Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, one of the most legendary names in the entertainment industry, and now
as part of MGM's 70th anniversary celebration, MGM UA Home Video is launching a new concept
in home entertainment, one that gives you the latest in what's happening on home video.
Hello, I'm Peter Jones, and welcome to The Lions Roar, the official video magazine of
the MGM UA Home Video Buyers Club.
Just ahead, exclusive glimpses into the world of Hollywood past and present, including rare
gems from Leo's private vaults.
Also, special opportunities to collect MGM merchandise.
But first, some inside news on one of MGM's latest productions.
Camera one, ready.
Camera two, ready.
Fire!
Coming to theaters May 6th, Dana Carvey of Wayne's World and Saturday Night Live stars
in Clean Slate, along with Valeria Golino, Kevin Pollock, and James Earl Jones.
Dana plays a cop-turned-private-eye who suffers from a rare form of amnesia.
He's got a big case to crack, if only he could remember what it was.
Whenever you go to sleep, you lose your memory.
If it's not too much to ask, what'd I do?
Clean Slate, it's about a window washer, who, kidding, okay, let me really try to do this.
Okay, Clean Slate, it's about a guy, ML Pogue, ML Pogue is kind of like what I call the normal
guy character.
And the normal guy character wakes up every day, doesn't know who he is or where he is,
he doesn't know how he wears his hair, doesn't know how he dresses, doesn't even know how
he speaks, doesn't know anything.
This dog has a depth perception problem, and it would follow me with its eyes.
And sometimes I thought I caught the dog going, I think the dog's possessed.
And he has this recurring amnesia, so he's starting over every day.
But he's kind of a character that's like this, in this dilemma, all the time, because things
are just thrown at him every second throughout the film.
I mean, it just went into madness, basically.
The movie is always twisting and turning and folding and unfolding.
What you think is real is not part of the major plot device.
Everything about the movie was a little difficult, but that's sort of perfect, because everything
for ML Pogue was difficult.
The stress of doing the movie and the tension of doing the movie was exactly what the character
was going through.
So you didn't really have to stretch very far, because you're like, when you do a movie
if you're in every scene like I was, you're tired and you're stressed out and you're like
nervous, and it was perfect for the character.
Movies is the toughest game, because you shoot without an audience, you're shooting at seven
in the morning, and you've got to do all those angles, and then you wait a year for it to
come out.
So when it works, it's really satisfying.
Our biggest problem was trying to not laugh during takes.
He told you that I had to stare at his forehead, because if I caught his eye, we were done
for the day.
It's quite an achievement, actually, and that's essentially what it's about.
Now you've just seen a modern day example of how a movie is promoted.
Selected film clips followed by taped interviews with the stars.
The studios send out what are called electronic press kits to hundreds of television stations
and news outlets around the country, but it didn't work that way in filmmaking's golden
era.
In those days, a single event helped to spread the word, the premiere.
MGM cameras were rolling for the opening of 1938's Marie Antoinette.
Late afternoon finds the crowd still pouring in.
It's the biggest show in town.
Hammers ring as workmen rush to complete the job on time.
A fairyland of flowers lends a fragrant note.
The lovely usherettes are given a last minute inspection.
So what started as a forsaken theater a scant few hours ago will soon mushroom into a veritable
whirlpool of activity.
Eight o'clock, Hollywood goes to town.
Lights flash, cameras click, music rings out, action aplenty and fans, thousands of fans
from all parts of the country.
For this is Californian summertime, the tourist season.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
About us here at the Carthay Circle is a scene of rare spectacle and color, glamour and excitement.
The sky ablaze with searchlights of every hue, photographers flashlights popping everywhere.
Many cameras grinding, crowds of fans, thousands of them jammed into grandstand bleachers or
surging against ropes stretched along traffic lanes waiting to catch glimpses of their screen
favorites.
Soon the long awaited moment will be at hand.
The motion picture premiere, Marie Antoinette, which has been in preparation for nearly four
years will at last reach the screen.
The fashionable crowd begins to arrive as Judy Garland and Freddie Betholomew sign the
guest register.
Luna Merkel stags it, so does handsome Fernand Gravet.
But not John Barrymore, that's Elaine Barry, his wife, Florence Rice, escorted by Adrian.
The crowd sounds a resounding cheer for the co-stars of tonight's premiere, Norma Shearer
and Terrone Power.
Happy Norma, we'll say.
Under this dome, 2,000 Hollywood first-nighters pass judgment on the film city's newest big
production.
The clock moves on, the show is over, the lights dim down, Hollywood again has gone
to town.
Marie Antoinette remains one of the most opulent historical epics ever filmed.
To recreate the French Palace in Versailles, 98 separate sets were constructed.
