Judy Garland Signature Collection (6-disc) (Import)

A Star Is Born - Special Edition (Dir. George Cukor, 1954): 'A Star Is Born' marked Judy Garland's return to movies after a four year absence, director George Cukor's first musical and first colour film, and a showcase for the great Harold Arlen/Ira Gershwin songs in state-of-the-art stereo. One of the most beloved show business stories of all time, it represents a career peak for many involved. Garland is singer Esther Blodgett, an undeniable talent on the rise. She catches the eye of Norman Maine (James Mason), an alcoholic actor in a career decline. Their intense love transforms them both. Only one will survive Hollywood's slings and arrows...

Shortened after its premiere, the movie underwent one rebirth in 1983 when film historian Ronald Haver found almost all the cut sequences and supervised a reconstruction to near its original length. Its rebirth on DVD is includes a breathtaking digital surround stereo track and incorporates picture and musical material found in Warner Bros' vaults.

For Me & My Gal (Dir. Busby Berkeley, 1942): Gene Kelly makes his film debut in this WWI musical playing a man who deliberately injures his hand to avoid being drafted into the army. He starts a vaudeville act with a young woman and they become determined to play The Palace.

Harvey Girls (Dir. George Sidney, 1946): Vittles, songs and dance are amply ladeled out when Judy Garland headlines The Harvey Girls, a joyous musical slice of Americana celebrating the restaurants that brought extra helpings of civilization to Old West rail passengers. Highlights include Garland holding saloon patrons at jittery gunpoint to retrieve stolen beefsteaks, Ray Bolger's loose-limbed comic hoofing. Virginia O'Brien's sure-shot comic timing, Angela Landsbury stylish wickedness as a saloon singer and the On the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe romp (nabbing it the 1946 Best Song Academy Award) that's "deservedly famous, one of the most triumphant sequences in screen-musical history" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker). All Board!

In The Good Old Summertime (Dir. Robert Z. Leonard, 1949): Starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson, this musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner, set in a Chicago music store, finds a sales girl (Garland) corresponding through a dating service with a man (Johnson) who turns out to be the manager she detests.

Love Finds Andy Hardy (Dir. George B. Seitz, 1938): Love Finds Andy Hardy is the fourth film in the series and finds Andy (Mickey Rooney) frantically trying to juggle two girlfriends (Ann Rutherford and Lana Turner) at the same time. It's the new kid next-door (Judy Garland in the first of three fondly remembered Andy Hardy appearances) who helps Andy out of his jam and sings such delightful songs as "In Between," "It Never Rains But What It Pours" and "Meet the Beat of My Heart."

Ziegfeld Girl (Dir. Robert Z. Leonard, 1941): Greatest Musical Extravaganza of All Time!

An elevator operator, a wife of a struggling concert violinist, a born-in-the-trunk vaudevillian: they're three different women on three different paths of life, yet they soon share one dream: to become a Ziegfeld Girl.

Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr and Judy Garland play the respective three trying for stardom in this sumptuous extravaganza. James Stewart adds to the star wattage, playing the jilted truck-driving beau of Turner's footlight diva. And legendary innovator Busby Berkeley brings his imaginative camerawork and pacing to numbers that include Garland's massively scaled and calypso-infused Minnie from Trinidad, plus a lavish, showgirl-revue finale that reprises the rhapsodic You Stepped Out of a Dream. Sweet dreams, movie fans.