Hosted by Gene Kelly, Ray Bolger, Liza Minnelli, Sammy Davis Jr, and many others
Directed by Jack Haley Jr.
Music and Lyrics by various
When I was six, this used to appear with some frequency on cable. It gave me my first glimpse of Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, and ballet, and I was entranced. It's one of several older films and more recent musicals I saw as a child that helped make me the musical film fan I am today. How does this summation of the history of dance on the big screen look nowadays, with most of these films easily found on home media and no longer limited to cable showings and rare big-screen revivals? Let's start with a man who certainly knows something about dance on-screen, Gene Kelly, as he explains to us about primitive dance around the world, and find out...
The Story: Some of the most popular musical stars and dancers to ever appear on the big screen relate to us the history of dance via segments from movies made by MGM...and for once, other studios as well.
Kelly discusses the origins of filmed dance, dance on the silent screen, and how Busby Berkley's surreal choreography revolutionized chorus numbers on film.
Sammy Davis Jr. talks about solo and couple dance on film, via Fred Astaire, who insisted on the camera remaining on his full figure while he danced and his frequent partner Ginger Rogers. He also goes into Shirley Temple, whose mixed-race tap routines with Bill Robinson broke barriers in the 30's, Robinson's graceful style as a solo act in shorts, and solo stars Eleanor Powell and Ray Bolger and the amazing duo the Nicholas Brothers.
Russian ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov gives us the history of ballet on film, from Anna Palova on the silent screen to major international ballet greats of the 60's and 70's Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, as well as screen ballerinas Vera Zorina and Moira Shearer.
Liza Minelli discusses screen adaptations of classic Broadway dance routines, from James Cagney demonstrating what George M Cohan's style looked like in Yankee Doodle Dandy to the explosive "Cool" from the original 1961 West Side Story.
Ray Bolger gives us the (then) future of dance on the screen, including the "What a Feeling!" finale of Flashdance and Michael Jackson's influential and much-parodied "Beat It" music video.
The Song and Dance: If That's Dancing does one thing right, it's expanding its net to include a truly wide variety of dance...including acknowledging that dancers came from studios other than MGM. We get the Yankee Doodle Dandy and Busby Berkley footage from Warners, the Shirley Temple/Bill Robinson, Nicholas Brothers, and Rogers and Hammerstein dances from 20th Century Fox, Universal's release of Sweet Charity, Flashdance from Paramount, The Red Shoes from England, and the MTV Michael Jackson footage. We also get our first glimpse of cut songs in an incredible extension of Bolger's "If I Only Had a Brain" solo from The Wizard of Oz. They even wrote two original songs. It's also nice to see sequences from musicals made after the 50's as the hosts point out that dance on the screen continues to evolve. There's also the extremely rare footage of early silent dancers, some of it going far back as 1897.
Favorite Number: As mentioned, we begin with footage, some of it rare, of primitive dances from around the globe, from African tribal ritual to native dances in Mexico and China. Of the Busby Berkley routines shown here, none continue to amaze more than the Oscar-winning "Lullaby of Broadway" from Gold Diggers of 1935, with its thousands of tap dancers who all manage to move in perfect unison.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers have a lot more fun with two of their best routines, the romantic "Night and Day" from The Gay Divorcee and comic "Pick Yourself Up" from Swing Time. A decidedly different duo, Shirley Temple and Bill Robison, show off their "Organ Grinder's Swing" from The Littlest Rebel. Robison goes it alone and shows off his light-as-air footwork in two numbers from the short King for a Day. A very young Sammy Davis Jr. gets in on his own short, Rufus Jones for President, and gives us a delightful and adorable tap routine. Fred goes it solo as well with "I Won't Dance" from Roberta and later, "A Shine On Your Shoes," making brilliant use of an arcade on Broadway in The Band Wagon. Eleanor Powell manages to combine tap and graceful hula and make it work in the peculiar "Hola E Pae" from Honolulu.
Vera Zorina demonstrates grace of a different sort with Charles Laskey in "La Princesse Zenobia Ballet" from On Your Toes. Delicate Moira Shearer is haunted by her scarlet footwear, which stands out like a beacon in the sherbet tones of The Red Shoes. Ray Bolger does death-defying leaps after crows (with the help of MGM's special effects department) in a delightful extension of his "If I Only Had a Brain" from The Wizard of Oz.
Astaire this time joins an unusually tough Jane Powell for the colorful tropical chorus routine "I Left My Hat In Hati" from Royal Wedding. Anne Miller joins Bob Fosse, Bobby Van, and the late Tommy Rall for their big tap number "Tom Dick and Harry" from Kiss Me Kate. We get a glimpse at a more spontaneous chorus routine with the teens dancing in the streets and stopping traffic to the tune of the Oscar-winning title song from Fame. The dancers of the original West Side Story show why they're still "Cool" with their stylized, finger-snapping dance moves. "Cool" inspired much of Michael Jackson's "Beat It"; song and video were smash hits in 1983, and we get to see why here, with their equally dramatic moves. We also get Kim Carnes' pop song "Invitation to Dance" over the end credits.
Trivia: The use of the rare Ray Bolger/Wizard of Oz footage was so well-received, it inspired MGM to dig in its vaults for more deleted numbers to use in That's Entertainment III a decade later.
Final film appearance of Ray Bolger.
Bolger and Minnelli's sequences were to have been much longer and feature more numbers from other studios, but many were dropped in the interest of time and expense, as was the sequence with Fred and Ginger. Which brings me to...
What I Don't Like: It's pretty obvious that MGM chopped this up since before release. There's even less rhyme and reason to this than there is to the Kelly and Astaire-hosted That's Entertainment Part 2. Liza Minnelli's segment from Cabaret was dropped, leaving her as the only host without a dance routine in the film and making many audiences wonder what she's doing there. Many of the MGM numbers seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel after three films and makes you really wish the other studios had cooperated more.
There's problems with the other hosts, too. Their narration is just as stiff as the first That's Entertainment film, and mostly of interest to real dance aficionados. Casual audiences will likely be bored and wish they'd get out of the way and let the footage speak for itself. Baryshnikov in particular lacks the charm and intensity he usually shows when dancing. (And he's not helped by his thick Russian accent.) The five hosts often seem spread too thin as well, with Davis Jr. and Kelly covering more than half the film.
Let's talk about that final "modern" segment. Breakdancing was a huge fad in 1985, but it's barely remembered today by anyone but fans of 80's dance. I understand they wanted to convey the evolution of dance, from primitive times to modern times, but the emphasis on 80's fads like breakdancing and music videos dates this in a way the That's Entertainment films, with their use of mostly older footage, manages to avoid.
The Big Finale: Mainly of interest to fans of dance on the screen, dance history, or the That's Entertainment documentary series.
Home Media: Finally got its first solo release on Warner Archive DVD in October 2020; can be found easily for streaming as well.
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