Today's topic is MGM musicals. We'll start with an all-time favorite from It's Always Fair Weather, combining the marvelous dancing of Cyd Charisse, a snappy tune, ace character actors worthy of Guys & Dolls, Nat Hiken's You'll Never Get Rich and Car 54 Where Are You and stellar direction by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly.
Do we love Cyd, one of the greatest dancers to ever appear in motion pictures, whose natal anniversary is right around the corner on March 8, our enthusiastic response is yes, yes and YES!
It's a tough call, but the favorite MGM musical of the gang here is still The Band Wagon. How can one not love Vincente Minnelli's imaginative direction, the incredibly creative set designs and costuming, all-time greats Astaire and Charisse rocking the terpsichore within a Freed unit style noir based on Mickey Spillane?
Now this brings this post to the animation part of the program? Who do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog like almost as much as Cyd, Fred, Gene and such terpsichorial heavyweights as Vera-Ellen? Jerry the freakin' mouse, that's who! Jerry gets the nod because Droopy, Red Hot Riding Hood, The Wolf and the rowdy "Peter Arno grandmother" never appeared in an MGM musical.
In all these years and years of writing this blog (1382 posts), never posted that great clip of cartoon stars
Tom & Jerry w/ the swimmin' musical star and MGM aquababe Esther Williams. Let's rectify that oversight right now, shall we?
As part of our post last July on Bill Hanna, we extolled the virtues of the splendid live-action meets animation musical Invitation To The Dance (1956).
We dearly love the animation, cool Cartoon Modern design and Gene's dancing in the Sinbad number of this outstanding film.
In closing, shall bring your attention to a terrific piece that author Greg Ehrbar, the man on all things Hanna-Barbera, posted on Cartoon Research about Gene Kelly, Jerry Mouse and the Columbia recordings based on Anchors Aweigh.
Mr. Ehrbar does amazing work as usual - and, like the great MGM musicals, animation, art, music and classic movies in general, we need all of the above more than ever in unrelentingly off-the-rails 2025.
This frequently cartoon-centric blog notes that July 14 (tomorrow) is the natal anniversary of animation great William Hanna, the ridiculously prolific producer, director, animator, partner of Joe Barbera in Hanna-Barbera Productions and co-creator of the Tom & Jerry series.
His seven decade animation career splits into two lengthy portions: first, the 25+ year stretch making theatricals, mostly for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer release, through the 1930's, 1940's and first half of the 1950's, then an even longer stretch (through the end of the 20th century) co-heading Hanna-Barbera Productions, the studio that would be a phenomenally successful producer of cartoons for television.
He was involved in sensational, Oscar-winning theatrical cartoons, and at least up to the early 1970's, excellent TV series.
The animation studio and production company was founded on July 7, 1957 by Tom and Jerry creators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with financial backing by film director George Sidney. It was headquartered on Cahuenga Boulevard from 1960 to 1998, then subsequently at the Sherman Oaks Galleria in Sherman Oaks.
Bill and Joe elaborate in this 1990 interview.
Mr. Hanna began his animation career with the Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising studio in 1930. Even knowledgeable animation buffs forget, due to the 1960's popularity of such TV series as Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Top Cat, that the work of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in movies dated back to the early days of talkies.
Bill Hanna directed To Spring, one of my all-time favorite cartoons and arguably the most memorable of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Happy Harmonies series, produced by the aforementioned Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising.
The Tom & Jerrys, aided and abetted by such super talented animators as Irven Spence, Kenneth Muse, Ray Patterson, Pete Burness, Mike Lah and Ed Barge, would rank among the very best and brassiest cartoons from the 1940's and 1950's.
Along the way, the series won a slew of Academy Awards.
The creative and rhythmic synchronization with Scott Bradley's dynamic music, a key cornerstone of the Tom & Jerry cartoons, is already apparent by 1942-1943.
While the Oscar-winning Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943) demonstrates a bit of the animation style inspired by Disney and Rudy Ising (seen in such initial entries in the Tom & Jerry series as Puss Gets The Boot), the transition towards the faster, wackier WB-Tex Avery approach is well underway.
The Tom & Jerry cartoons successfully combined Disney/Harman-Ising style character animation with "Warner Brothers rowdyism."
Two of this blog's favorites, both influenced by the go-for-broke sensibility of Tex Avery (the guy who invented Warner Brothers rowdyism): Quiet Please! and Tee For Two.
An entire episode of the long-gone but always outstanding Cartoon Logic podcast by Bob Jacques and Thad Komorowski was devoted to Tee For Two, arguably the most devastatingly funny of MGM's Tom & Jerry cartoons.
Of everything made for the silver screen for Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, including such feature-length animated films as Charlotte's Web (1973), the seamless blends of animation with live-action in two outstanding MGM musicals starring Gene Kelly (Anchors Aweigh, Invitation To The Dance) are tops.
Love the Sinbad sequence from the latter film.
For the most part, as an old geezer these days, I enjoy the Hanna-Barbera made for TV cartoons a lot more than my younger, louder and more opinionated self, who looked down on all TV-toons (sans The Flintstones and The Jetsons) not made by Jay Ward Productions, did.
Now watch the 1950's and 1960's H-B series and appreciate everything from the pleasing design and color palette to the soundtracks (Hoyt Curtin!) to frequently inspired voice acting of Daws Butler, Don Messick, Alan Reed, George O' Hanlon, Jean Vander Pyl, Bea Benaderet, Janet Waldo, Arnold Stang, Mel Blanc, Allan Melvin, Howard Morris and many more.
