Il était une fois Hollywood

The film was a revelation at the time of its release. The majority of the pre-1936 MGM film library had rarely been released to television, so clips from films such as Le metteur en scène (1930) and Hollywood chante et danse (1929) were shown for the first time since their original theatrical releases. For years, films such as Le chant du Missouri (1944) and Un Américain à Paris (1951) had only been shown via worn, badly spliced prints late at night on independent TV stations. For this film, the vintage footage was meticulously restored and remastered for 70mm projection, making it look better than they did upon their original releases.

At the beginning of the film, Frank Sinatra says Hollywood chante et danse (1929) is the "first all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing movie ever made". In fact, it wasn't; the first was The Broadway Melody (1929), which was released in February, nine months before "The Hollywood Revue" was released. Indeed, by the time of That's Entertainment! III (1994), narrator Gene Kelly was now calling The Hollywood Revue of 1929, "one of the first all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing movies."

Producer Jack Haley Jr.'s credit appears over a still image of his father, Jack Haley, as the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.

Some TV prints extend Bing Crosby's segment by adding the musical number "True Love" from "High Society" (1956).

Edited into American Masters: Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer (2002)