
Vincente Minnelli
Directing
Biography
Vincente Minnelli, born in Chicago, was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Gigi (1958), The Band Wagon (1953), and An American in Paris (1951). An American in Paris and Gigi both won the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Minnelli winning Best Director for Gigi. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made many comedies and melodramas. He was married to Judy Garland from 1945 until 1951; they were the parents of Liza Minnelli. With his background in theater, Minnelli was known as an auteur who always brought his stage experience to his films. The first film that he directed, Cabin in the Sky (1943), was visibly influenced by the theater. Shortly after that, he directed I Dood It with Red Skelton and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), during which he fell in love with the film's star, Judy Garland. They had first met on the set of Strike Up the Band (1940), a Busby Berkeley film for which Minnelli was asked to design a musical sequence performed by Garland and Mickey Rooney. They began a courtship that eventually led to their marriage in June 1945. Their one child together, Liza Minnelli, grew up to become an Academy Award-winning singer and actress. The Minnelli family is thus unique in that father, mother and child all won Oscars. Widely known for directing musicals, including An American in Paris (1951), Brigadoon (1954), Kismet (1955), and Gigi (1958), he also directed comedies and melodramas, including Madame Bovary (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Lust for Life (1956), Designing Woman (1957), and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963). His last film was A Matter of Time (1976). During the course of his career he directed seven different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Spencer Tracy, Gloria Grahame, Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley MacLaine and Martha Hyer. Grahame and Quinn won. Minnelli received an Oscar nomination as Best Director for An American in Paris (1951) and later won the Best Director Oscar for Gigi (1958). According to Peter Bart in his book The Gross, Minnelli's films having 11 first-place finishes on Variety's opening release box office rankings. On February 8, 1960, Minnelli received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion pictures industry at 6676 Hollywood Boulevard. He died in Beverly Hills, California.
Known For
The BBC's flagship cinema review TV program featuring reviews of new releases, news items and interviews. The title of the program changes each year to incorporate the year of broadcast.
Film '72

A home, a motorcar, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor in Paris offers them all to Gigi. But she, who's gone from girlish gawkishness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can't buy.
Gigi

Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
An American in Paris

A girl is engaged to the local richman, but meanwhile she has dreams about the legendary pirate Macoco. A traveling singer falls in love with her and to impress her he poses as the pirate.
The Pirate

An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.
Lust for Life

After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant society wife, but becomes enraged whenever she asks about Michael, his mysterious long-lost brother.
Undercurrent

A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Meet Me in St. Louis

In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.
Madame Bovary

Acclaimed profiles of eight great American film directors. Produced and directed by Richard Schickel and narrated by Cliff Robertson, with solid interviews and film clips, the series reviews the careers of Raoul Walsh, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, King Vidor, George Cukor, William A. Wellman, Alfred Hitchcock and Vincente Minnelli.
The Men Who Made the Movies

Proud father Stanley Banks remembers the day his daughter, Kay, got married. Starting when she announces her engagement through to the wedding itself, we learn of all the surprises and disasters along the way.
Father of the Bride

Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
The Bad and the Beautiful

Passengers on an ocean liner recall their greatest loves.
The Story of Three Loves

Newly married Kay Dunstan announces that she and her husband are having a baby, leaving her father to come to grips with the fact that he will soon be a granddad.
Father's Little Dividend

A former novelist returns to his small Midwest town after serving in the Army during WWII, to the chagrin of his social-climbing brother, and becomes close with an easy-going professional gambler and torn between two very different women.
Some Came Running

Americans Jeff and Tommy, hunting in Scotland, stumble upon a village - Brigadoon. They soon learn that the town appears once every 100 years in order to preserve its peace and special beauty. The citizens go to bed at night and when they wake up, it's 100 years later. Tommy falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Fiona, and is torn between staying or going back to his hectic life in New York.
Brigadoon

Light bio-pic of American Broadway pioneer Jerome Kern, featuring renditions of the famous songs from his musical plays by contemporary stage artists, including a condensed production of his most famous: 'Showboat'.
Till the Clouds Roll By

The portrait of the last cowboy Hollywood legend dives into the 65 years of an extraordinary career in Hollywood, highlighted iconic films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Gran Torino all the way to Cry Macho in 2021. It is no small task to cover more than 60 years of cinema history, especially when it is trying to surveyed with such breadth and diversity: TV star, international star, controversial icon, contested director, filmmaker with a capital F, Eastwood has been through it all, experienced it all, and it is first of all this romantic trajectory, this true American pastoral that the documentary wants to tell with all the passion it possibly can.
Clint Eastwood: The Last Legend

Rich with archival gems and Liza Minnelli’s own point of view, Bruce David Klein's luminous documentary celebrates a young entertainer full of boundless raw talent and the deep, creative relationships with her mentors and influences.
Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story

In Argentina, one daughter of patriarch Madariaga is married to a Frenchman while the other is married to a German thus leading to a crisis when Nazi Germany occupies France and some Madariaga family members fight on opposite sides.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The wealthiest man in a Texas town decides to teach his teenage son how to hunt to make a man out of him.