And seamstresses worked overtime sewing 2,500 individually designed costumes.
You can see Marie Antoinette in its original glory on MGMUA home video cassette and laserdisc.
Nominated for four Academy Awards, it's hard to believe Marie Antoinette did not win one.
Even so, on the subject of Oscar, Leo the Lion can roar with pride.
Wait!
You, me and your mother and sister will die today, nailed to crosses in front of you.
May God grant me vengeance, I will pray that you live till I return.
No film has ever won more Academy Awards than Ben-Hur.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the 1959 classic and MGMUA is commemorating the
event with a newly restored re-release on home video, featuring an exclusive behind
the scenes documentary and the original theatrical trailer.
We're going to be rammed, we're going to be rammed!
Nominated for 12 Oscars and winner of 11, this epic among epics featured 300 sets, 50,000
extras, 100,000 costumes and an intricately planned and breathtakingly executed chariot
race sequence that was the most expensive 11 minutes of film movie goers had ever seen.
Being starred in numerous cowboy films, Charlton Heston knew how to handle horses.
He did his own driving for all but two stunts in this remarkable sequence.
At the time, Ben-Hur was the costliest film ever made, but unlike a lot of movies, you
can see every dollar up there on the screen.
It was also one of the most widely-merchandised films with hundreds of licenses issued for
official Ben-Hur toys and memorabilia.
Among the more unique items, a set of towels labelled Ben-His and Ben-Hurs.
After all these years, still close.
The following Ben-Hur is the most celebrated film in Oscar history is the Shakespeare and
Switchblade musical classic, West Side Story.
And now available for the first time ever on videocassette in a beautiful letterbox
version.
A 1950s update of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story was a smash on Broadway before co-directors
Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins turned it into a ten-time Oscar winner.
They were helped by a handful of brilliant performances, most notably Natalie Wood as
Maria, a Puerto Rican in New York who falls in love with a boy from the wrong side of
town.
The Jets are coming out on top tonight, we're gonna watch Bernardo drop tonight, the Puerto
Rican tonkle go down, and when he's hollered uncle, we'll tear up the town, we'll be in
back of you boy, you're gonna flatten him good, tonight there will be no more niggas
around, we're gonna rock him tonight, we're gonna jazz him tonight, we're gonna get him
in the heart, tonight today the minutes seem like hours, the hours go so slow, the sky
is long, to stop him once and for all, the Jets are gonna have their way, the Jets are
gonna have their day, we're gonna rock him tonight, tonight.
Toward the end of filming West Side Story, the cast and crew were putting in 18 hour
days, six days a week.
Hoping for some time off, a very weary Natalie Wood came up with a scheme to prove she was
sick.
Complaining of a fever, she retired to her dressing room, summoning the studio doctor.
When the doctor wasn't looking, Natalie slipped the thermometer into a glass of warm water.
Unfortunately for her, the water had cooled faster than she expected.
Her 104 degree fever was a near normal 98.8.
Natalie went back to work.
Get your hands off, American, stay away from my sister.
Please let me stay.
I want to be alone.
Grand Hotel, always the same.
People come, people go.
Nothing ever happens.
It was no overstatement when MGM publicists touted 1932's Grand Hotel as having the greatest
cast in stage or screen history.
Others included Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Ryanel Barrymore, and Wallace
Beery.
Wouldn't you like to call me by the first name?
No, I couldn't do that.
Why not?
Oh, I don't know.
One can't get in them at just offhand.
I could go to England with you and all that, but...
You know, I always say that nothing should be left hanging over, and names are like that.
Supposing I met you next year and I said, how do you do, Mr. Price?
And you said, that's the young lady who was my secretary in Manchester.
That's all quite proper, but supposing I saw you and yelled, hi, baby, remember Manchester?
And you were with your wife.
How would you like that?
We will leave my wife out of this flinching, please.
Sorry.
Although Garbo received top billing, many thought Lionel Barrymore stole the show.
While many actors like to build their performance in a scene over several takes, Lionel Barrymore's
first take was often his best.
He'd lose steam after several re-dos.
Grand Hotel director Edmund Goulding had little choice but to go with Barrymore's superior
initial performance, leaving the improved efforts of other actors out of the film.
You're probably an embezzler.
An embezzler?
Yes, an embezzler.
You're going to take that back right here in the presence of this young lady?
Who do you think you're talking to?
You think I'm dirt?
Well, if I'm dirt, you're a lot dirtier, Mr. Industrial Magnet Pricing.
You're discharged.
Get out.
You can't do that to him.
Oh, I don't know the man.
I don't know what he wants.
I never saw him before.
I know you.
I've kept your books for you, and I know all about you.
If one of your employees was half as stupid in a small way as you are in a big one, what
are you?
