Gary Smith Movies
- 1990
Happy Birthday, Bugs: 50 Looney Years is a television special celebrating 50 years of Bugs Bunny cartoons, complete with testimonials from various celebrities and a terrific end-piece "50 Years of Bugs in 3 Minutes," which features a manic collection of highlights compiled by Academy Award-winner Chuck Workman (he won for his animated short, Precious Images). ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
Made up to look like a septuagenarian, Henry Winkler plays Benedict Slade, a Scrooge-like miser living in a tiny New England town during the Depression. Slade goes Scrooge one further by repossessing items from a poor farm couple and an orphanage on Christmas eve. While reading a copy of Dickens' The Christmas Carol in his home, Slade is visited by his own set of Spirits Past, Present and Future, including his Hell-dwelling late business partner (Kenneth Pogue). Lensed in Canada, this made-for-TV film premiered the week before Christmas of 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1963
In this collection of clips from The Judy Garland Show, which ran for 26 episodes on CBS television in 1963 and 1964, the legendary singer and actress performs a number of songs, several of them collaborations with up-and-comer Barbra Streisand, grand dame Ethel Merman, and Garland's own daughter, the then-teenaged Liza Minnelli. Garland's solos include several of her signature numbers, from "I'm Nobody's Baby," which she performed as a fresh-faced MGM star in 1940's Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, to "The Man That Got Away," written especially for 1954's comeback vehicle A Star Is Born. Garland and Streisand alternate friendly banter about hating each other's talent with solo renditions and two extended medleys. The most famous of these pairings is their show-stopping combination of the standards "Get Happy" and "Happy Days Are Here Again"; Garland had performed the former in 1950's Summer Stock, while Streisand recorded the latter the same year the program aired. In another segment, Merman appears in the middle of the audience and joins Streisand and Garland for a leather-lunged rendition of "There's No Business Like Show Business." The Merman and Streisand footage was taped on October 4, 1963, for episode nine of Garland's eponymous program. A sequence featuring three duets and lots of clowning with Minnelli was taped a few months earlier, on July 16, for episode three. Several years after her program was cancelled, Garland was set to play Helen Lawson, a character based on Merman, for the film version of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls; she was replaced, however, by Susan Hayward. Streisand would go on to star in her own remake of A Star Is Born, while Minnelli would mine her mother's legacy in her own repertoire. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- 1963
- Add The Judy Garland Show, Episode 15: The Christmas Show to QueueAdd The Judy Garland Show, Episode 15: The Christmas Show to top of Queue
In this 1963 holiday episode of The Judy Garland Show, a large crop of guest stars, including Judy Garland's three children, joins the singer for a bevy of classic and contemporary songs, most of them Christmas-themed. Opening with one of her signature tunes, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from Meet Me in St. Louis, Garland makes her way through "Consider Yourself" (from Oliver), "Little Drops of Rain" (from Gay Purr-ee), and, of course, "Over the Rainbow" (from The Wizard of Oz). Jazz singers Jack Jones and Mel Torme also turn up; Jones solos on "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" and "Lollipops and Roses", while Torme duets with Garland on one of his own classics, "The Christmas Song" (also known as "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire"). Joey Luft and Lorna Luft, Garland's two school-age children by third husband Sidney Luft, get their chance to shine, as does eldest daughter and future superstar Liza Minnelli. The entire program is staged as a mock Christmas party, complete with dancing Santas, visiting carolers, and a couple of medleys featuring the entire ensemble. Garland begins the show by inviting viewers into her "home" -- actually a split-level set dressed to resemble a palatial living room. Episode 15 of Garland's short-lived CBS television show, The Judy Garland Christmas Show was taped on December 6, 1963, and broadcast a few weeks later on December 22. Astute viewers will note that Garland flubs a line from Torme's The Christmas Song, earning a chuckle from its composer, and then deliberately substitutes the word "rainbow" for "reindeer" in the next line -- an allusion to her own signature tune. Torme served as a consultant for almost the entire run of Garland's show and their sometimes contentious relationship has been documented in numerous books, including Torme's own The Other Side of the Rainbow. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
