Michael Jackson: The Legend Continues
Michael Jackson: The Legend Continues is a documentary film about Michael Jackson directed by Patrick T. Kelly and produced by Motown and narrated by actor James Earl Jones.
It was the first official documentary on Jackson produced after the worldwide successes of his solo albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad and contained, in addition to many previously unpublished images, for the first time exclusive images from his first solo tour, the Bad World Tour, which started in Japan in 1987.
Content
The documentary focuses on Jackson's life and career from childhood, chronicling his early years in the music business with his family group of him and his brothers, the Jackson 5, through to his successful career as a solo singer, which by then it already included three very successful albums for Epic Records.To reconstruct the artist's story, some family members are interviewed, such as his brother Marlon, who for the first time tells the background of how the Jackson 5 were actually discovered by an artist called Bobby Taylor, the record producer Quincy Jones who talks about his first meeting with Jackson on the set of the musical film The Wiz in 1978 and the collaborations on his first solo albums. Many other artists then simply bear witness to their friendship or tell background stories about Jackson's life and career, among these appear the historic actresses Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn and Sophia Loren, the actor and historic dancer Gene Kelly who praises Jackson for his dance skills, the singer Sammy Davis Jr. instead in one passage utters a phrase that has become historic among Jackson fans:
Many artists then recount the emotions they felt when they saw Jackson perform the moonwalk for the first time in the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever.
In a reconstruction it is then told of three fans who won a competition for MTV and who were able to meet Jackson on his return from a concert in Australia and visit the Jackson family ranch Hayvenhurst in Encino.
The documentary also contains many rare images, many unpublished at the time, and clips of videos and performances of Jackson alone and with his brothers and sisters.