Brand new factory sealed vhs tape is Out Of Print (OOP) in all formats and only available as part of a pricey blu-ray box set. It has a barely visible, fine razor scratch across the front center width of the box. This full screen version is also perfect for old school televisions as the image will fill your square screen which is the way a lot of these musicals were shot anyway.

This isn't just a compilation film, with lots of highlights strung together. Its more of a documentary and a eulogy for an art form that will never be again.

Hollywood will continue to make musicals of course, but they won't have the budgets, the sense of joyous abandon, there won't be so many stars in one place and--most of all--there won't be the notion that a musical has to be "important" or "politically correct". The latter which has stifled all creativity today since there is a "checklist" of things you can't do or have to have in your movie.

The various segments of the film are introduced and narrated by MGM stars of the past (Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly), superstars like Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor, offspring like Liza Minelli and a half dozen other stars.

The movie avoids the trap of being too worshipful in the face of all this greatness. It's not afraid to kid; we see Clark Gable lookin ill at ease as he pretends to enjoy singing and dancing, and we see a hilarious montage of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney ringing endless changes to the theme, "I know--we'll fix up the old barn and put on a show!" The film opens with a montage of musicals (neatly surveying three decades of film progress), and later returns to the two most unforgettable numbers in the film:

Gene Kelly sloshing through puddles while singing the title song, and Donald O'Connor in his amazing "Make 'em Laugh," in which he leaps up walls, takes pratfalls, and dives through a set.

There are other great moments:

The closing ballet from 'An American in Paris'; Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald being hilariously serious in 'Rose Marie'; Astaire and Ginger Rogers, so light-footed they seem to float; Gene Kelly's incredible acrobatics as he does his own stunts, swinging from rooftop to rooftop; William Warfield singing "Old Man River" in 'Showboat'; Judy Garland singing "You Made Me Love You" to a montage of stills of Clark Gable; Garland again with "Get Happy" (and a vignette of little Liza's first movie appearance, aged about three); the acrobatic woodchopper's scene from 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', and even Esther Williams rising from the deep.

The movie's fun from begining to end. It's not camp, and it's not nostalgia: It's a celebration of a time and place in American movie history when everything came together to make a creative new art form.