Lena Horne Movies

Jump, jive, and bebop to some of the biggest hits of 1940s and 50s with this collection of musical shorts featuring such timeless talents as Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Fats Waller. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

From Kultur comes this documentary that looks at the Harlem Renaissance through the music that defined the era. Harlem Renaissance: The Music & Rhythms That Started a Cultural Revolution includes performances of such songs as Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher," Fats Waller's "This Joint Is Jumpin'," Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's "Let's Scuffle," Lena Horne's "Friday Night," and many others. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

In 1974, MGM Studios released its first compilation of musical highlights from 45 years of Hollywood extravaganzas. Entitled That's Entertainment!, it was a big box-office hit and inspired a second compilation two years later. Eighteen years went by before MGM tried again. The third installment of the series contains a total of 62 musical numbers and includes scenes from more than 100 films. The cavalcade of memories is hosted by nine stars from the old musicals: Gene Kelly, Esther Williams, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, Lena Horne, June Allyson, Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, and Howard Keel. The film is loaded with outtakes and unfinished numbers that didn't make the cut of the original musicals. At many points, there is a split screen, showing the finished product as filmed as well as behind-the-scenes confusion. It's as much a comic "bloopers" TV show as a tribute to the heyday of the musical. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Lena Horne (playing herself, of course) arrives at Hillman to dedicate a scholarship in her grandmother's name. In honor of Ms Hornes' visit, Whitley organizes a musical testimonial to the singer--haughtily refusing to let Mr. Gaines (Lou Myers) cater the affair because he isn't "classy" enough. But it is Whitley who ends up with egg on her face when Lena chooses the "modest" home-cooked dinner provided by Gaines, who turns out to be an old friend of the legendary vocalist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Join Big Bird as he leads Snuffy on a silly trip through the alphabet. Cookie Monster sings about his favorite letter in "C Is for Cookie" and Oscar the Grouch praises the "I" in "Icky Ice Cream Cones." Includes special guest star Lena Horne. ~ Heather M. Fierst, All Movie Guide

Join in the fun with classic moments from "Veterinarian's Hospital" and "Pigs in Space" and all were found while Kermit and Fozzie did their spring cleaning! ~ All Movie Guide

In the early days of cinema, characters were broadly sketched. Villains sported dark circles under their eyes and ingénues wore wide-eyed looks of innocence. Unfortunately, ethnic stereotypes prevailed just as strongly. Especially biased were the portrayals of people of color. The That's Black Entertainment series documents the role of African-Americans in film, from the emergence of race movies to the beginning of talkies. In That's Black Entertainment: Race Movies -- The Early History of Black Cinema, blacks in the infant years of the motion-picture industry are examined. The video also includes three short films starring black actors from the era. ~ Sarah Ing, All Movie Guide

