"MGM: When the Lion Roars" to be released on DVD!

I remember this! What a great documentary! Best of the bunch for sure!

besty is this the one you told me about when we talked a few weeks back? cool!

Even though MGM is my least-favorite movie studio, this documentary is superb.

Great doc! I knew I had seen Margaret Booth in a movie somewhere, thanks for reminding me, best.

I also enjoyed the Warner Bros. doc that was on PBS just a week or so ago.

If I go genre by genre, more of my least favorite films, in any given genre, are produced by MGM. That's my gauge, anyway.

Some of the interview highlights I remember:

Luise Rainer tells how she walked out on L.B. Mayer, telling him, "You're an old man now, and you'll be dead soon. And that's when I'll begin to live!"

Margaret Booth, explaining how crazy Douglas Shearer was (Norma's brother and head of the Sound Dept.) about the sound sync. He would tell her it's off by a single sprocket hole! She thought he was nuts.

Helen Hayes telling how they shelved her movie because it tested so badly at a screening. Thalberg took a look at it, examined the suggestion cards that the audience had filled out and realized that it was really only the last couple of scenes that killed the movie. So, they rewrote and re-shot the ending and released the film. And it was a big hit. "Oh, and I got an Oscar for it!" says Helen, almost as an afterthought. I love how her Best Actress win was almost lost forever on a warehouse shelf.

She also jokes about how they changed the name of the film from "Lullabye" (boring) to "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" (which was a more luring title). "They had to get that SIN in there," she says. God, I miss Helen Hayes. What a lady!

The "two Dorothys" as they were called. (No, not a Wizard of Oz reference, but two chorus girls, both named Dorothy, who were in many of the big MGM musicals in the '40s.) They talk about Judy Garland, the Freed Unit vs. the Pasternak Unit (the two big musical producers at MGM), and you can see the two Dorothys in Meet Me In St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, and many others.

Esther Williams, talking about how insane Mayer was. And Joe Pasternak (big MGM musical producer), who used to eat spaghetti with his hands. She said it was the weirdest thing to watch!

So many good stories from the MGM "kids": Mickey Rooney, Freddy Bartholomew (who passed away before this documentary even aired), Jackie Cooper, Roddy McDowall. I love Jackie Cooper talking about his Best Actor nomination at the age of eight, and how he fell asleep in Marie Dressler's lap during the ceremony when they announced the award. Or how Freddie Bartholemew got up the courage to ask Garbo for her autograph when they were starring in a movie together... and she refused!

Seriously, don't miss this. I've seen in at least a dozen times, and every time I watch it, I remember "new" things.

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Updated On: 10/9/08 at 09:05 PM