Anne Marie is tracking Judy Garland's career through musical numbers...
Judy Garland was wrapping production on one movie and starting production on another when she filmed a cameo for the WWII wartime musical, Thousands Cheer. Despite the fact that Garland was one of MGM's biggest stars, this cameo with José Iturbi was the first Technicolor movie she had made since The Wizard of Oz four years previous. The films between Oz and Thousands Cheer, though large in spirit, were small in budget due to Great Depression constraints. However, the onset of World War II brought about an audience boom - everyone was going to the movies to catch a newsreel and escape the fears of the war. As a result, budgets were about to skyrocket as MGM began to give Judy Garland big and colorful sets, costumes, and scenery to match her big and colorful voice.
The Movie: Thousands Cheer (1943)
The Songwriters: Roger Edens,...
Judy Garland was wrapping production on one movie and starting production on another when she filmed a cameo for the WWII wartime musical, Thousands Cheer. Despite the fact that Garland was one of MGM's biggest stars, this cameo with José Iturbi was the first Technicolor movie she had made since The Wizard of Oz four years previous. The films between Oz and Thousands Cheer, though large in spirit, were small in budget due to Great Depression constraints. However, the onset of World War II brought about an audience boom - everyone was going to the movies to catch a newsreel and escape the fears of the war. As a result, budgets were about to skyrocket as MGM began to give Judy Garland big and colorful sets, costumes, and scenery to match her big and colorful voice.
The Movie: Thousands Cheer (1943)
The Songwriters: Roger Edens,...
- 5/11/2016
- by Anne Marie
- FilmExperience
A composer of classic musicals, he wrote Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Among the perennial Christmas songs, one of the most performed and popular is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, with words and music by Hugh Martin, who has died aged 96. Since it was first sung by Judy Garland in the film Meet Me in St Louis (1944), this bittersweet yuletide ditty has been performed by hundreds of artists from Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Doris Day and Bing Crosby to rock bands including Coldplay and Twisted Sister.
The song has featured in several other films, notably The Victors (1963), in which the Sinatra version is used ironically during the execution of an American soldier for treason; The Godfather (1972); When Harry Met Sally (1989); Home Alone (1990); Miracle On 34th Street (1994); and Donnie Brasco (1997). In 1989, the song received the award for most-performed feature-film standard from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Among the perennial Christmas songs, one of the most performed and popular is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, with words and music by Hugh Martin, who has died aged 96. Since it was first sung by Judy Garland in the film Meet Me in St Louis (1944), this bittersweet yuletide ditty has been performed by hundreds of artists from Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Doris Day and Bing Crosby to rock bands including Coldplay and Twisted Sister.
The song has featured in several other films, notably The Victors (1963), in which the Sinatra version is used ironically during the execution of an American soldier for treason; The Godfather (1972); When Harry Met Sally (1989); Home Alone (1990); Miracle On 34th Street (1994); and Donnie Brasco (1997). In 1989, the song received the award for most-performed feature-film standard from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
- 3/15/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Singer and Hollywood star best known for her roles in MGM musicals of the 1940s and 50s
When coloratura soprano Kathryn Grayson, who has died aged 88, sang five songs, including an aria from La Traviata, in MGM's all-star patriotic parade, Thousands Cheer (1943), she began her 10-year reign as the prima donna of Hollywood. With her china-doll features, little turned-up nose and patrician manner, Grayson raised the tone of more than a dozen musicals. Although opera managers did not beat a path to her door, her clear, slightly shrill, small voice carried well on film in popular classics and operatic scenes.
Her classical training led her not to the opera house, but to the radio, in particular The Eddie Cantor Show, on which she was discovered by an MGM talent scout at the age of 18 in 1940. In the same year, she married the minor film actor John Shelton.
In her first film,...
When coloratura soprano Kathryn Grayson, who has died aged 88, sang five songs, including an aria from La Traviata, in MGM's all-star patriotic parade, Thousands Cheer (1943), she began her 10-year reign as the prima donna of Hollywood. With her china-doll features, little turned-up nose and patrician manner, Grayson raised the tone of more than a dozen musicals. Although opera managers did not beat a path to her door, her clear, slightly shrill, small voice carried well on film in popular classics and operatic scenes.
Her classical training led her not to the opera house, but to the radio, in particular The Eddie Cantor Show, on which she was discovered by an MGM talent scout at the age of 18 in 1940. In the same year, she married the minor film actor John Shelton.
In her first film,...
- 2/20/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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