Ginger Rogers

This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.

Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.

Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

Based on the first centenary of the largest exporter of films in the world, that is Hollywood, is the story told by its protagonists, actors and writers and other people who made life in this business, interspersing images of famous movies.

A documentary film about dancing on the screen, from its origins after the invention of the movie camera, over the movie musical from the late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, up to the break dance and music videos from the 80s.

Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.

A TV special on the 100th anniversary of the birth of film.

This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.

The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.

Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

Various MGM stars from yesterday present their favorite musical moments from the studio's 50 year history.

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

A celebration of Hollywood in the 1930s, featuring a compilation of clips from features and newsreels of the era.

After the success of the live 1957 Cinderella on CBS (with Julie Andrews), the network decided to produce another television version. The new script hewed closer to the traditional tale, although nearly all of the original songs were retained and performed in their original settings. Added to the Rodgers and Hammerstein score was "Loneliness of Evening", which had been composed for South Pacific but not used.

Master thief Mario Forni and bordello owner Madame Rinaldi use confusion over a miracle to loot a local statue's legendary treasure.

Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.

A Justice of the Peace performed weddings a few days before his license was valid. A few years later five couples learn they have never been legally married.

A fashion model witnesses the brutal assassination of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan while traveling to a small town to visit her sister.

When a young stage hopeful is found dead, suspicion falls on her mentor, a successful Broadway producer.

An aging actress has a hard time admitting she is too old to play the ingenue role anymore.

A former model, serving time in prison, becomes a key witness in a trial against a notorious gangster. She is put under protective watch by the District Attorney in a posh hotel, but the crime kingpin makes attempts to get to her.

Nancy Fallon gets her teenage daughter back from her ex-husband when she remarries and must win her love.

Arthur Turner's bored housewife Mildred seeks psychiatric help from Dr. Alan Coles who also has his own emotional problems to solve.

Thornton Sayre, a respected college professor - secretly formerly a silent films romantic action hero - is disturbed, feeling his privacy has been violated, and his professional credibility as a scholar jeopardized, when he learns his old movies have been resurrected and are being aired on TV. He sets out to demand this cease. However, his former co-star is the hostess of the TV show playing the films, and she has other plans.

Low on funds, working-class girl Susan Applegate disguises herself as a youngster in order to pay half fare home. But little 'Sue Sue' finds herself in a whole heap of grownup trouble when she hides out in a compartment with handsome Major Philip Kirby.

Josh and Dinah Barkley are a successful musical-comedy team, known for their stormy but passionate relationship. Dinah feels overshadowed by Josh and limited by the lighthearted musical roles he directs her in. So she decides to stretch her skills by taking a role in a serious drama, directed by another man.

Ellie Mae lives on Primrose Hill with her good-hearted and fancy free mother, her drunken father, her younger sister and a mean-spirited grandmother. The Hill is not a good part of town, however. When she meets and falls for a hard-working man, they marry and she hides her past from him. When he discovers the truth it jeopardizes their marriage.

A hard-working, white-collar girl falls in love with a young socialite, but meets with his family's disapproval.

Mary Marshall, serving six years for accidental manslaughter, is given a Christmas furlough to visit her closest relatives, her uncle and his family in a small Midwestern town. On the journey, she meets Zach Morgan, a troubled army sergeant on leave from a military hospital. Although his physical wounds have healed, he suffers from PTSD and is subject to panic attacks. The pair are attracted to one another and, in the warm atmosphere of the Christmas season friendship, blossoms into romance, but Mary is reluctant to tell him of her past and that she must shortly return to serve the remainder of her sentence.

A radio correspondent tries to rescue a burlesque queen from her marriage to a Nazi official.

Anything can happen during a weekend at New York's Waldorf-Astoria: a glamorous movie star meets a world-weary war correspondent and mistakes him for a jewel thief; a soldier learns that without an operation he'll die and so looks for one last romance with a beautiful but ambitious stenographer; a cub reporter tries to get the goods on a shady man's dealing with a foreign potentate.

A café in Chicago, 1942. On a rainy night, veteran reporter Homer Howard tells an increasing audience the story of Roxie Hart and the crime she was judged for in 1927.

Ten screenwriters collaborated on this series of tales concerning the effect a tailcoat cursed by its tailor has on those who wear it. The video release features a W.C. Fields segment not included in the original theatrical release.

A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.

A chronic runaway bride is haunted by her conscience, who becomes reality.

Two strangers split a sweepstake prize to go on a fake honeymoon with predictable results.

Janie is a telephone operator who is caught up in the lines of love of three men: car salesman Tom, Chicago millionaire Dick and auto mechanic Harry. But Janie just can't seem to make up her mind between them. While fantasizing about her futures with each of the men, Janie spends her time desperately trying to juggle between them until she can make a decision.

