When That's Entertainment I and II came out in 1974 and 1976, there were only two ways of seeing a movie. New releases appeared in movie theaters, of course. Older movies could only be seen on tv or in the very rare movie retrospective house. So no, you couldn't see Gone with the Wind, or It's a Wonderful Life, or The Wizard of Oz, or any other old movie at your leisure and convenience. You had to wait for some tv station near you to program it. Because there was no cable tv in our sense of the term either.
As a result, I and II were a real delight to old movie buffs, because they gave them a chance to see scenes from old movies with bygone performers that were otherwise virtually impossible to see.
By the time That's Entertainment III was released in 1994, all that had changed. VHS tapes were first released in 1977, the year after Part II. Almost overnight, across the land, first in little mom and pop stores and then in large, nation-wide chains like Blockbusters, you could rent old - and even recent - movies and watch them at your convenience. American Movie Classics appeared on tv cable in 1984. Turner Classic Movies replaced it in 1994, the year Part III appeared. In short, by the time Part III was released in 1994, it was relatively easy to watch many older movies at your leisure. It was, therefore, no longer enough, in Part III, just to present clips from old MGM musicals. Fans of such movies could, by then, access them elsewhere. They were no longer rare.
DVDs were introduced in 1997. YouTube was launched in 2005.
So, That's Entertainment III had to offer something more, and different, from what had worked in I and II. And that was good. It meant that they offered things like outtakes. And there are some very interesting ones here, featuring Cyd Charisse and Judy Garland. (There are also a few not-so-good ones, such as Garland in the two musical numbers she recorded for Annie Get Your Gun.)
What I still regret here, as I did in I and II, is that the stars read scripted speeches, rather than being allowed to tell us "the truth." Especially in cases like Lena Horne, I had the feeling that if they had been allowed to say what they wanted, we would have learned a lot more. What we do see still raises a lot of questions that are left unaddressed.
Still, I thought this was the most interesting of the three movies. By now, after 25 years of TCM, over two decades of dvds, and Netflix, not to mention the vhs and dvd holdings of public libraries, there isn't a lot of revelation to be had in the excerpts contained in Parts I and II. Most old movie fans have seen them already. Part III at least offers us something we might not already have discovered.
As a result, I and II were a real delight to old movie buffs, because they gave them a chance to see scenes from old movies with bygone performers that were otherwise virtually impossible to see.
By the time That's Entertainment III was released in 1994, all that had changed. VHS tapes were first released in 1977, the year after Part II. Almost overnight, across the land, first in little mom and pop stores and then in large, nation-wide chains like Blockbusters, you could rent old - and even recent - movies and watch them at your convenience. American Movie Classics appeared on tv cable in 1984. Turner Classic Movies replaced it in 1994, the year Part III appeared. In short, by the time Part III was released in 1994, it was relatively easy to watch many older movies at your leisure. It was, therefore, no longer enough, in Part III, just to present clips from old MGM musicals. Fans of such movies could, by then, access them elsewhere. They were no longer rare.
DVDs were introduced in 1997. YouTube was launched in 2005.
So, That's Entertainment III had to offer something more, and different, from what had worked in I and II. And that was good. It meant that they offered things like outtakes. And there are some very interesting ones here, featuring Cyd Charisse and Judy Garland. (There are also a few not-so-good ones, such as Garland in the two musical numbers she recorded for Annie Get Your Gun.)
What I still regret here, as I did in I and II, is that the stars read scripted speeches, rather than being allowed to tell us "the truth." Especially in cases like Lena Horne, I had the feeling that if they had been allowed to say what they wanted, we would have learned a lot more. What we do see still raises a lot of questions that are left unaddressed.
Still, I thought this was the most interesting of the three movies. By now, after 25 years of TCM, over two decades of dvds, and Netflix, not to mention the vhs and dvd holdings of public libraries, there isn't a lot of revelation to be had in the excerpts contained in Parts I and II. Most old movie fans have seen them already. Part III at least offers us something we might not already have discovered.