Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 21, 1992 TAG: 9203210087
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD LENGTH: Medium
The spectacular show runs over three nights on the TNT cable network, Sunday through Tuesday.
Ted Turner, who owns TNT, also owns the MGM library of films, and considering the gold mine of material available, the clip-a-thon comes up shockingly short. There aren't enough novel or forgotten scenes from MGM films, and too many are repeats of clips already seen in the theatrical compilations "That's Entertainment!," parts one and two.
In addition, the wrong man, by a long shot, was hired as host and narrator. Patrick Stewart, chrome-domed major domo of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," hams it up criminally as he strides around a kitschy set meant to look like MGM in the hereafter. Stewart booms out his lines as if he were doing Shakespeare for the upper balconies; sometimes he actually yells at you.
Where he should have been a helpful guide, he comes off as a bombastic buffoon. The producers tried to emulate the grandiose, deluxe treatment that typified MGM's films. They failed.
Even so, viewers with a very keen interest in the place MGM holds in American cultural history - a gigantic place - will find plenty of funny, thrilling, evocative material. The script recalls not only the hits and the flops, but also the nearly endless backstage melodramas and bloody turf wars that took place in the studio's front offices.
Two legends guided the studio in its early days: Louis B. Mayer, the studio chief; and Irving Thalberg, the boy-wonder producer, head of production at 26, dead at 37. "He died of genius," Helen Hayes says.
If Thalberg was almost universally loved, Mayer was almost universally feared. The son of impoverished immigrants, he bullied his way from the bottom to the top. Mayer believed fervently and fanatically in the American dream and played a major role in defining that dream for generations of faithful moviegoers.
"He felt that all women should appear beautiful and all men should be handsome," recalls William Tuttle, longtime MGM makeup artist. "He loved us so much he would do anything for us except, of course, pay us what we were worth," says former child star Freddie Bartholomew. He remembers that Mayer was so theatrical he would faint at his own birthday parties, pretending to be surprised.
"He thought he was our father," says Esther Williams, star of several swimming musicals. "He was a gentle, soft-spoken man," says Hayes, "but he was evil."
Mayer made MGM an empire of dreams, a fantasy factory that in its heyday turned out up to 60 pictures of year and employed 5,000 people on its sprawling lot in Culver City. The goal was to be not only bigger than life, but better.
Some of those who participated in interviews for "When the Lion Roars" have died in recent weeks, among them Bartholomew (whose reminiscences are especially frank and colorful), director Richard Brooks, and producer Samuel Marx, who became the company's unofficial historian. His book "Mayer and Thalberg" is one of the best on the era.
TNT will be showing dozens of MGM films throughout the month as part of the celebration. TNT always shows dozens of MGM films - and always, it seems, the same dozens, only a fraction of the hundreds of different titles that are available. Some have been licensed to other cable networks or to local TV stations. Some languish in the vaults.
Of course it's ironic that cable TV, which does such a shoddy job of amusing the nation, is paying tribute to MGM, which did it so magnificently. The days of glory and glamour will never return, and the kingdom ruled by titans now has crumbled. There are no more titans.
"MGM: When the Lion Roars" is thus one of the grandest and gaudiest funerals ever held. It's sad and it's frustrating yet you may find yourself having a wonderful time. Washington Post Writers Group
Tom Shales is TV editor and chief TV critic for The Washington Post.
by CNB