Student Tour

Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him expelled.

Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.

A Broadway playboy inherits an almost bankrupt girls' school and tries to save it by a big show.

In WW I dancer Jerry Jones stages an all-soldier show on Broadway, called Yip Yip Yaphank. Wounded in the War, he becomes a producer. In WW II his son Johnny Jones, who was before his fathers assistant, gets the order to stage a knew all-soldier show, called THIS IS THE ARMY. But in his pesonal life he has problems, because he refuses to marry his fiancée until the war is over.

At a Mexican resort, a fast-talking magazine editor woos the dancer he's trashed in print.

This musical reworking of Too Many Husbands (1940), features Grable as a top singer and dancer who's been widowed by WW II. She marries her late husband's songwriting partner, Gower Champion, but the new marriage is thrown for a loop when Lemmon, her first husband, turns up very much alive and eager to see Grable.

Jimmy Durante is jungle movie star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lions. When Baron Munchausen comes to town with real man-eating lions, Durante throws him a big Hollywood star-studded party so that he might use the lions in his next movie. But, his film rival sneaks into the party to buy the lions before Durante.

Liz lives with her mother and stepfather in a boarding house on the "wrong side of the tracks"

An American singer becomes engaged to an English duke, but is continuously pestered over her past as a burlesque dancer by a reporter from her hometown.

A romance between a struggling composer and an American singer.

Spinner McGee, devil-may-care mail pilot volunteers his courage and skill for the task of raising $100,000 to save the small airport owned by Pop Hussey from being condemned.

Walter Webb, thinking his gas station has been destroyed, describes a "super-deluxe" gas station run by chorus girls to his insurance agent.

Song-and-dance man Bert Kalmar can't continue his stage career after an injury, so he has to earn his money as a lyricist. By chance, he meets composer Harry Ruby and their first song is a hit. Ruby gets Kalmar to marry his former partner Jessie Brown, and Kalmar and Jessie prevent Ruby from getting married to the wrong girls. But due to the fact that Ruby has caused a backer's withdrawal for a Kalmar play, they end their professional relationship.

In this musical comedy, a crooked record producer uses his mob connections to force performers to do their stuff. The trouble really begins when the gangster's strong-arm tactics nearly cause a singer to lose his fiancée. A wide variety of entertainers appear including cowboy crooner Gene Autry, baseball hero Joe DiMaggio, and big band stars Cab Calloway, Ted Lewis, and the Kay Thompson Singers. Songs include "Mamma I Wanna Make Rhythm," "Manhattan Merry-Go-Round," "Heaven?," "I Owe You," and "It's Round-up Time in Reno."

A reformer's daughter wins the lead role in a scandalous Broadway show.

When the Manhattan investment firm of Sherwood Nash goes broke, he joins forces with his partner Snap and fashion designer Lynn Mason to provide discount shops with cheap copies of Paris couture dresses.

A struggling young singer falls for a nightclub owner whose father, a millionaire, is trying to shut it down.

Vaudeville is a 1997 PBS documentary under its American Masters program. Using film clips and photos, the art and history of vaudeville (1890-1930s) is illustrated.

A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.

A discarded silk top-hat becomes the focus of a struggle between a washed-up stage magician and a group of schoolchildren, after it magically brings a snowman to life. Realizing that newly-living Frosty will melt in spring unless he takes refuge in a colder climate, the magic snowman and Karen, a young girl whom he befriends, stow away on a freight train headed for the North Pole. Little do they know that the magician is following them, and he wants his hat back!

Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.

Clips from assorted television programs, B-movies, commercials, music performances, newsreels, bloopers, satirical short films and promotional and government films of the 1950s and 1960s are intercut together to tell a single story of various creatures and societal ills attacking American cities.

Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. There she falls in love with dancer Guy Holden, whom she later mistakes for the corespondent her lawyer hired.

Kay Arnold is a gold digger who wanders from party to party with the intention of catching a rich suitor. Jerry Strong is a young man from a wealthy family who strives to succeed as an artist. What begins as a relationship of mutual convenience soon turns into something else.

