We Must Have Music

Talking about bad documentaries!!! Hahaha. Me personally I've heard of none of those so called stars in this flick yet it's portrayed as if containing the very best and nothing but. Yeah well, you wish!! Hahaha!

This is strictly a promotional musical piece for MGM's cluster of stars under contract to the studio during the studio contract system in the '40s.

It starts off with Judy Garland singing, "We Must Have Music," from one of her many musicals at MGM, then goes on to show very brief clips from similar films produced by the studio.

Contrary to another comment at this site, there is no mention whatsoever of Deanna Durbin (who was under contract to Universal at this time). There is an opera singer by the name of Rise Stevens who did "The Chocolate Soldier" with Nelson Eddy, but nowhere can you spot Deanna.

The impressive MGM lineup of stars goes on to show close-ups of all the studio's favorites, except for Lassie. Movie fans can feast their eyes on Lana Turner, Robert Taylor, Greta Garbo, Ruth Hussey, Laraine Day, Hedy Lamarr, Kathryn Grayson, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and lots of others.

Strictly for fans of MGM musicals, it does give brief credit to all the composers at the studio and the films they worked on.

There's an interesting segment showing how rehearsals were done under Busby Berkeley for one of the Garland/Rooney production numbers called "Hoe-Down."

What makes this short remarkable is that it not only contains footage of Judy Garland but also Deanna Durbin (not mentioned in the credits) It was made as a showcase for young talent at MGM and led to a contract for Judy Garland, Deanna Durbin though was released and went to Universal Studios.

This MGM promotional film covers the importance of music to movies, starting with a rather soulful woman singing "The Curse of an Aching Heart", and then a fade in and out to "the first important musical": THE BROADWAY MELODY (1929).

Well, it was important to MGM, I suppose. After that, it turns into an advertisement for the forthcoming MGM Nelson Eddy vehicle, THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER. It flopped.

It was an important period in MGM when this was made. Arthur Freed had been a songwriter for MGM for a decade -- some of his songs were used in THE BROADWAY MELODY. He had been an uncredited producer on THE WIZARD OF OZ, and well working on a series of Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musicals. The following year would see the premiere of Gene Kelly, and a decade-long sweep of great musicals.

Oh, this ends with a series of two-second shots of a couple of dozen shots of MGM stars. The point of this short is "Rent MGM musicals. They're patriotic" and to prove it, here's Rise Stevens singing "America the Beautiful."

This was basically a promotional short for the M-G-M musicals but there are some treats like Judy Garland's cut title number from Ziegfeld Girl, Rise Stevens' rendition of "America the Beautiful" cut from The Chocolate Soldier, Herbert Stothart conducting the score from said film, and Busby Berkeley choreographing the "Hoedown" number in Babes on Broadway. There's also scenes of the various studio musicals and, to really fill time just as I'm filling for number of lines in this review, pages of the studio movie titles along with the stars and the conductors with a check attached to each name of those latter occupation at the bottom of the papers. So on that note, We Must Have Music is worth a look for you're so inclined. It's an extra on the Ziegfeld Girl DVD.