Grand Hotel won for MGM its second best picture Academy Award and gave to Greta Garbo her
best remembered line.
I just want to be alone.
In a role originally written for Sally Field, Cher turned in an Oscar winning performance
as a Brooklyn widow who finds love with her fiance's brother, played by Nicholas Cage.
The film, John Patrick Shanley's modern classic, Moonstruck.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
What are you doing?
Where are you taking me?
To the bed.
Oh, God.
Okay.
I don't care.
I don't care.
Take me.
Take me to the bed.
I don't care about it.
Everyone associated with Moonstruck knew they had an exceptional script, and director Norman
Jewison and writer Shanley agreed no changes would be made to the dialogue, with the exception
of one memorable line ad-libbed by Olympia Dukakis.
You got a love bite on your neck.
He's coming back this morning.
What's the matter with you?
Your life's going down the toilet.
Are you afraid somebody will take me for one of those girls from Gallatin Street?
Julie.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I forgot I'm a child.
I'm not supposed to know about things like Gallatin Street.
I'm just supposed to flutter around in white.
An inspired ad campaign once exclaimed, nobody's as good as Bette Davis when she's bad.
And in Jezebel, many thought Bette was at her wicked best, playing the role of a tempestuous
convention-defying southern belle in pre-Civil War New Orleans.
Press on Neelan, do you?
Julie, don't.
To ask you to forgive me and love me as I love you.
Julie, please.
Julie?
This is Amy, my wife.
Your wife?
And you're, may I say, Julie?
The role came to Davis when she lost her bid to become Gone with the Wind's Scarlett O'Hara.
But she proved she, too, could play a daughter of old Dixie, winning her second Academy Award.
Amy, you must let me go with him.
Tell me.
Does it matter who he loves?
Is his life that matters?
Tell me.
We both know.
Press loves his wife.
Who else would he love?
Not me, surely.
I've done too much against him.
Jezebel came out in 1938, a year before Gone with the Wind.
The film's Civil War Southern setting did not escape Gone with the Wind producer David
O. Selznick.
He accused studio chief Jack Warner of attempting to undermine his epic production.
Well, history tells us, if anything, Jezebel only helped to increase the public's appetite
for the 1939 film many say is the greatest ever.
Here's a special glimpse into how this towering achievement came to be.
$150 in gold.
For what lady, sir?
For Mrs. Charles Hamilton.
Here's news for which you've been waiting.
Names of the winners in our Scholar to Hero contest.
First, here are the names of the six actresses who received the largest number of votes for
the role.
Bette Davis first, Katherine Hepburn second, Miriam Hopkins third, Margaret Sullivan fourth,
Joan Crawford fifth, and Barbara Stanwyck sixth.
Casting the picture became a national obsession.
Vogue magazine made a composite image of the ideal scarlet from photos of the leading contenders.
Letters poured in from the public, 121 actresses were recommended in these letters.
Crazy suggestions, some of them, some intriguing, Zazu Pitts, Mae West, Clara Bowe, Lucille
Ball.
There was even one gentleman from New Zealand who recommended Vivian Leigh.
In November 1936, Kay Brown set out on the first of three long talent searches through
the South.
On Friday, we held open auditions in Atlanta, and there were at least 500 people there.
We saw every Miss Atlanta for 20 years back.
In the meantime, in Hollywood, many, many women of some stature also saw themselves
as scarlet.
Tallulah Bankhead was the first of the 32 actresses who did screen tests for the part.
What is it?
I love you.
I'm in love with you, Ashley.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
David Selznick was a publicity genius.
I love you.
He knew the search for scarlet would be a grand entertainment, and a way of keeping
public interest alive in a film which as yet he had neither the money, the script, nor
the nerve to make.
I'm in love with you, Ashley.
So if he couldn't find a scarlet, what about Rhett?
Punchline of Gone with the Wind, the one bit of dialogue which forever establishes the
future relationship between scarlet and Rhett is, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
Joe Breen is unable to give me permission to use this sentence because it contains the
word damn.
It is my contention that this word is used in the picture as not an oath or a curse.
The most that can be said against it is that it is a vulgarism, and it is so described
in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Frankly, my dear, I just don't care.
Selznick tried several alternatives, but nothing matched the original line of the book.
He enlisted the support of most of the big guns of Hollywood, but only after a long and
bitter struggle was he granted permission to use that word.
Gone with the Wind is probably the most famous film available from MGM UA Home Video, but
it's also one of the few movies released by MGM that didn't bear the familiar MGM lion
logo.
Now, that's because it was made independently by producer David O. Selznick, but L.B. Mayer,
Selznick's father-in-law at the time, drove a hard bargain.
