Classic films: entertainment for your ears

Sometimes I like to listen to my favorite movies. No, I don't have a DVD player in my car. I'm talking about audio CDs.

Turner Classic Movies and Rhino Movie Music could have had me in mind when they joined forces to come up with the six-disc "That's Entertainment!" collection.

Retailing at $89.98, it ain't cheap. But it also has 133 songs!

Hey, get your siblings to go in with you and get it for Mother's Day. (It comes out next Tuesday.)

If you're a fan of the "That's Entertainment!" movies, the clip-filled trilogy that chronicles highlights from dozens of classic MGM musicals, this is quite the set.

The first disc kicks things off with no less than four versions of "Singin' in the Rain" from four films made between 1929 and 1952.

There's the most familiar one, of course, with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor (and on Disc 2, Kelly's curbside-splashing solo). But the others are fun too: Cliff Edwards (who would later provide the voice for Jiminy Cricket in Disney's "Pinocchio"), the singular Jimmy Durante and a young Judy Garland.

Durante is also on Disc 3 doing his signature song "Inka Dinka Doo."

Garland, of course, is all over the place in this set — singing her famous love song to Clark Gable, "Dear Mr. Gable/You Made Me Love You"; "The Trolley Song," "For Me and My Gal" (with Gene Kelly), "A Couple of Swells" (with Fred Astaire), "Easter Parade," etc.

Speaking of Kelly and Astaire, they also get in their share of tuneful moments. Kelly does "Heather on the Hill," "I Like Myself," "Love Is Here to Stay," etc. Astaire sings "Steppin' Out With My Baby," "By Myself," "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and, of course, "I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man." And together they sing "That's Entertainment!" (just one of several renditions of that song collected here).

Helen Kane's boop-boop-a-doop "I Wanna Be Loved By You" is fun.

The fabulous Lena Horne is heard on "Just One of Those Things," "Honeysuckle Rose" and "The Lady Is a Tramp."

Before he was the chairman of the board, Frank Sinatra did a fine version of "Ol' Man River." William Warfield's great version from the 1951 "Show Boat" film is also here.

For novelty, there's Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter's "Aba Daba Honeymoon," Astaire's "Stereophonic Sound" and "Triplets" (with Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan) and Donald O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh."