the time - everything MGM produced was deemed important, but this lot were certainly overshadowed by the Freed-Kelly vehicles.Here we see the tried and trusted employees strutting their stuff. There's Eleanor Powell, elevated to stardom and carefully presented in the "Broadway Melody" series....then reduced to playing second fiddle to Ann Sothern and Robert Young in "Lady be Good" before being dropped off the assembly line altogether after a couple of Red Skelton comedies. Eleanor's main drawback was that she was a dazzling solo dancer, but unlike Ginger, Rita, & Co. was never at her best in a duo.. In fact, in "Lady Be Good" it's not a male partner, but a cute little dog that partners her brilliantly...and sadly, just when they decided to downgrade her, she gives a far more relaxed performance than in her heyday. This collection also gives us the opportunity to watch other fresh. young talents like Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds groomed and packaged in properties designed to showcase them, while former luminaries - like Ann Sothern and Walter Pidgeon take a step back to support them.And then there's a couple of near-misses. "Kismet" should have been great. It's not. It has a great score, fine singing and lavish production values....but one expects just that little bit extra from Vincente Minnelli. It's rumored he was too distracted by his next project ("Lust for Life") to pay much attention to this musical, which is sad. There is a 'tossed off" uncaring feeling about this one...and it deserved better. "Deep in My Heart" suffers from its leads - the volatile but charmless Jose Ferrer and the Wagnerian pudding, Helen Traubel They both do their best (and Traubel has a great voice),but they make heavy going. Main advantage is the showcasing of many MGM stars in guest appearances....including Ann Miller, who regularly popped up on the assembly line to add pep and vitality to so many musicals.Extras are minimal insofar as ones that relate to the actual movies. There are the usual cartoons, and short subjects, but only one interview -with Jane Powell, which is great. She's informative, charming...and towards the end she becomes endearingly emotional, and I joined her in her tears. An outtake from "Deep in My Heart" shows an extremely uncomfortable - and probably resentful - Esther Williams uneasily descending a staircase as the finale of a drab and ugly number by George Murphy. No wonder it was dropped.I give this collection full marks, because even when its musicals dropped a little below standard, MGM still invested more talent, more inventiveness, better scripts, and creative skills into its output. Ten minutes of any one of these musicals contains more pizazz then the entire lumbering mess that was "Mamma Mia".

Every DVD in this set had at least one glitch in it. The entire set is poor quality.

It was a great idea to release this musicals on DVD. The selection seems rather weird. There's a lot Eleanor Powell - but some interesting films from her career are missing (Rosalie, Honolulu, Broadway Melody of 1940 etc.)There are some charming Jane Powell pictures too - but who decided to leave others out and why? A great plus is a heartwarming interview with Jane Powell as a bonus feature!!! Nevertheless it is good to have "Kismet" at last in a great transfer and in the original ratio! The same goes for "Hit the Deck" and "Deep in My Heart" - the latter is a rather weak film, but pretty hard to find in Europe...!I wait for releases of other "B" MGM musicals like "I Love Melvyn", "Give a Girl a Break" and "Small Town Girl" - which are sometimes much better than the big productions!

Seems to me there are many more MGM musicals of the fifites and sixties that need an airing before some of these chestnuts. Pleased to see "Hit the Deck". "Deep in my Heart", but the others dont do it for me.I think if we could now have "the Great Caruso", "The Student Prince", "Goodbye Mr Chips(69), "the Boyfriend","Athena", "Give a Girl a Break", "I love Melvin", Rose Marie"(54)we would have pretty much all the MGM musicals.

So far I have only had enough time to see two discs of the six in the set and they have been excellent although what the Battle of Gettysburg was doing mixed in with a collection of musicals I do not know. I look forward to seeing the other four discs.

There are 9 movies on 6 DVDs. We have watched 2 of them so far, Hit the Deck and Broadway Melody of 1936.Hit the Deck was a little short on plot but loaded with talented stars, it is fun to watch and a jolly good musical.Broadway Melody of 1936 has a clever plot with some superb acting and dancing from Eleanor Powell. The whole cast perform their roles superbly with Buddy and Vilma Ebsen's "Sing before Breakfast" being a showstopper. Thoroughly enjoyable, if the others are as good as these two then we have a real bargain.The sound and video quality of these first two has been very good, sharp and clear, we have bought some classical musicals, not from this supplier, that have turned out to be probably DVDs made from old VHS recordings, with poor video and sound and numerous glitches. There were no problems with these 2 recordings at all.

This is fantastic, 9 great musicals including the rarity 'Hit the Deck', 'Kismet' and some great black and white Eleanor Powell classics. Very good transfers both visually and audibly. Warner Brothers should be proud of this one!