The Great Morgan is an 1945 American musical-comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film is considered one of the more unusual in the MGM canon in that it is a compilation film bui... Read allThe Great Morgan is an 1945 American musical-comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film is considered one of the more unusual in the MGM canon in that it is a compilation film built around a slight plot line, with a running time of less than 60 minutes.The Great Morgan is an 1945 American musical-comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film is considered one of the more unusual in the MGM canon in that it is a compilation film built around a slight plot line, with a running time of less than 60 minutes.
Photos
- Singer in 'Musical Masterpieces'
- (archive footage)
- Singer in 'Musical Masterpieces'
- (archive footage)
- Film Character
- (archive footage)
- Film Character
- (archive footage)
- The King Sisters
- (archive footage)
- Mother in 'Our Old Car'
- (archive footage)
- Bellamy B. Birdbrain in Badminton
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Film Character
- (uncredited)
- Roger the Valet
- (uncredited)
- Film Character
- (uncredited)
- Actor in Badminton
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Tommy Dorsey
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Cedric Gibbons
- (uncredited)
- Film Character
- (uncredited)
- Studio Executive
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaMovie was intended for export only, was presumed lost, but a print appeared in 1980. It was never released theatrically in the U.S. and was never submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office.
- Quotes
Frank Morgan: After all, a man's got to think of his future. Don't forget the years are piling up on me. I'm around 30... well, second time around.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Race to Save 100 Years (1997)
- SoundtracksFlight of the Bumble Bee
(uncredited)
Written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Performed by the MGM Studio Orchestra
Sequence originally in MGM short subject Musical Masterpieces (1946).
The "plot" if you can call it that is Frank Morgan (a top comic actor of his day) is hired to put together a movie using odds and ends from the MGM vaults. He does so by splicing together a string of completely unrelated short subjects and musical numbers, interspersed with a repeated loop of a scene from some melodrama. The effect is not unlike some early David Lynch or Antony Balch film. If this film weren't lost for so many years, I'd have almost considered it an inspiration for Monty Python's disjointed style too.
For MGM musical fans, the main reason for seeing this is for a brief dance routine from Eleanor Powell that had been edited out of one of her films (exactly which one is impossible to say - some sources say Broadway Melody of 1936 but she looks older than she did in that film. And she doesn't look right for the IMDb's guess of 1939's Honolulu, either).
Powell is as sexy as ever, but unfortunately there is a definite air of lack of respect for her and indeed for many of the other performers in this film, which is rather annoying. Powell had actually left MGM by this time, and this was presumably a way of burning off some extra footage while adding a bit of sex appeal to the proceedings. A similar feeling of disrespect is felt when the underrated Virginia O'Brien performs a lively number with Jimmy Dorsey and his band (I think this was probably cut from "Ship Ahoy" which also featured Powell along with O'Brien and Dorsey). As with Powell's segment, the film keeps cutting away to reaction shots of annoyed and bored studio executives who obviously would rather be watching something else.
Not all the segments are musical. A long "Lake Woebegon Days"-style Americana segment about the automobile is quite interesting for automobile lovers, and an overlong but extremely well-filmed segment on badminton provides some attraction for sports enthusiasts, but will leave you wondering "what the heck is this doing here?". The film's other major musical segment, a long Latin-themed vignette that fills up most of the first half of the film, is pretty interminable.
Aside from Powell and O'Brien's segments, the best part of the film is its gag ending.
The Great Morgan (which occasionally shows up on TCM) is a long 57 minutes to sit through for what is basically only a half-hour of worthwhile material (I'm including the badminton short because it was kinda cool, if overlong), but serious MGM musical fans should check out this curio, as should fans of Eleanor Powell. Hopefully, though, the original footage of her dance number still exists somewhere and will one day be shown in a more respectable venue.
- 23skidoo-4
- May 31, 2006
Details
- Runtime57 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1