Jo Jones, a young defense plant worker whose husband is in the military during World War II, shares a house with three other women in the same situation.

Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.

When all Broadway shows are shut down during the Depression, a trio of desperate showgirls scheme to bilk a repugnant high society man of his money to keep their show going.

College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.

Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. There she falls in love with dancer Guy Holden, whom she later mistakes for the corespondent her lawyer hired.

In the first entry of this series, the show open with a troupe of dancing chorus girls getting a salute from crossed-eyed Ben Turpin. Then the master of ceremonies, Fredric March, brings on the various acts, starting with a pre-teen Mitzi Green), dressed as an adult and singing "Was That the Human Thing to Do?" , followed by Ginger Rogers and Jack Oakie singing-and-dancing to "The Girl Who Used to be You." Then the Three Brox Sisters do a triple imitation of Marlene Dietrich singing 'Falling in Love Again." 'Jack Duffy' does a drunken hillbilly bit involving a lamp post, the the finale has Eddie Peabody, playing a banjo for some chorus girls on a pedestal.

A spirited heiress wishing to break into theatre on her own merit arrives at a boardinghouse where aspiring young actresses and showgirls are brought together through their cynicism and disappointments.

An American bandleader woos a Brazilian beauty who is already engaged to his employer. His friends try to help him, while learning the local dance, The Carioca. The first pairing of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, and their only pre-Code film.

Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding to Margaret and has to make $25,000 so her father will allow him to marry her. He and business partner Pop go to New York where they run into dancing instructor Penny. She and Lucky form a successful dance partnership, but romance is blighted by his old attachment to Margaret and hers for Ricky.

Ballet star Petrov arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ship as the dancer and musical star he's fallen for but barely knows. By the time the ocean liner reaches New York, a little white lie has churned through the rumour mill and turned into a hot gossip item—that the two celebrities are secretly married.

Virginia, who studies at a boarding school for upper-class girls, falls in love with a medical intern who works as a waiter for a living. Both the director of the school and her mother oppose such a relationship.

Polly Parrish, a clerk at Merlin's Department Store, is mistakenly presumed to be the mother of a foundling. Outraged at Polly's unmotherly conduct, David Merlin becomes determined to keep the single woman and "her" baby together.

In 1911, minor stage comic, Vernon Castle meets the stage-struck Irene Foote. A few misadventures later, they marry and then abandon comedy to attempt a dancing career together. While they're performing in Paris, an agent sees them rehearse and starts them on their brilliant career as the world's foremost ballroom dancers. However, at the height of their fame, World War I begins.

Broadway director Julian Marsh needs just one more hit show so he can retire and recover his health. It looks like he just may pull it off until temperamental star Dorthy Brock breaks her ankle on the eve of the show's premiere and has to be replaced by her understudy Peggy.

When the US Navy fleet docks at San Francisco, sailor Bake Baker tries to rekindle the flame with his old dancing partner, Sherry Martin, while Bake's buddy Bilge Smith romances Sherry's sister, Connie. But it's not all smooth sailing—Bake has a habit of losing Sherry's jobs for her and, despite Connie's dreams, Bilge is not ready to settle down.

Dr. Tony Flagg's friend Steven has problems in the relationship with his fiancée Amanda, so he persuades her to visit Tony. After some minor misunderstandings, she falls in love with him. When he tries to use hypnosis to strengthen her feelings for Steven, things get complicated.

Rival newspaper reporters Pat Morgan and Ted Rand find themselves unraveling the mystery behind the death of a millionaire philanthropist who fell from his penthouse balcony. When it is discovered that the plunge was not an accident, the building's residents come under suspicion. Soon, the body count begins to mount as three more murders occur by strangulation.

Radio singer Glory Eden is publicized as the ideal of American womanhood in order to sell the sponsor's product Ippsie-Wippsie Washcloths. In reality, Glory would like to at least sample booze, jazz, gambling, and men. When the strain of representing "purity" brings her to rebellion, the sponsor and his nutty henchmen pick her a public-relations "sweetheart" from fan mail, who turns out to be a hayseed.

When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.

A wealthy man hires a poor girl to play his mistress in order to get more attention from his neglectful family.

A short featuring many stars

Jerry Stafford falls for his secretary, Julia Traynor, but instead she marries a shady character who causes trouble for both of them.

Thirteen years after a dinner party in which the thirteenth guest failed to arrive, the remaining guests are being murdered one by one, and their bodies being placed at the same dinner table in the appropriate seats they occupied thirteen years prior.