August 2019 Group Meeting Report
A magnificently maned lion was the unusual start of our August meeting! Rather than rush for the exits we all sat spellbound for the next hour, marvelling at the film clips of the glorious talent on view during Delia Taylor’s rip-roaring presentation of ‘That’s Entertainment – The Glory of the MGM Musicals of the 1940’s and 1950’s’.
Setting the scene, Delia gave us a virtual tour of MGM’s 185 acre studio in Culver City. In the mid 1940’s there were 12,000 visits to the makeup department each day. It had the third largest music library in the World and had its own power supply and the prop’s department was vast. The site contained sets of every country in the world and even main streets in major cities, along with Echo Lake, so at the time all filming was done at the studio.
Who can recall what MGM stands for? Some clues (answers at the end)
1) The founder started small with a penny arcade, changing this into a dance hall and cinema and later acquired? Pictures Corporation.
2) A production and film distribution mogul with an eye-catching Trademark
3) A powerful film producer
The man who eventually became the main producer of the famous MGM Musicals was
Arthur Freed, a pianist, song-plugger and writer of lyrics – including ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ and the whole score of ‘Singing In The Rain’. He brought together great composers including Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hammerstein, Andre Previn and George Gershwin and wonderful actors, singers, dancers and choreographers.
Although members may not have seen some of the musicals first time round in the cinema, everyone recognised the stars and many of the films were familiar from television and we were mesmerised by the wonderful voices and slick dance routines. We were told that for one musical Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell spent two weeks rehearsing just hand movements and Debbie Reynolds burst blood vessels in her feet during ‘Singing In The Rain’ - that is dedication to the art of performance! The hairs on the back of my neck stood up listening to William Warfield singing ‘Old Man River’ from ‘Showboat’.
Delia had plenty of amusing and sad stories hidden by the glamour. Howard Keel is only shown from the waist up in ‘A Cast of Thousands’ because his broken leg was in plaster. A skin darkened Ava Gardner replaced first choice Lena Horne in ‘Showboat’ due to
restrictions of a racial nature. Poor Mario Lanza walked out during the filming of ‘The Great Caruso’ because he was too fat for his costumes. In a clinic in Italy he was drugged so that he was unable to eat and died of a heart attack. Leslie Caron, who starred with Gene Kelly in the 1951 classic ‘An American In Paris’, had lived in Paris during the Nazi occupation and was still suffering from the effects of malnutrition so could only work on the film for six hours every other day.
Great Musicals from the 1950’s include ‘Gigi’ and ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ but by 1954 the days of the studio were numbered with the coming of Television.
Answers 1) Marcus Loew/Metro 2)Samuel Goldwyn/Leo the Lion 3) Louis Burt Meyer
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser