MGM: Celebrating the centennial of the studio with ‘more stars than there are in heaven’

MGM celebrated its centennial on April 17th. Marcus Lowe established the studio by merging Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Boasting it had “more stars than there are in heaven,” MGM may have been the biggest studio during the Golden Age of Hollywood, it has gone through many owners and regimes over the years but seems to on terra firma since Amazon acquired MGM in 2021. In fact, Amazon MGM Studios won best screenplay Oscar for “American Fiction.” And speaking of Academy Awards, MGM has earned numerous statuettes over the years. Here’s a look at five Best Picture winners produced between 1929-1958.

“The Broadway Melody”
The 1929 musical made Oscar history by being the first talkie to win the top prize. Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed wrote the songs which include “The Broadway Melody,” “You Were Meant for Me” and “The Wedding of the Painted Doll” but the musical numbers of this pre-Code production are clunky and unimaginative, and the dancers seem to have a difficult time keeping in unison.

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Despite the fact the movie about two sisters trying to make it big on Broadway creaks like a bad arthritic knee, there is a nostalgic charm about it 95 years later. The New York Times was not impressed when it was released: “Naively, if you will, the authors of this ponderous tale seek to accelerate interest by giving intimate scenes of the two girls in various stages of undress, and the sister with the hay-colored hair is even seen enjoying the luxury of a tub. ‘The Broadway Melody’ is therefore uncouth and not particularly strong in its dramatic aspects. If you could only take cotton wool and stuff your ears to avoid hearing some of the rasping lines, this show might prove a moderately good diversion.”

But audiences lapped it up, and “Broadway Melody” became the box office champ of 1929. Bessie Love, Anita Page and Charles King star. “Broadway Melody” also became a successful franchise for the studio. And in 1940, MGM released a turgid remake, “Two Girls on Broadway,” with Lana Turner, Joan Blondell and George Murphy.

“Grand Hotel”
The classy 1932 drama also made Oscar history: it won Best Picture even though that was its only nomination. When sound was ushered in MGM, Paramount and Warner Brothers produced all-star musical revues, but “Grand Hotel” was the first narrative feature to present several of the studio’s top stars. Directed by Edmund Goulding, the production starred Greta Garbo, who utters the famous line “I want to be alone,” John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt. Based on a novel by Vicki Baum, the melodrama follows the intertwining lives of several guests at a lavish German hotel. Thirteen years later, MGM released a popular loose remake “Week-End at the Waldorf,” and a musical version opened on Broadway in 1989, running over 1,000 performances and earning five Tonys including best choreography and director for Tommy Tune.

“Mrs. Miniver”
The prologue of this 1942 World War II drama states: “This story of an average English middle-class family begins with the summer of 1939; when the sun shone down on a happy, careless people, who worked and played, reared their children and tended their gardens in that happy, easy-going England that was so soon to be fighting desperately for her way of life and for life itself.” Handsome and heartfelt, “Mrs. Miniver” stars Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright and Richard Ney and was directed by William Wyler. The AFI catalogue remarked: “Many contemporary and modern sources have commented on the propaganda value of ‘Mrs. Miniver’ in the British war effort, and the part of the film played in swaying American public opinion into stronger support for Britain as the United States entered World War.” The box office hit earned 12 Oscar nominations winning six for film, director, actress and supporting actress. Garson surprised all when she married Ney a dozen years her junior who and played her son in 1943, They divorced four years later. Garson and Pidgeon reprised their roles in the disappointing 1950 “The Miniver Story.”

“An American in Paris”/”Gigi”
Gene Kelly romances Leslie Caron in her film debut in Paris to the music of George and Ira Gershwin in 1951’s sumptuous Technicolor delight “An American in Paris” directed by Vincente Minnelli. The piece de resistance is the extraordinary eye-popping 17-minute “American in Paris” ballet which Kelly also choreographed. “An American in Paris” had strong competition in all Oscar categories especially for Best Picture. The production was up against such classics as “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “A Place in the Sun.” When the dust settled “American” won a total of six including best fil.  Kelly received an honorary Oscar “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.”  A theatrical version opened in Paris in 2014 and arrived on Broadway in 2015 running, 18 months and winning four Tonys.

Seven years later, Minnelli directed another gorgeous Parisian musical “Gigi,” based on the Collette story and straight play. Though “American in Paris” was filmed in Los Angeles, “Gigi” was able to short in Paris for a lot of the scenes. Alan Jay Lerner, who won the Oscar for best writing for “An American in Paris,” penned the adapted screenplay. Lerner and his composing partner Frederick Loewe, fresh off their Broadway success of “My Fair Lady,” wrote a whole new score for this joyous Arthur Freed production including the Oscar-winning “Gigi,” “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” and “I Remember It Well.”

Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Hermione Gingold and Louis Jourdan star.  It was nominated for nine Oscars and won in in every category including best film, director, song, adapted screenplay and costume design. Sadly, “Gigi” signaled the end of the big MGM musicals. But as enjoyable as it is, “Gigi” does have the cringe factor currently.  After all, it’s about a young woman being trained as courtesan and one could take umbrage with the 69-year-old Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”-just how little does he mean? A short-lived Broadway version with a few new songs by Lerner-Loewe hit Broadway in 1973; a 2015 revival was poorly received.

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