The Eddie Duchin Story (1956)

Stephen King gave an interview once where he was foolishly challenged with a question about literary history. I don’t know why, but journalists always think they can show up popular authors by exposing them on literature knowledge — this one oddly asked the former English teacher if he had ever “read the classics.” It was like some poor sap trying to heckle Don Rickles. King, like nearly every other best-seller out there, not only knows his business but is usually slicker than the person asking the questions. I’ve always loved his glib response, which went something like: “I don’t know anything about William Faulkner, but I’ve read everything Dean Koontz ever wrote.”

I recently had a similar moment chatting on a Facebook message board when someone accused me of not knowing anything about “film” because I’m not a David Lynch fan. For example: “If you knew anything about surrealism you might begin to understand and appreciate Lynch’s films.” Instead of taking the easy way out, as Stephen King could have done, and sharing that in real life I’m in the chair of a university department of art and art history, I took a page out of King’s book and shot back, “I may not know anything about surrealism, but I’ve seen every picture Tyrone Power ever made.”

That was almost true — I had somehow missed this one; which you can file neatly in the forgotten gems category. Like most other musical biopics, Columbia’s 1956 film The Eddie Duchin Story relates the life events of yet another mid-century musical personality. Aside from a relatively early Kim Novak performance there’s little about the film that would really pull in contemporary audiences, which is a shame. After all, Duchin’s name is all but forgotten these days — as he wasn’t a composer or lyricist none of his tunes became standards, and his untimely death in 1951 didn’t contribute to his longevity. The Eddie Duchin Story isn’t an MGM picture either — coming instead from Harry Cohn and major-minor Columbia, not a studio well known for musicals that didn’t feature Rita Hayworth. Still though, stars and studios aside Duchin’s story is great film fodder; and the resulting movie is a fine romance and a tear-jerker of the first order.

Tyrone Power and Kim Novak are a strange match — a generation apart, Power exists in the mind as a primarily a black and white film actor while Novak is pure Technicolor. He on the tail end of a robust career and she at the beginning of one too short. Opinions differ concerning Novak’s strengths and weaknesses, but who doesn’t wish she made more films? This one cleverly handles the delicate issue of the billing: Power above Novak, same size type on the printed materials; but Novak first in the film’s titles, with Power getting a special “Starring Tyrone Power as Eddie Duchin” screen to himself just after director George Sidney’s. Although Power was nearly twenty years Novak’s senior, her character was actually supposed to be a little older than his. The film tries to split the difference, clumsily hiding Power’s age in the early scenes, and making Kim look a bit dowdier than necessary.

Power was 41 when this was made, so it seems a bit strange that he would be cast in the first place, however all concerns evaporate when he sits down at the piano. Duchin’s trademark as a pianist was the speed and complexity of his fingering, and Power is certainly up to the challenge. Sidney and cameraman Harry Stradling (he of 14 Oscar nominations, Eddy Duchin included — and 2 wins) go out of their way to ensure the viewer knows that the hands on the keyboard belong to the star — and if Power is somehow faking Duchin’s virtuosity then he deserved an award for it. All of the musical scenes are well done, and any inclination viewers might want to hit the fast-forward button during the musical bits (Can anyone say Funny Lady?) is lost here. The film is beautifully photographed and makes New York City look stunning. A pseudo-montage that takes place when Power and Novak are courting is particularly beautiful, and takes full advantage of Novak’s spectacular rapport with the camera.

Surprisingly, Novak’s part is short given her billing; and there’s a great deal more to the story than has been mentioned here. As I wrote earlier this is both a romantic film and a tear-jerker, with the emotional scenes coming on heavy as the film approaches the two hour mark. There’s one moment in particular — a small one — where a uniformed Power happens upon a burnt up piano in a wrecked bar on Mindanao. It’s a brief but important scene, and certain to bring a smile to your face — for me it made the picture. In the end, this is a movie about more than just those loved and lost. It’s concerned greatly with familial relationships and the ties that bind fathers to their sons. It looks good, it sounds good, and it entertains. What’s not to like?