Lamont (Demond Wilson) mistakenly believes that the doctor has given Fred (Redd Foxx) a few months to live (actually Fred has been given a few months to pay his bill). To make the old man happy in his "last moments," Lamont and Rollo (Nathaniel Taylor) try to arrange a date between Fred and singer Lena Horne. Originally intended as the opening episode of Sanford and Son's fifth season, "The Over-the-Hill Gag" was instead shown at the end of season four. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Famed anonymous director Alan Smithee (in this case a hybrid of Richard Totten and Don Siegel), directed this turgid western drama concerning Marshal Frank Patch (Richard Widmark), who, even though he has kept the peace in Cottonwood Springs for over twenty years, is now considered a local joke by the town liberals who want some new blood in the Marshall's Office. They get it when Patch shoots the drunken Luke Mills (James Lydon) in self-defense. Now the forces of progress really want Patch out. So much so that the local newspaper editor, Andrew Oxley (Kent Smith) demands his resignation. Patch not only refuses to quit but disgraces Oxley so badly in front of his son Will (Mercer Harris) that Oxley kills himself. Will is now out for blood, but Patch remains stoic, even when his old friend Lou (John Saxon) comes to town to advise him to quit. Patch refuses Lou's suggestion but decides to marry Claire (Lena Horne), the owner of the local saloon and whore house. But an uninvited guest attends the wedding ceremony --Will. And both Will and his gun are loaded. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Francis Albert Sinatra (1915-1998) went a long way for a kid from Hoboken, NJ. He became one of the world's most admired singers and an Academy Award-winning actor. Although he didn't have many critical or ratings successes with his two 1950s TV shows, his television specials fared better. Part of a ten-tape collection, this video contains archival footage from Sinatra's February 15, 1960, special on ABC, titled Here's to the Ladies. His guests included the elegant singer Lena Horne, Can-Can co-star and girl Rat Packer Juliet Prowse, Mary Costa, and comedian Barbara Heller, with a special appearance by former First Lady and philanthropist Eleanor Roosevelt. "The Chairman" sings "Here's to the Ladies," "I've Got You Under My Skin," "Lonely Town," and a Harold Arlen medley with Ms. Horne that includes snippets from "Paper Moon," "Accentuate the Positive," "Get Happy," "Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," "My Heart Stood Still," and "Here's to the Ladies." ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide

The presence of William Powell as legendary showman Flo Ziegfeld at the beginning of Ziegfeld Follies might lead an impressionable viewer from thinking that this 1946 film is a Technicolor sequel to the 1936 Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld. Not so: this is more in the line of an all-star revue, much like such early talkies as Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Paramount on Parade. We meet a grayed, immaculately garbed Ziegfeld in Paradise (his daily diary entry reads "Another heavenly day"), where he looks down upon the world and muses over the sort of show he'd be putting on were he still alive. Evidently Ziegfeld's shade has something of a celestial conduit to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, since his "dream" show is populated almost exclusively by MGM stars. Vincente Minnelli is given sole directorial credit at the beginning of the film, though many of the individual "acts" were helmed by other hands. The Bunin puppets offer a tableau depicting anxious theatregoers piling into a Broadway theatre, as well as caricatures of Ziegfeld's greatest stars. The opening number, "Meet the Ladies", spotlights a whip-wielding (!) Lucille Ball, a bevy of chorus girls dressed as panthers, and, briefly, Margaret O'Brien. Kathryn Grayson and "The Ziegfeld Girls" perform "There's Beauty Everywhere." Victor Moore and Edward Arnold show up in an impressionistically staged adaptation of the comedy chestnut "Pay the Two Dollars". Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer (a teaming which evidently held high hopes for MGM) dance to the tune of "This Heart is Mine." "Number Please" features Keenan Wynn in an appallingly unfunny rendition of an old comedy sketch (performed far better as "Alexander 2222" in Abbott and Costello's Who Done It?) Lena Horne, strategically placed in the film at a juncture that could be edited out in certain racist communities, sings "Love". Red Skelton stars in the film's comedy highlight, "When Television Comes"-which is actually Skelton's classic "Guzzler's Gin" routine (this sequence was filmed late in 1944, just before Red's entry into the armed services). Astaire and Bremer return for a lively rendition of "Limehouse Blues". Judy Garland, lampooning every Hollywood glamour queen known to man, stops the show with "The Interview". Even better is the the historical one-time-only teaming of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in "The Babbitt and the Bromide". The excellence of these sequence compensate for the mediocrity of "The Sweepstakes Ticket", wherein Fanny Brice screams her way through a dull comedy sketch with Hume Cronyn (originally removed from the US prints of Ziegfeld Follies, this sequence was restored for television). Excised from the final release print (pared down to 110 minutes, from a monumental 273 minutes!) was Judy Garland's rendition of "Liza", a duet featuring Garland and Mickey Rooney, and a "Baby Snooks" sketch featuring Fanny Brice, Hanley Stafford and B. S. Pully. A troubled and attenuated production, Ziegfeld Follies proved worth the effort when the film rang up a $2 million profit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide