Great Films of the Golden Age Part 2: MGM

As alluded to yesterday, MGM is often considered to have been the greatest of the film studios, renowned for its epics and its musicals. I don't have a great affection for the MGM style, but they certainly had their stars: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra; they also produced one of the all-time greats, Gone With the Wind.

Because MGM had a reputation for being the most extravagent and glamourous of the Golden Age studios, the studio's current condition perturbes people. What once walked amongst the mightiest is simply a franchise bought up Sony. All that's left of MGM is the name...and the films, of course.

My ten favorite Golden Age MGM pictures are:

• The Thin Man (1934)
• Mad Love
• A Night at the Opera (1935)
• Gone With the Wind (1939)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• The Philadelphia Story (1940)
• The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
• Random Harvest (1942)
• Bataan (1943)
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

1 detective film, 1 horror film, 3 comedies, 2 romances, 1 fantasy, 1 war film and 1 film noir. Say, 1940 was a pretty good year for James Stewart, wasn't it? Two great films and one of them snagged him his Oscar! This was back in the days when the Academy considered comedies to be legitimate films.