This lavish set contains film versions of the five major works by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who helped define the American musical landscape and rewrite the direction of musical theater. After enjoying extremely successful careers working with others, Rodgers and Hammerstein first teamed up in 1943 for the prairie tale Oklahoma!, with songs including "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love. " The subsequent 1955 film starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, who teamed up again for 1956's Carousel. While that film's dark nature made it less popular than its predecessor, the score ("If I Loved You," "You'll Never Walk Alone") was Rodgers's favorite. The King and I (also 1956) featured stage star Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as schoolteacher Anna Leonowens, who must learn Asian customs even as she tries to instill some of her Western ones. The somewhat bloated version of South Pacific (1958) follows two couples during World War II and features standards such as "Some Enchanted Evening" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" from stars Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi. The last film, The Sound of Music (1965), proved to be the most popular, with Julie Andrews winning the hearts of seven children and their father with her blissful songs. And if the perhaps saccharine music and plot may test the patience of some, there's no doubt that songs such as "My Favorite Things" and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" have charmed audiences around the world for decades. Accompanying the Big 5 in this set is the relatively minor State Fair from 1945 (though it does have "It Might as Well Be Spring" and "It's a Grand Night for Singing"). Some may prefer other entries in the R&H canon such as Flower Drum Song or the television production Cinderella, but State Fair was included because it was one of the five films (not including Sound of Music) released in 1999 in sumptuous remasterings that allow their scores and locales to truly shine. [+]

Sometimes lively, sometimes pokey, this Technicolor MGM musical inspires mixed feelings in aficionados of the form-except on one point. No viewer will question why "On the Atchison, Topeka, & the Santa Fe" won the best song Oscar for 1946. This is a brilliant, inventive song given an epic staging. Director George Sidney pulls out all the stops for this wowser-even Marjorie Main sings, an eardrum-testing sound. The real-life Harvey Girls were waitresses imported to the far-flung Fred Harvey Hotels, civilizing oases along the railroad lines out west. The fictional Harvey Girls is set in Sandrock, where the traveling waitresses are joined by a sort of mail-order bride (Judy Garland) whose prospective husband is a bust-he's a roughhewn rancher played by Chill Wills. Garland is in fine spunky form; unfortunately, her romance is with John Hodiak (as the owner of a dance hall), that uninspiring World War II-era lead. The film's other great Johnny Mercer-Harry Warren song is the unexpectedly melancholy "It's a Great Big World," performed in a lovely trio by Garland, Virginia O'Brien, and the young Cyd Charisse. The tall, deadpan O'Brien also does a comic take on "The Wild, Wild West" while shoeing a horse. With kewpie-faced Angela Lansbury as a bespangled dance-hall gal and Ray Bolger high-stepping through a dance solo, there are enough good people on board to keep the wheels a-turning "all the way to Californ-eye-yay. [+]

Fans of classic movie musicals will be in heaven with two five-video sets of the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the quintessential dancing duo. Fred and Ginger weren't always stars-the former Broadway hoofer and studio chorus girl were cast as the second-tier "comic" couple in three of their early films (Flying Down to Rio, Roberta, Follow the Fleet), and the pace drags whenever they're not on the screen. The high points of the first set are The Gay Divorcee, which proved that the pair could carry a film, and Top Hat, generally considered their definitive movie. All the films mix light romantic comedy (usually centered around mistaken identities and ending, inevitably, in blissful wedding promises) with elegant dinner wear and surreal sets intended to transport '30s audiences away from the Depression to such locales as Rio, Paris, and Venice. But of course the real reason to watch these films is the sensational dancing set to great songs by the likes of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Jerome Kern, numbers that are not merely entertaining but also innovative for their time in that they reveal character and advance the plot. The quintessential romantic duet "Night and Day," the grand ensemble number "The Continental," the definitive tuxedo setting "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails," the famously feathery "Cheek to Cheek," and the epic show-within-a-show "Let's Face the Music and Dance" are some of the best musical moments ever set to celluloid. -David Horiuchi This five-tape set includes Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Top Hat, and Follow the Fleet.

