A few thoughts on why I love the best studio-propaganda clip movie ever made, the 1974 MGM masterwork “That’s Entertainment!” There is a chance you might have missed “That’s Entertainment!”, as some of you have never been a queeny, sequined old cabaret singer with a taste for the well-arched eyebrow, strong cocktails, Technicolor, and Gene Kelly, as I have been since the age of four. For those of you untouched by the gods of drama-fags, some background: In the 1970’s, the big studios couldn’t seem to get their heads around the young auteurs of American film, they couldn’t control the lives and careers of their stars, and MGM was essentially being bought and sold for parts by large corporations uninterested in movies. What was MGM to do? Why put together a filmic testament to their enduring greatness of course! A movie intended to capture the glory not only of the big studio musical, but of the studio system itself! Hence “That’s Entertainment!”, a montage of MGM musical clips from the studios Golden Age (1928-1960ish) introduced by some of the dream factory’s greatest stars: porcine old men in ascots and softly-lit old women with big hair and barbituated purrs.

Mickey Rooney, looking every inch the toupeed blueberry in a navy leisure suit, toddles towards us on a sound stage in front of the ORIGINAL Andy Hardy house in order to speak a little bit about his hit musicals (please remember, Andy Rooney was once THE BIGGEST STAR IN THE WORLD! AND HE BANGED AVA GARDNER! BEFORE SHE COULD EVEN GET A WALK ON IN ONE OF HIS SENSATIONAL MOVING PICTURES! THE DOLLS LOVED HIM BECAUSE HE WAS THE BIGGEST BRIGHTEST SHINING STAR IN THE MGM GALAXY! ) Thankfully Mr. Rooney here refrains from waxing creepy on his famous conquests. Instead he introduces a bit about the Mickey & Judy musicals and his frequent co-star, Ms. Judy Garland. “That’s Entertainment!” was released five years after Judy overdosed on the uppers and downers she’d been addicted to since her teens. But here’s why “That’s Entertainment!” is the finest in studio system delusion: Andy Rooney, putting his all into a fine imitation of youthful naiveté, exclaims, “Where we got all that energy, I’ll never know!” Boy, Mr. Rooney, I don’t know either! Maybe it’s just the excitement of putting on a show with the whole gang! I sure would like to see some clips from those pictures, testaments to the incredible energy reserves available to adolescents kept on a strict studio-enforced amphetamine regimen. Oh yes, l’il Rooney, I would love to see some clips! Boy, that was a simpler time, wasn’t it? Look at the soda shops, look at the hay dances, look at the black-face number. Wait. Oh. Yup, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in a fantastic song-and-dance number in which Rooney and thirty other male dancers are in blackface. This is awkward. Maybe we could go back to the more comfortable terrain of drugging adolescent girls.

The fantastic stupidity of “That’s Entertainment!” is that scenes like this are not rare, and that there is absolutely no self-consciousness about their offensiveness. We wouldn’t want to tarnish the studio’s name by mentioning that Uncle Louis B. gave little Judy magical thin’n'perky pills, but there’s nothing wrong with showing you some of our fantastic, dazzling blackface numbers! What? What’s wrong? Oh look, here’s Peter Lawford, one of our galaxy of stars you’re not really familiar with. He’s apparently gone for the Charlton Heston aging-salve: the ascot. He speaks about the “original look of an MGM musical” while we see clips: lots of Technicolor feathers and sequins, show-stopping dance numbers full of challenging choreography made even more amazing by the heels and gowns involved, complicated aerial shots and, oh no, not again. Cut to further evidence of “unique look”: two white dancers in black face, doing a “native” dance in front of a sound stage tiki god. Wow! The splendor of choreographed racism! Since I am limiting myself to the first of the “That’s Entertainment!” trilogy, I won’t go into too much detail about the Joan Crawford in blackface musical number featured in “That’s Entertainment III”. A scene like this exists, and you have to sleep at night knowing that.

There is just so much to love in “That’s Entertainment!” BEHOLD: Donald O’Connor, pretending to be straight and wishing he could have worked with the “lovely figured” Esther Williams (who oddly gets a huge amount of screen time. I had no idea she was such a big star, or that she was married to a Lamas). GAZE UPON: Elizabeth Taylor, as she descends a perfectly backlit staircase covered in jewels and a diaphanous blue gown, her black hair bouffanted to the heavens, her heavily lidded eyes filled with barbituates and regret. Hearing her use that kitteny/tipsy voice to expound on MGM musicals as though she’s singing “Is that all there is?” is like gazing into the eyes of pure, intoxicating gay iconhood. But before you start getting too worried about whether Liz can stay awake long enough to introduce her clips, BE CHARMED by little Ms. Spunk herself, the incomparable Ms. Debbie Reynolds! Just writing about Ms. Debbie Reynolds is exhausting, and as much as I like her, I am distrustful of such unfailing adorability. It’s like she’s still on Uncle Louis’ happy pills, which, given the 1974 release date, is a distinct possibility.

All sarcasm aside, I love many of these musicals, and I am perfectly capable of watching “That’s Entertainment!” 1, 2, & 3 back-to-back for the clips of Judy Garland, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly alone, and because I am capable of many great feats of movie nerdery. All of the “That’s Entertainment!” pictures feature long montages dedicated to Garland (the first is introduced by Liza!), and you really do have to be a heartless bastard not to love her. It’s awful that the same studio responsible for hooking Judy on dope and dumping her when the drugs ultimately (some twenty years later) hurt her performances can then take so much credit for her career, but her history makes the absurdity of MGM’s back-slapping clear. And though you know how horribly it all turned out, watching Judy Garland sing on screen makes all the Dazzling! aspects of the MGM musicals fall away, because all she needs is her voice to make the movie. Whitewashing, far too many utterly awful musical numbers, and too much Esther Williams? Oh yes. But also: more stars than there are in the heavens, the dream factory’s self-regard on Uncle Louis’ speed, & Singin’ in the Rain.