That's Entertainment

That's Entertainment (1974)

That's Entertainment Part 2 (1976)

That's Entertainment III (1994)

Treasures From The Vault (Bonus Material)



That's Entertainment! establishes the basic formula for the series: an old-fashioned orchestral overture, followed by a string of "greatest hits" clips grouped loosely by theme and interspersed with present-day segments featuring Hollywood legends. For the first film, MGM revisited its long-neglected studio back lots, which had fallen into extreme disrepair, and used them as backdrops for the host segments. (It would be the last time that a feature film was shot on the MGM back lots, which were bulldozed immediately after filming ended and turned into housing developments.) MGM was able to corral an impressive roster of guests for the film: Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Peter Lawford, Liza Minnelli, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, and Elizabeth Taylor are all on hand to pay their respects and offer firsthand insights into the golden age of the Hollywood musical.



That's Entertainment, Part II returns to the nostalgia well, this time with Melnick and veteran producer-composer Saul Chaplin at the helm. In place of the previous film's constellation of stars, Part II is hosted by Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. Rather than simply standing there and talking between clips, Kelly decided to create song and dance numbers for himself and Astaire ”the first (and last) time these two legendary dancers performed together since Ziegfeld Follies in 1946.



Thematically, Part II is a looser affair than the first film, casting farther out from the musical genre to include clips from nonmusicals, featuring stars like Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Abbott and Costello, and the Marx Brothers.

That's Entertainment III was made 18 years after the previous film, by veteran editors Bud Freidgen and Michael J. Sheridan, who had worked on That's Entertainment! After two feature-length films, it's tough to justify yet another compilation of MGM musical highlights, but what keeps this film from being a mere rehash is a focus on never-before-seen material, like deleted scenes, alternate versions (presented in split-screen), and production footage. This installment brings a number of surviving MGM stars out of retirement as hosts, including Gene Kelly (in his last film appearance), June Allyson, Cyd Charisse, Lena Horne, Howard Keel, Ann Miller, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, and Esther Williams.



That's Entertainment! Treasures from the Vault is a DVD-only feature offered with the gift set and is, as the title suggests, a treasure trove of special features related to the That's Entertainment! series, including an hour-long "making of" documentary on That's Entertainment III that is practically a fourth film in itself; a 1974 TV special, hosted in spectacularly cheesy fashion by George and Alana Hamilton, covering the premiere of That's Entertainment!; a newly produced documentary paying tribute to the behind-the-scenes creative team; a collection of over a dozen deleted scenes presented in their entirety; and several shorter featurettes, mostly from the 1970s.