The Eddie Duchin Story (1956)

Grade: B

Directed by George Sidney
Released by Columbia Pictures
Starring Tyrone Power, Kim Novak, and James Whitmore
Running time: 121 minutes
Availability: DVD, Netflix

Hit Parade of 1941 (1940)

I’ve seen countless Hollywood musicals, and any more it’s rare that I discover a film that I enjoy, or have even the slightest desire to write about. Such is the case, however, with the elusive Hit Parade of 1941. There have been numerous films to appear under the Hit Parade banner, and they have little in common with each other. The most well-known is the 1943 entry starring Susan Hayward — it’s available via Netflix streaming and is well worth a look — and just like the Hit Parade of 1941 it’s a double Academy Award nominee, in both the Song and Score categories.

Of course all of these films — just like the Broadway Melody series — are little more than cinematic fluff, but that rather goes without saying. Hit Parade of 1941 is nevertheless a charming and entertaining film that, excuse the horrible pun, hits all the right notes. It features radio star Kenny Baker, who I first encountered in the odd 1937 film Mr. Dodd Takes the Air. If you know Baker at all, it’s likely from his supporting role in the Garland’s The Harvey Girls. He had boyish good looks and a beautifully clear voice. The studios tended to use him in unsophisticated, innocent, aw-shucks parts, and Hit Parade is no different.

Baker plays David Farraday, who helps his zany uncle (Hugh Herbert) run a Connecticut trading post (or is it a swap shop? or maybe a flea market?) that advertises on WPX, a Brooklyn radio station. The station is floundering, so when the elder Farraday threatens to pull his sponsorship the station manager makes the trip to the suburbs hoping to convince him to hang on a little while longer. Yet somehow, Farraday pulls an impressive swap of his own, and trades the swap meet for the radio station! Both Farraday men easily transition to life as radio station owners, and quickly set their sights on the newly expanding world of television. (A 1940 film that embraces television? How Hollywood’s attitudes would change in the coming decade!) Longtime advertiser Mrs. Potter (character actress par excellence Mary Boland) is happy to sign on in support of WPX’s new television hour, but only if it features her niece Annabelle (Ann Miller). The problem is that, in spite of thousands of dollars in singing lessons, Annabelle can’t carry a tune. David has an idea: he asks singer and wannabe girlfriend Pat (Frances Langford) to dub Annabelle from a nearby sound booth. It works for a while, with predictable movie musical results. But fortunately for us all, Annabelle doesn’t want to sing anyway — we know what she wants to do…

Hit Parade of 1941 has what you are looking for: the comedy bits are actually funny, and the musical numbers are memorable. Baker and Langford make a good couple: solid chemistry and superb voices. Langford wasn’t exactly a minor star, but given her looks and talent it is somewhat surprising she wasn’t bigger. Although she only made two dozen or so films, mostly light musicals similar to this one, the “Sweetheart of the Fighting Fronts” was a staple of Bob Hope’s USO tours, an on the radio. In addition to Baker and Langford, Hit Parade gives us two more couples: Patsy Kelly and Phil Silvers, and Mary Boland pairs with Hugh Herbert. Top to bottom, it all works. One of the most entertaining musical acts in the film is, oddly enough, “Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals.” I know, I know, but trust me. If you can’t manage to locate this film, you can catch them in two pictures that are a little easier to find: 1942’s Always in My Heart with Kay Francis and Walter Huston, or in the 1936 Sonja Henie movie, One in a Million. These guys are worth it, fulfilling the same role as the Nicholas Brothers in numerous Fox pictures; they don’t contribute much to the story, but they punctuate it with something rather special.

The stars themselves do quite well too, but one musical sequence is truly spectacular. It finds Langford behind the microphone at a Manhattan nightclub, belting out “Swing Low, Sweet Rhythm,” while Ann Miller takes to the dance floor in an skimpy black get-up cadged from the cigarette girl. It’s a show-stopping treat of a number, offering the chance to see two beautiful young women doing what they do best. Langford is in great form, a full swing orchestra behind her — while Miller spins, sparkles, and taps her way across the floor — knowing no one in the world save Eleanor Powell could match her. It’s one of those moments that remind us why we like these films; it brims over with that special magic of the best forties musicals. You’ll stop what you are doing and pay close attention, hoping it will go on forever. But everything about these films, just like the months and years of that all-important decade — and the flickering images themselves — is fleeting. 

Hit Parade of 1941 (1940)
Directed by John Auer
Starring Kenny Baker, Frances Langford, Ann Miller, Patsy Kelly, and Phil Silvers.
Released by Republic Pictures
Running time 88 minutes.
Availability: Rare
Grade: A-

Billy Rose’s Jumbo (1962)

It isn’t often that an MGM musical misses, but in the case of Billy Rose’s Jumbo the arrow flies well wide of the mark. Based on the 1935 play of the same name, it is said that the old Broadway showman, in a fit of ego, insisted that the filmed version — produced some twenty-five years later — use the complete title. It’s clear that as nostalgic as the final product actually is, MGM must have conceded grudgingly — it’s a terrible title.

The 1962 film employs that peculiar sixties casting strategy of pairing two younger stars with two older stars in order to appease multiple generations of movie-goers. Forties icons Jimmy Durante and Martha Raye appear as the proprietors of the Wonder Circus, a small outfit constantly on the verge of falling apart. Durante’s Pop Wonder is always finding ways to make do as the better acts flee for circus jobs that — ahem — actually pay a salary. Doris Day plays Pop’s daughter Kitty. She’s a clever girl who knows the angles, and is always scrambling to keep the circus wheels turning, especially on those occasions that Pop loses the night’s take at the craps table. Day’s part was originally intended for Debbie Reynolds, and certainly Jumbo would be a different film with her in the lead. Day in Calamity Jane aside, the more athletic Reynolds always did better in those “regular folks” sorts of parts (The Unsinkable Molly Brown, The Mating Game) than Day, who almost seems like she’s slogging her way through this picture in an attempt to avoid getting dirty. Regardless, Doris isn’t the film’s problem. That honor belongs to Stephen Boyd, of Ben-Hur and The Oscar fame. Why Boyd was cast as love interest Sam Noble is a mystery; the sixties answer to Dana Andrews is far too intense and not nearly talented enough musically to make a go of it. He and Day are jigsaw pieces from different puzzles — they’re just not compatible. Why put America’s sweetheart next to an actor who’s entire screen persona can be summed up in one word: brooding?

Jumbo, in any case, refers to the star attraction of the Wonder Circus, a versatile elephant at the center of many of the film’s production numbers. The Rodgers and Hart songs are good enough, but something here just doesn’t feel right: by 1962 the notion of characters slipping from conversation into song doesn’t come across the same way it did in the previous decade, even if we are in the realm of period subject matter. (For further proof of this, check out the Disney film The Happiest Millionaire — and it comes in at nearly three hours). Fred Astaire could do it and it was charming, but in the wake of West Side Story the musical had changed, and these abrupt segues to melody became rather difficult to swallow. At any rate, the story revolves around the hostile takeover of the Wonder Circus, and Jumbo in particular, by John Noble (Dean Jagger), who has been secretly purchasing all of Pop’s debt from a veritable army of creditors. And guess what? Noble is also Sam’s father, which leads to a pedestrian sequence of romantic complications between Boyd and Day, that resolve predictably by film’s end. You can practically predict the dialogue. 

Watch this if you are a die-hard fan or Doris Day or the music of Rodgers and Hart, or even nostalgic for Durante and Ray. With a running time in excess of two hours, those looking to pass the time should try elsewhere. 

Billy Rose’s Jumbo

Directed by Charles Waters

Starring Doris Day, Stephen Boyd, Jimmy Durante, and Martha Raye

Released by MGM

Running time: 127 minutes

Grade C-

King of Jazz (1930)

Make way for Universal and little Carl’s 1930 musical revue, King of Jazz. The title refers to the jovial bandleader Paul Whiteman, though the film offers nothing in the way of the biography you might expect. Instead, it’s essentially just a filmed vaudeville show — though arguably (with an gigantic two million dollar budget) the best one you’ve ever seen. The show actually opens with a cartoon — by Walter Lantz of Woody Woodpecker fame no less, and the first such animation to be filmed in Technicolor. King of Jazz is historically significant for that reason alone, but it also features a surprisingly good sequence of numbers featuring the stars of the day, including a youthful Bing Crosby and the “Rhythm Boys.” The young crooner struts his stuff in four or five separate numbers, with the bouncy Happy Feet the best of the bunch. Personally, my favorite number is a clichéd dance where Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls spring to life and put on an acrobatic ballet, featuring a female dancer who is almost more contortionist than anything else. Nonetheless, there’s something for everyone here — even today’s young people: an elastic tap dancer who does the earliest moonwalk I’ve ever seen, and a row of chorus girls who put on a step show that might merit a double take from the students at Howard.

Whiteman, who for decades was a star of the first order, doesn’t overexert himself. He pops in and out, most often for the sake of comic relief, though he gets the most out of the movie’s second biggest number: an homage to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, resplendent in the film’s finest production values (and that’s saying something). King of Jazz is a visual delight, with a dog and pony show of cutting edge art direction and set design. It’s interesting that such a film would come from Carl Laemmle and Universal rather than MGM, but the “major minor” was flush from their success with Best Picture Winner All Quiet on the Western Front and Laemmle never seemed to tire of attempting make-or-break forays into A level production. There are colossal Berkeley-esque set pieces and props, along with numerous chorus lines, lavish costumes, and offbeat camera angles — you’ll even find ample use of stop-motion animation. Designer Herman Rosse won the third annual Academy Award for Art Direction for his astonishing work on the film.

The meat of the thing is really split between the Gershwin number and the finale, which is another homage of sorts, this time to all of the immigrant musical styles that have come together to for the “American Musical Melting Pot” that everyone knows as “Jazz.” Unfortunately, the contribution of black Americans is sadly left out of the stew for the sake of safer fare such as Irish, Spanish, and Russian influences. This omission is King of Jazz’s biggest disappointment. In a film that happily avoids the racial stereotyping so often found in similar movies from the time — no minstrel numbers or blackface — it’s unfortunate that the film’s only African influence is a lone rhythmic dance number that open the Gershwin sequence. Nonetheless, what’s left over is entertaining, funny, occasionally risqué, and in glorious 1930 Technicolor.

King of Jazz (1930)

Directed by John Murray Anderson

Starring Paul Whiteman, Bing Crosby, and other performers

Released by Universal Pictures

Running time: 98 minutes

Golden Girl (1951) and Les Girls (1957)

Mitzi Gaynor is a recent re-discovery for me, having never been a fan of South Pacific, which I saw once eons ago and promptly moved on from. I just watched a much younger Mitzi in 1951’s Golden Girl, and found something in her first featured performance quite endearing. The forgotten film casts Mitzi as Gold Rush honey Lotta Crabtree, making her name as a performer in the mining camps throughout California during the Civil War period. There’s not much to speak for Golden Girl beyond Gaynor — the songs aren’t memorable and the romance with a dashing southern spy / officer (TV Western star Dale Robertson) who robs Union payrolls feels dated and a little uncomfortable. The climax finds Gaynor bleating a tearful rendition of Dixie in a high-falootin’ San Francisco auditorium just as news of the surrender at Appomattox has made its way west. Golden Girl has never been released on DVD (or VHS?), and the print showing on Turner Classic Movies is so poor as to not bode well for its future. On a side note, the poster for Golden Girl is simply one of the most awful I’ve ever seen.

And then there’s Les Girls. If it were not for Mitzi, whose part is too small for my tastes, I would have liked it a great deal less. If you are a fan of MGM musicals however, Les Girls is available everywhere and is a film that you simply have to see, even if I say that in a somewhat weary, obligatory tone of voice (being a completist has its downside). The production values are as sumptuous and as artistic as anything else Metro did during the period — particularly in Mitzi’s big number towards the end of the film. (The film was an Oscar winner for its costumes.) The narrative gets a little tedious though: the story is centers around a London courtroom libel suit that finds two of Gene Kelly’s former troupers — Les Girls — at each others throats over a tell-all book one has just written. The same set of events are related three times, each time through the eyes of a different character, and before long we see way in which all the strings are going to tie neatly together.

