"A Star is Born" (1937)

Before there was Garland, before there was Streisand, and yes, before there was Gaga, there was this first remake of a soapy Hollywood story that, defying all odds, works every time it's told. For the record, the original was titled "What Price Hollywood?". Other than the name change the basic plot in every version is stet: a young performer brimming with untapped talent meets and falls in love with an established star at the peek of his fame but who's on a downward trajectory involving substance abuse. He helps her make her mark and as her career skyrockets while his hits the skids. Tears and histrionics ensue. This version starring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March zips along and the economy of storytelling is refreshing if you're used the subsequent versions that were all musicalized with songs and productions numbers that pad out the action. And it's obvious why actors are drawn to these roles. The female gets to suffer nobly and stand by her man as he self destructs and the male lead has all that internalized self-imolation to pull off. Both stars here shine, March especially so. His tragic ending is particularly poignant without being hammy. This was also the first Technicolor movies to more artfully use the spectrum of shades available, more realistic shadows and tones than the garish look of color films up until that time.

"My Sister Eileen" (1942)

Rosalind Russell was in her wheelhouse with comedic roles. They gave her free reign to display her gifts with the quick comeback, the insulting zinger, or the subtle facial expression that said it all. This screwball comedy was no exception. Adapted from a hugely successful Broadway play, she's a newspaper reporter making a new start for herself in The Big Apple. Her beautiful aspiring actress younger sister, an effervescent Janet Blair, is in tow as well. With no money but high hopes, they find a cramped basement apartment in Greenwich Village complete with an annoying landlord (George "Mr. Kravitz" Tobias from TV's "Bewitched"), and a slew of other neighborhood characters and crazies. Their place becomes a revolving door of madcap confusion. Russell tries for a job at a literary magazine and falls for the handsome editor (Brian Aherne). Snappy and delightful. Oh, and look for a fun cameo in the final scene!

"All That Jazz" (1979)

This is a veritable salmagundi of all things Bob Fosse. The famed theatre and film director/choreographer was swinging for the bleachers here, pouring all of his signature style and themes into one big explosion of splashy and spiky entertainment. Just like the man himself there's a lot to love/hate. It's like his "81/2" but with musical numbers, a semi-autobiographical look at an artist grappling with his artistic output (or lack thereof) and his complicated relationship with the women in his life. Fosse's stand-in is Roy Schieder as 'Joe Gideon', a director of stage and screen stretching himself too thin between too many projects and using booze, pills, and sex with too many chorus girls to get him through it. It pushes him to a heart attack and the storytelling conceit of the picture is that it takes place entirely in that split second when he's on the operating table, balancing on the brink of death. His life is recounted in flashbacks during a conversation he's having with the beautiful Angel of Death, a sexy Jessica Lange. It sounds more complicated than it is. Joe is not a nice man but Schieder's performance makes you like him anyway and you can see why his ex-wife (Leland Palmer), his current girlfriend (Ann Reinking), and young daughter (Erzebet Foldi) forgive all his sins and shenanigans, they love him and don't want him to die. Death and dying is nice material for a musical, right? Well, it's the dance numbers that make this magnum opus truly great. From the opening showstopper, an open Broadway cattle call  for chorus dancers, essentially "A Chorus Line" done in five minutes, to the way-ahead-of-its-time "Air-rotica" number, a slithering orgiastic hot house of sweaty limbs and torsos, it's vintage Fosse. Isolated body parts, multiple dancers in shaped formations, fingers snaps, splayed hands, bowler hats, you name it, it's here in spades. Nobody used the medium of film better to display an ownable dance vernacular. And while Fosse's work could be cool and distant, there's one small number in the middle of the movie where Rienking and the daughter do a special living room duet just for Gideon, a precious number of love and razzmatazz that's the very essence of joy in dance. You get the feeling that very joy is what Fosse strove for throughout his career.