IMHO, one's view of Hanna Barbera Productions has something to do with when one grew up. Those in my age group, the mid and late 1950's babies, were little kids watching Saturday morning toons when Ruff & Reddy, Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear hit the airwaves, and older kids when its excellent action-adventure show Jonny Quest began its year in prime time in 1964.
Those cartoon loving kids who were 1950's babies) lost interest in Saturday morning TV, even the likes of Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel, as the 1960's wore on and Jay Ward Productions' Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (including Wossamatta U) continued running in syndication.
By the time Scooby Doo became an enormous hit and a signature series Hanna-Barbera Productions would be remembered for, as much as The Flintstones and The Jetsons, the 1950's kids were watching the likes of Creature Features - and asking why such series as Wacky Races and Scooby Doo weren't funny like Jay Ward's George Of The Jungle. By the time the 1950's kids were watching Saturday Night Live and SCTV in the last half of the 1970's, all bets were off!
Are Scooby Doo, Shaggy, Scrappy Doo, Josie & The Pussycats, The Grape Ape, Jabberjaw, Laff-A-Lympics, etc. the faves of kids who watched these shows on Saturday morning and are now entering their fifties? Maybe. I don't know the answer to that, but still regard the 1957-1965 Hanna-Barbera TV series quite fondly all these decades later.
A topic for an additional post would be the last gasp of Hanna-Barbera in the 1990s and the resulting series produced for Cartoon Network, some of which (Johnny Bravo) are among my favorites among all of the studio's TV shows. Must single out directors Van Partible and
Patrick A. Ventura in particular for superb work for Hanna-Barbera as the 20th century came to an end.
The What A Cartoon series - all 33 episodes are on a YouTube playlist - included Hard Luck Duck, one of the last films with William Hanna's name in the credits. While I don't know what Van and Pat are doing these days in 2024, I emphatically insist they deserve credit for the excellent and very funny cartoons they produced for Cartoon Network, bringing the Hanna-Barbera Studio's 40+ year run producing animation for TV to a rousing finish.
Don't know to what degree Mr. Hanna was involved in this production and other very good films H-B was making for Cartoon Network at the time, but the fact that Bill started making cartoons in 1930 and was last credited on a film in 1999 remains very impressive.
This, like the recent centennial of Samuel Fuller's birth, is an occasion for classic movie lovers to celebrate - Gene Kelly's 100th birthday!
My personal memory, as the movie-crazed individual in a family and community not populated by film buffs, was of seeing Singin' In The Rain on TV for the first time and practically jumping out of my seat. Completely blown away by the artistry of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, I exclaimed, "THIS IS GREAT! THIS IS FANTASTIC! WOW! DID YOU SEE THAT!" to which my affable and kind (but in no way, shape or form artistic) mother responded, "we saw that in 1952."
And with that - let's enjoy some coming attractions trailers promoting the films of the incredible Gene Kelly.
Turner Classic Movies, thankfully, will be presenting a Gene Kelly Tributeall day long.
"At a 1980 USC seminar featuring Lucille Ball, an audience member asked "whatever happened to Virginia O'Brien?" and before anyone could answer, Virginia shouted from the back of the theatre, "She's back here in the cheap seats!"
Known as "The Deadpan Diva", she was the diametric opposite of the big, brassy, over-the-top comediennes and musical comedy performers popular in 1940's radio and movies (Martha Raye, Cass Daley, Betty Hutton, Judy Canova).
She was wonderfully droll and an excellent singer to boot: the great Virginia O' Brien.
Her unique deadpan comic style enlivened many an otherwise unmemorable MGM movie, including the largely so-so 1941 Marx Brothers vehicle, The Big Store.
Here's Virginia, delivering her trademark deadpan dry wit, beauty, impeccable style and perfect pitch in DuBarry Was A Lady.
Virginia possessed a dark sense of humor more akin to Michael O'Donoghue in the 1970's than anyone in the 1940's. Here are two versions of her black comedy gem "Say We're Sweethearts Again".
And here, from Panama Hattie (following the introduction by an overbearing and unfunny Red Skelton), is "Boy, Did I Get Stinkin' At The Club Savoy", absolutely the best song ever written about what follows the enthusiastic and excessive consumption of highballs.
Don't be fooled by the opening featuring Gloria DeHaven and June Allyson here; Virginia enters this production number from Thousands Cheer at 1:12 - and how!
Arguably, her best known film is The Harvey Girls, the star-studded spectacular featuring musical comedy powerhouses Ray Bolger and Judy Garland.
The Wild Wild West is a particularly funny number that suits Virginia's talents to a T. And the jokes about blacksmiths are only equalled by the Bullwinkle's CornerVillage Blacksmith episode.
Her witty and highly original presence graced many films throughout the 1940's. In particular, Virginia's droll presence brightened many films among the spate of WW2 era revue features produced by MGM. For example, the following excellent production numbers from Till The Clouds Roll By and Ziegfeld Follies.
Virginia didn't make many silver screen appearances after her MGM contract expired, but did co-star in Francis In The Navy. Except for the ignominious fate of following Marilyn Monroe in this scene, she's quite good playing off of Donald O' Connor. Now just why Donald's character is so unenthusiastic about kissing Marilyn and Virginia back-to-back I'll never know; too much time spent around a damn mule, I guess!
After she married actor Kirk Allyn and semi-retired, Virginia periodically played nightclubs in the 1950's and later would appear on television on Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen and Merv Griffin's shows.
One thing I am certain of: all those who saw Virginia's nightclub act had an excellent time!
