The 1990s' best mini about Hollywood finally makes it to DVD

[thatcrazycajun]

In 1992, Turner Network Television aired a three-part mini-series celebrating what was then the upcoming 80th anniversary of one of the greatest dream factories ever built in a city full of them, MGM: When the Lion Roars. Hosted impeccably by Patrick Stewart, this seven-hours-and-change clipfest took us through the founding, heyday and sad decline of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, not sparing the lows among the highlights and taking us behind the scenes of such MGM classics as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind to see the wheeling, dealing and star-power-wielding that got them made. It was a shameless bit of corporate synergy—the Turner media empire, after all, got its start in part by buying up and airing MGM's classic-film library—but it was still fun to watch. To this day, many people have no idea that what went on off-screen in the making of the studio's greatest films was often every bit as dramatic and exciting as anything that got put on the screen...thanks in no small part to the involvement of temperamental, larger-than-life personalities such as studio founder and paterfamilias Louis B. Mayer, stars such as Greta Garbo and Judy Garland, and filmmakers such as Buster Keaton and King Vidor.

Ever since, the only way you could watch it again was if you had the presence of mind to tape it when it aired (I did) or if you wanted to buy a set of VHS tape cassettes. Now, at last, the TNT folks have gotten around to doing what they should have done years ago and put the silly thing out on a spanking-new 2-disc DVD set. Even if you aren't a fan of Patrick's from his Star Trek: TNG days, this is still worth seeing for its exclusive interviews, photos and screen tests featuring the likes of Charlton Heston, Stanley Donen and Katharine Hepburn...and, of course, those unforgettable scenes from great MGM films: Kate getting pushed down by Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story; Dorothy and her friends being terrorized by the Wizard in his Emerald City throne room; and Vivien Leigh getting the movies' most famous—and expensive—kiss-off from Clark Gable: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" (The studio had to pay the Hays Office a hefty fine for that "damn" in those pre-MPAA-rating days.)

If you haven't seen this yet and you're any kind of movie fan, you want this box set; trust me, you want it bad. If you have and taped it, now you can see it without having to wear down your tapes yet again. You should also check out the companion coffee-table book that was issued alongside it, a good read in itself even if you haven't seen the mini.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Very cool, kind sir! I might have to get this...

I'd no idea MGM got busted for Clark's most famous line. I'm glad they left it in...

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Actually, MGM wasn't busted after the fact; rather, they engaged in negotiations for months with the Hays Office in advance of the film's release to allow Gable's use of the cussword. A quick check of Wikipedia's page on the film (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind_(film)#Production) indicates that the $5,000 fine may in fact be merely an urban legend; although it is still reported as real to this day, the page says that the Production Code was changed later that year to allow the use of the word in question retroactively when it was literarily justifiable.