Nan Reynolds encourages her copywriter husband Bill to open his own advertising agency and helps him land his first client. Bill's former girlfriend Patricia Berkeley writes a very successful commercial for the client and heats up their old romance. Wife and girlfriend struggle over Bill.

An aircraft carrier is sent on a decoy mission around the Pacific, with orders to avoid combat, thus lulling Japanese alertness before the battle of Midway.

A millionaire's brain is preserved after his death by a scientist and his two assistants, only to create a telepathic monster.

A Parisian tailor goes to a château to collect a bill, only to fall for an aloof young princess living there.

This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The costume designer must design clothing that is correct for the film historically and geographically, and must be appropriate for the mood of the individual scene. We see famed costume designer Edith Head at work on a production. The Costume Designer was part of The Industry Film Project, a twelve-part series produced by the film studios and the Academy. Each series episode was produced to inform the public on a specific facet of the motion picture industry. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

An unsophisticated farm girl enrolls in college and stars in the campus musical.

An unprecedented anthology of never-before-told true stories by and about some of Hollywood's most interesting stars, legends, and wannabes, and takes readers inside Hollywood's inner sanctum to show how casting decisions are made, who makes them, and who has the final word.

In Panama, Maggie King meets soldier Skid Johnson on his last day in the army and reluctantly agrees to a date to celebrate. The two become involved in a nightclub brawl which causes Maggie to miss her ship back to the States. Now stranded, she's forced to move in with Skid and his pal Harry. She soon falls in love with Skid. Skid gets a job playing the trumpet at a local club and becomes a big success. Fame and fortune go to his head which eventually destroys his relationship with Maggie and his career.

When the US Navy fleet docks at San Francisco, sailor Bake Baker tries to rekindle the flame with his old dancing partner, Sherry Martin, while Bake's buddy Bilge Smith romances Sherry's sister, Connie. But it's not all smooth sailing—Bake has a habit of losing Sherry's jobs for her and, despite Connie's dreams, Bilge is not ready to settle down.

A socialite only realises that her friend is in love with her when she falls for the wrong man.

A private eye and a niece investigate when six World War I veterans start dying in the same week.

To get his girl back, that has fallen for a biker, a worker and one of his friends enter a six day race.

In turn-of-the-century New York City, con artist Peaches O'Day befriends Captain Jim McCarey, a cop who must turn her in unless she leaves town. The clever Peaches returns transformed as sultry brunette and Parisian sensation Mademoiselle Fifi. After catching her show, a crooked mayoral candidate tries to shut it down when Peaches demurely declines his romantic overtures. McCarey jumps in the race for mayor, and the loyal Peaches fervently campaigns for him.

Harris and Rigby own a circus. Rigby is a counterfeiter and frames his partner. The Mesquiteers learn Rigby is the culprit and get a confession from one of his men only to lose the case when the man is murdered in jail. The Mesquiteers try again and send Lullaby to try and win some of the fake bills in a card game.

Gene and Frog arrive with a herd of horses for Gene'e brother, a diamond prospector whose work has attracted the interest of a bunch of badguys.

Jim Cole, heir to a mining operation, takes over the mine, which is suffering from unexplained low production, and is facing a strike by the miners. Jim will soon loose the mine if production doesn't increase and the sabotage continues. Mary Norsen, office-secretary, accidentally learns of a plot by Fred Johnson to wreck the mine and force Cole to sell his coal-mine. She and her brother, Joe, join Cole in his fight to stop Johnson.

Japanese spies attempt to subvert America's war effort; G-Men attempt to thwart their plot.

A crime writer believes that a man imprisoned for committing the notorious "Flower Shop Murder" is innocent of the crime. He believes he knows who the actual culprit is, and sets out to befriend the man and get enough evidence to prove that he is the real killer.

A British officer stationed in Ireland falls for the wife of an intelligence man.

Melodrama about the professional and romantic problems of an aspiring singer.