This semi-remake of Holiday Inn (the first movie in which Irving Berlin's perennial, Oscar-winning holiday anthem was featured) doesn't have much of a story, but what it does have is choice: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, an all-Irving Berlin song score, classy direction by Hollywood vet Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood), VistaVision (the very first feature ever shot in that widescreen format), and ultrafestive Technicolor! Crosby and Kaye are song-and-dance men who hook up, romantically and professionally, with a "sister" act (Clooney and Vera-Ellen) to put on a Big Show to benefit the struggling ski-resort lodge run by the beloved old retired general (Dean Jagger) of their WWII Army outfit. Crosby is cool, Clooney is warm, Kaye is goofy, and Vera-Ellen is leggy. Songs include: "Sisters" (Crosby and Kaye do their own drag version, too), "Snow," "We'll Follow the Old Man," "Mandy," "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep," and more. Christmas would be unthinkable without White Christmas. -Jim Emerson VHS copy Copy of Rosemary Clooney's personal script Audio CD featuring music from Irving Berlin's classic White Christmas release Collector's brochure featuring a collage of behind-the-scenes photos of Rosemary Clooney A letter from Rosemary Clooney recounting her memories of filming The original theatrical trailer.

Joan Crawford and Clark Gable were both in their young MGM prime when they suited up for Dancing Lady, the studio's big, shiny, silly reply to 42nd Street. Joan is a burlesque dancer (but mind you, serious artiste) when she is plucked from the ranks by a playboy, played by Franchot Tone, Crawford's future real-life hubby. Gable is the bluff, hard-driving theater director guiding a new Broadway musical that has room for one more chorus girl. Maybe. It all builds to the opening of the big show, and some utterly insane musical numbers including a Bavarian spectacle and the mind-bending "Rhythm of the Day. " The saving grace in these scenes is that Fred Astaire, in his film debut, partners Joan onstage and sings a bit. The movie also has Nelson Eddy and soused one-liners from Robert Benchley, plus Ted Healy and His Stooges doing some surreal comedy. Vaudevillian Healy actually has a pretty big role here, but the Stooges (three fellows named Moe, Curly, and Larry) would go on to stardom without him. The movie may not be a great one, but it gives the sugary flavor of early-'30s MGM, and even a simple scene like a gym workout (with Gable and Crawford in especially sassy form) provides the pleasures of art deco production design and cool costumes. -Robert Horton.

Produced by Dr. Bruce Klauber for Tahoe Productions, this video presents Krupa in fourteen rarely seen performances dating back over sixty years, and featuring Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Ventura, Anita O'Day, plus interview footage of the legend himself! A great tribute to the man who brought the drums out front. Song Titles: Swing, Swing, Swing House Hop Avalon China Boy Sheik of Araby Thanks for the Boogie Ride Young Man With a Beat Caravan Drum Boogie After You've Gone Old Fashioned Love Running Time: 60 Minutes.

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's 1958 direct-to-screen follow-up to their My Fair Lady was-miraculously-every bit as memorable as that stage smash. Set in fin-de-siècle Paris and based on a Colette story, Gigi also is about a girl (Leslie Caron) on a lower rung of society who blossoms into Cinderellahood before our eyes and ears. Thank heaven for Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier as her mentors, and Louis Jourdan as her prince. The screenplay writer and lyricist Lerner always said that Gigi's title song was his favorite of all he'd written, and it's easy to see why-"Gigi" is a transcendent anthem to being transformed by love from an unexpected source. The entire score, including "Say a Prayer" (which had been cut from My Fair Lady), "I Remember It Well," "The Night They Invented Champagne," and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," comprise a sparkling, rare soundtrack recording that stands alone and can be enjoyed and understood by those who have not yet seen the movie, deprived souls that they are. The winner of nine Academy Awards (plus a special Oscar for Chevalier), including Best Picture, Gigi was the last great MGM movie musical and one of the best. -Robert Windeler.