Watch Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There For Free

Touches You

An action-packed slog

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Unlike so many quickly forgotten documentaries this sterling entry is a memorable experience, both educational and fun for anyone with whatever degree of interest/curiosity in the history of Broadway musicals and its Golden Age talent. Since so many of these celebrities are at the age where they soon might not be with us, it is a godsend to have their thoughts on their craft captured for posterity.This is the type of film where one viewing is not sufficient to capture all the flavor and nuances of the star-studded personalities captured in interview by the filmmaker.A very worthwhile experience!!!

I saw this movie last year and loved it. It was before it had distribution and i have watched happily as it went on its way to national theatrical runs and greatreviews. I had heard that the filmmaker had changed it since then, but Iassumed it was minor. I am in Chicago for a gig and when I read the greatreviews in the Chicago papers today I ran to see it again - almost a year later. Amazingly, the filmmaker Rick McKay was at the theatre again! In a wholedifferent part of the country, as he lives in NYC and I saw the film AND him in LA. He must be the moist passionate filmmaker ever to have made this film with 100 stars and taken six years. But, most important, the film is much, much different. it is absolutely brilliant. Moving and touching. There were people laughing and sobbing at the sametime around me. It is such a lost era and it seems even more profound a yearlater. Not to mention that at least five of the stars have died in this last year, making it more precious. The audience gave McKay a standing ovation and he regaled him with stories. I know I have friends who are going to kill me. They were so jealous when I saw an advance screening a year ago and it has been opening up in ciites all over the country but a lot of people still can't find it. SO , the good news is that McKay announced that the film comes out on DVD on November 9th. "Loaded withextras," he said. I am counting days.Nobody wanted to leave the theater. Everyone waited after in the lobby forMcKay and he told stories after to us. It was like we were trying to hang on to the last of this era and time in the film. I read a review on Ain't It Cool News that said this movie is a national treasure. They are right. And so is McKay. It would have all been gone were it not for this film. Thank you.

I saw this film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. We were the first audience to see the finished film on 35 mm in a theatre and the excitement was palpable. The fimmaker, Rick McKay, introduced the film and brought Eva Marie Saint (who won the Oscar for "on the Waterfront" with Brando) on stage with him afterwards for a question and answer session. I don't know when I have had a more exciting night in a movie theater. The film was brilliant and the filmmaker was wonderful in the film as he took us on a journey, but just as passionate and funny in person as he and Miss Saint warmly answered questions afterwards.The film is something very, very special. I don't honestly think a studio could have ever made this film - or a network either. It is such a personal, passionate and magical film. It is a mixture of more stars than I have *ever* seen in a movie - all telling their own personal stories of starving and starting out in New York - and old archival footage of perfomrances that have never been seen before. Not movie clips - but real, live perforances. It was staggering. It is about a time that is so cmpletely gone, but oddly enough, it was not sad, but very inspiring. It made me believe that if this kind of history could have been made in this century, and if this kind of movie can be made today, then anything is possible. what a wonderful feeling...The night I saw it there were people sitting on the floor in the aisles and standing room only in the back of the theater with people looking over each others shoulders. And nobody complained and nobody left. People did cry and they did laugh and they did applaud over and over during the movie though. When was the last time (if ever) that you saw that happen?We may have been the first audience to see this movie but we won't be the last. This movie is going to win an Oscar. Mark my words.

I just saw this movie last week on the Floating Film Festival where top critics are all on a cruise ship and as we sail they present the films that they love to the audience. Roger Ebert, Richard Corliss (Time), etc. This one was presented by Kathleen Carrol from the New York Daily News and boy was she popular after she showed this film!The ship projectionist screwed up the film and when they first showed it they could only show 20 minutes and the projector broke. What a crazed audience! Everyone was dying to see what happened. Well, by the time they got it fixed and showed the full film later in the week the anticipation was impossibly high, what with the word of mouth and all! But, the film completely lived up to it!It was introduced as a documentary, but it was more like time travel where you see 100 different great stars (Shirley MacLaine, Angela Lansbury, Carol Burnett, Ben Gazzara, Stephen Sondheim, Martin Landau, Kaye Ballard and Alec Baldwin and a lot more) all talk about struggling and coming to New York City to follow a dream. Well, in fiction you would never believe a movie that had 100 people whose dreams all come true - but this one - reality - it did happen. It was really inspiring to me and to the rest of the audience!And the old footage of New York! Times Square in the 40's! It really was a trip back in time to a bygone time that I am too young to have ever lived through! And the performances! A woman I had never heard of named Loretta Taylor who almost everybody in the film said changed their lives. And then the filmmaker found footage of her that he got in the film. Just beautiful. The original stars of "West Side Story" singing live - not dubbed like in the movie. And Bob Fosse dancing - with his wife Gwen Verdon. Ohmigod. Carol Hanie in "Steam Heat" - Marlon Brando in "A STreetcar Named Desire" - on and on. I have never seen a really passionate story about following dreams, New York, time travel and great peformances all combined in one film. AS much as it made me sorry I had missed this era on Broadway (Cats?! Les Miserable?! NO thanks!) it made me really love film even more to realize that one guy (the director) could make this movie alone. The critic who introduced the film talked about him and it is amazing that he shot it and edited it and directed it all alone and if he hadn't we would never have this movie. PBS does nice documentaries (Baseball, Civil War, NYC, Jazz, etc.) but they are always scholarly and have an "educational" feel. THIS did not. It was intelligent and passionate and had a REAL PERSON narrating it, not a disembodied, stentorian voice, and you really felt like someone was guiding, or walking you through this trip back in time.Am I going on a bit? Yes I am! The most wonderful news is that we were told that the film is opening in movie theaters around the country this summer so everyone can see it. And also exciting is that the DVD has even MORE of this same. I can't wait. Everyone on the ship was asking for it all week. Bravo. Movies like this are why I love independent film!