In order to secure the services of MGM contract player Clark Gable for the crucial role of
Rhett Butler, Selznick had to agree to release the film through MGM.
This is one night you're not turning me on.
Today the MGM lion still means great entertainment, and joining the MGM UA Home Video Buyers Club
can certainly have its advantages.
As a member, you're eligible to purchase these fabulous t-shirts and caps, all bearing the
world-famous MGM logo.
To make these collectible items your own, just fill out the MGM UA merchandise order
form included with your cassette and send it with your payment to the address shown
on the form.
While officially MGM stands for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, we like to think it also stands for
movies, great movies.
And a lot of those great movies offer a blend of love and laughter that makes them perfect
for a little romantic home entertainment.
I know you think I'm terrible because you're the type of man who likes to learn, learn,
learn, work, work, work.
But I can't help it.
I just can't go on like this anymore.
I'm tired.
I don't want to work anymore.
I don't care what daddy says.
I want to have fun and laughs and romance.
Hey, that's wonderful.
That's just wonderful.
Before quintessential girl watcher Dobie Gillis was introduced to TV audiences as a high school
student, he went to college in 1953's spirited musical, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis.
Here Dobie is played by Bobby Van, who falls in love with MGM leading lady, Debbie Reynolds.
And in his acting debut, the man who would become one of Broadway's most imaginative
choreographers and an Academy Award winning director, Bob Fosse.
Got a woman yet, Colin?
I knew you'd say that.
Shall I show you, Colin?
Shall I advise you?
Women like to be dominated.
Keep your advice to yourself.
Another hidden treasure you'll find only on home video is the young but familiar face
of the Phantom of the Opera's Michael Crawford in the 60's rub, The Knack and How to Get
It.
A man can develop the knack.
A man can develop the knack.
A man can develop the knack.
A man can develop the knack.
Decades before MTV, British director Richard Lester pioneered shooting and editing styles
that would reappear in rock videos.
This rediscovered gem is part of MGM's international director's collection, which presents the
works of filmmakers whose names are inseparable from their movies, Fellini, Truffaut, Bergman.
In addition to their genius, those three directors shared a love for the American films of the
1930's.
Movies changed dramatically in that decade, advancing from awkward talkies to polished
classics like Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.
In our screen masterpieces series, you'll find movies that reflected the times, set
the trends, and showcased the players who gave MGM studios more stars than there are
in the heavens.
Evelyn, what is the matter with you?
Amy, that girl didn't shoot him.
I did.
I went to his apartment this afternoon.
How do you know?
He struck me and I shot him.
I killed him.
Evelyn.
Enter the doctor.
Now, here's your medicine paper.
This will fix you up.
William Powell and Myrna Loy portray a married couple divided by career and perhaps murder
in the sophisticated melodrama Evelyn Prentice.
This rediscovered classic followed their triumphant pairing in The Thin Man.
There's another woman involved.
A woman who may possibly have been clever enough to have killed Kennedy in his own apartment
with his own gun without leaving a clue.
We've got to find that woman.
Apparently, he had no qualms about allowing the ladies to help him out every now and then
financially.
Now, if a man like that were to get a married woman in the right spot, especially a wife
of a prominent man, he'd probably make it very difficult for her.
Powell and Lloyd were the champagne set of the romantic screen couples, but their pairing
almost never happened.
Louis B. Mayer was convinced both actors were ill-suited for lighter roles.
After all, they had played shadowy, somber characters in silent films and early talkies.
But director Woody Van Dyke noticed their easy banter between takes on the set of another
film he was directing, Manhattan Melodrama.
This is your corner.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Outside.
Listen, I'm Eleanor.
That's my favorite place.
Outside.
I know, but like he sent me.
What?
I'm so sorry.
Nothing like a district attorney to keep a girl in shape.
You and I must have a good wrestle someday.
He knew they'd be perfect for The Thin Man.
Mayer resisted the idea until Van Dyke promised he'd shoot the movie in just three weeks.
The director, whose filming efficiency earned him the nickname One Take Woody, shot The
Thin Man in 12 days.
Well, I hope you're satisfied.
Award-winning classics.
Screen masterpieces.
The international director's series.
Comedies filled with love and laughter.
To learn more about future editions of the Lion's Roar video magazine and get the inside
scoop on the stars, movies, and legacy of MGMUA, join the MGMUA Home Video Buyers Club.
Members will also receive sneak previews of upcoming theatrical releases as well as exciting
MGM logo merchandise offers.
Look inside specially marked MGMUA videos for details.
Finally, if you have a favorite MGMUA film you'd like to see featured on the Lion's Roar
video magazine, please write to us at the address which is about to appear on your screen.
Until next time, I'm Peter Jones.