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The curtain is falling on the MGM musical, and Gene Kelly’s final song and dance at the studio is for a Paris-set show biz tale about a dancing star and his trio of showgirls. Actually, the comedy and the actresses get more attention than does Kelly. The gimmick is a Rashomon– like clash of conflicting testimony, but we prefer to concentrate on the sexy dancing and Kay Kendall’s hilarious drunk act. Who thought a boozy beauty wailing opera songs would be funny?

Les Girls

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 114 min. / Cole Porter’s Les Girls / Street Date April 17, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.9

Starring: Gene Kelly, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall, Taina Elg, Jacques Bergerac, Leslie Phillips, Henry Daniell, Patrick Macnee.

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Film Editor: Ferris Webster

Costumes: Orry-Kelly

Choreography: Jack Cole

Original Music: Cole Porter, arranged and orchestrated by Alexander Courage, Adolph Deutsch, Skip Martin

Written...

Actress Dorothy Malone, who starred in the primetime soap opera Peyton Place, died Friday in her hometown of Dallas. She was age 93.

Malone died in an assisted living center from natural causes days before her 94th birthday, said her daughter, Mimi Vanderstraaten.

After 11 years of mostly roles as loving sweethearts and wives, the brunette actress decided she needed to gamble on her career instead of playing it safe. She fired her agent, hired a publicist, dyed her hair blonde and sought a new image.

"I came up with a conviction that most of the winners in this business became stars overnight by playing shady dames with sex appeal," she recalled in 1967. She welcomed the offer for Written on the Wind, in which she played an alcoholic nymphomaniac who tries to steal Rock Hudson from his wife, Lauren Bacall.

"And I've been unfaithful or drunk or oversexed almost ever since— on the screen,...

'Ben-Hur' 1959 with Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston: TCM's '31 Days of Oscar.' '31 Days of Oscar': 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Ben-Hur' are in, Paramount stars are out Today, Feb. 1, '16, Turner Classic Movies is kicking off the 21st edition of its “31 Days of Oscar.” While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is being vociferously reviled for its “lack of diversity” – more on that appallingly myopic, self-serving, and double-standard-embracing furore in an upcoming post – TCM is celebrating nearly nine decades of the Academy Awards. That's the good news. The disappointing news is that if you're expecting to find rare Paramount, Universal, or Fox/20th Century Fox entries in the mix, you're out of luck. So, missing from the TCM schedule are, among others: Best Actress nominees Ruth Chatterton in Sarah and Son, Nancy Carroll in The Devil's Holiday, Claudette Colbert in Private Worlds. Unofficial Best Actor...

Ron Moody as Fagin in 'Oliver!' based on Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.' Ron Moody as Fagin in Dickens musical 'Oliver!': Box office and critical hit (See previous post: "Ron Moody: 'Oliver!' Actor, Academy Award Nominee Dead at 91.") Although British made, Oliver! turned out to be an elephantine release along the lines of – exclamation point or no – Gypsy, Star!, Hello Dolly!, and other Hollywood mega-musicals from the mid'-50s to the early '70s.[1] But however bloated and conventional the final result, and a cast whose best-known name was that of director Carol Reed's nephew, Oliver Reed, Oliver! found countless fans.[2] The mostly British production became a huge financial and critical success in the U.S. at a time when star-studded mega-musicals had become perilous – at times downright disastrous – ventures.[3] Upon the American release of Oliver! in Dec. 1968, frequently acerbic The...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies who have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Jacques Bergerac (1927-2014) - Actor. He starred in Gigi, The Hypnotic Eye, Les Girls and Twist of Fate, where he met first wife Ginger Rogers. He died on June 15. (THR)  Ann B. Davis (1926-2014) - Actress. Best known for playing Alice on The Brady Bunch, she later had a cameo in The Brady Bunch Movie (see below) and appears as herself in The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. She died June 1. (THR) Peter de Rome (1924-2014)&nbsp...

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Jacques Bergerac, a dashing French actor who appeared in Les Girls with Gene Kelly and Gigi with Leslie Caron and made a habit of marrying Oscar-winning actresses, has died. He was 87. Bergerac died June 15 at his home in Anglet in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques region of southwest France, according to French media reports. Bergerac was married to Oscar-winning actresses Ginger Rogers (as the fourth of her five husbands, he was 26 years old, 16 years her junior, when they were wed) and Dorothy Malone (as the first of her three husbands). Bergerac also starred in the horror cult classic

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Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0 Chicago – Two of the most beloved musicals of all time recently made their debut on Blu-Ray with extravagant collections of special features, beautiful HD, and crystal clear audio. All musical fans will want to add the Best Picture-winning “An American in Paris” and “Gigi” to their Blu-Ray collection.

One of my favorite musicals, 1951’s “An American in Paris,” an Oscar-winner for Best Picture, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Score, and Screenplay, is such an essential film to the history of the musical genre that it seems like a no-brainer for HD Blu-Ray. It’s an undeniable classic featuring one of the great stars of the musical, Gene Kelly, at his athletic peak and includes the debut of the magical Leslie Caron.

An American in Paris was released on Blu-Ray on March 31st, 2009.

Photo credit: Warner Brothers

As if Kelly and Caron weren’t enough to entice musical fans,...