Jenny and Eddy Still Going Steady: The final two films with the MGM songbirds Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy that have yet to hit DVD are about to arrive to us on an exclusive basis.
In The Girl of the Golden West (1938), MacDonald sings in and runs a rowdy saloon in a one-woman mining town. Enter Ramirez (Eddy), a Mexican outlaw impersonating a cavalry officer, who sweeps Mary off her feet. When local lawman Jack Rance (Walter Pidgeon) nabs the bandit, Mary pleads with Rance to set him free.
For the third outing for the MacDonald/Eddy team, Sigmund Roberg and Gus Kahn penned the music for this sagebrush operetta which includes the songs “Shadows on the Moon,” “Who Are We to Say,” and “Senorita,” as well as “Ava Maria” and Liebestraum.”
New Moon (1940) is set in New Orleans and Paris of 1789 and stars MacDonald as a snooty plantation owner who falls for Eddy, a rebellious French aristocrat posing as a bondsman. Songs in this exciting, tuneful musical—the sixth film with the team–were adapted from a Sigmund Romberg operetta. They include “One Kiss,” and “Stout-Hearted Men.”
Skelton Crew: A little bird (and it wasn’t Gertrude or Heathcliff) told us that a significant slate of Red Skelton’s starring comedies for MGM is coming our way, courtesy of Warner Archives. You’ll be seeing Red in such favorites as A Southern Yankee (1948), The Yellow Cab Man (1950), Watch the Birdie (1950), The Clown (1953), Half a Hero (1953), and The Great Diamond Robbery (1954).
Sothern Belle: Notably absent from home video release—until now—the long-running MGM comedy series that spotlighted Ann Sothern as plucky, adventurous Brooklyn showgirl Maisie Ravier is finally surfacing. The Maisie Collection, Vol. 1 boxes up the first five Maisie vehicles—Maisie (1939), Congo Maisie (1940), Gold Rush Maisie (1940), Maisie Was a Lady (1941), and Ringside Maisie (1941)—for your viewing pleasure. Our intel leads us to believe a second set with the remaining five films will be around before the summer is out.
Pay Day: Crime Does Not Pay: The Complete Shorts Collection (1935-1947) assembles those well-remembered MGM short subjects that offered up cautionary tales about flouting the law of the land. These well-crafted lead-ins, which received many an Oscar nomination in the day, also gave early credits to players like Robert Taylor, Van Johnson and Barry Nelson, as well as directors like Fred Zinnemann, Jacques Tourneur and Joseph Losey. All fifty shorts from the series’ run are collected on six discs.