In addition to Gaynor and Gene Kelly, the film casts lanky Brit Kay Kendall as the author of the tell-all, and sexy Finn Taina Elg as the libeled lady. Elg was certainly a stunner, but she never really caught on with American audiences, while Kendall had all the talent in the world yet never had a fighting chance to use it — she would succumb to leukemia two short years later, in 1959. While each of the girls brings something worthwhile to the film, they never quite gel on screen together in the way they do with their male costars, and the movie suffers a little for it.

The biggest drawback for me is that this is yet another late-cycle musical that fails to properly integrate the musical numbers into the story. As so often became the case as the fifties grew tired, the musical interludes show up like television commercial breaks — here in the form of the Les Girls nightclub acts, each one a little more artsy-fartsy and self indulgent than the last. (And don’t get me wrong either, I think An American in Paris is great stuff!) This is not a bad film by any means, but it is rather soul-less and clearly shows that the musical was running on fumes in 1957, and desperately needed the shot in the arm that West Side Story was stirring up on Broadway at the time, and would in a few years give the motion picture musical.

At almost 80, Mitzi is still out there somewhere, though her motion picture career was too damn short: eighteen credits, and no big screen work after 1963. She did a number of TV specials in the seventies, but they are nowhere to be found. It’s too bad, Gaynor had a look, style, and screen presence that doesn’t translate to photography — you’ve gotta see her in films.

Golden Girl (1951)

Directed by Lloyd Bacon

Starring Mitzi Gaynor, Dale Robertson, and Una Merkel

Released by Twentieth Century Fox

Running time: 108 minutes.

Availability: Has aired on TCM

Les Girls (1957)

Directed by George Cukor

Starring Mitzi Gaynor, Gene Kelly, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg

Released by MGM

Running time: 114 minutes.

Availability: Widely on DVD, airs on TCM

The Big Pond (1930)

“You even turned our song into a gum advertisement.”

The Big Pond is one of those super-rare early talkies from Paramount. I finally broke down and paid for a copy (along with a few other rare films I'll be posting about in the coming weeks). This has good sound but a washed out picture that looked as if it originated as an 8mm transfer to a thirty-year-old VHS. Nevertheless, it was happily watchable — and what a great poster!

Frenchman Maurice Chevalier plays Pierre, a tour guide in Venice who falls head over heels for chewing gum heiress Barbara Billings (Claudette Colbert). Her father is naturally against the pairing, so he schemes to bring the young man back to the states and puts him to work in the chewing gum factory, thinking the dapper continental will fold like taffy under the strain of real work. Pierre thrives instead, and in due time manages to become the son Mr. Billings never had. However, as he rises in the gum business, he craps out with the girl. He wants to succeed in business, while she craves the romance they shared in Italy. All’s well that ends well though, and even in 1930 Hollywood knew how to neatly package a romantic comedy.

For those of you (like me) who can only take Maurice Chevalier in small, infrequent doses, this is a pleasant surprise. There are a few modest musical numbers, fairly catchy, and the whole thing is so innocuous it’s hard to dislike. One interesting notion is that by 1930 when this was made the U.S. was in the throes of the depression, yet The Big Pond lacks much of the ostentatious, audience-pleasing glamour that would characterize the rags to riches comedies of the mid-thirties. Sure, Colbert is bejeweled in every scene, but the sets haven’t yet taken on the glimmering art deco trappings that would soon take over studio productions, and the script clearly focuses clearly on the value of hard work rather than the zany eccentricities of the wealthy. The Big Pond even takes its shots at the Volstead Act: Pierre finally scores with Mr. Billings when he develops a new line of liquor-flavored chewing gums: scotch, rye, bourbon … and champagne.

In only her fifth film, Claudette Colbert’s mature screen persona is solidly in place, and that unmistakable voice cut through the haziness of my poor copy like something soothingly familiar. Her role is smaller than I’d like, but the performance is exactly as you’d expect: competent, charming, and professional. Her on-screen father, played by first-timer George Barbier, manages to steal the show. Barbier is a delight as the chewing gum king, with a deft comic tough — his chemistry is as good with Chevalier as it is with Colbert. This was Barbier’s first film, though from 1931 to 1936 he would make a rather astonishing fifty more!

What a day it will be when Universal, which owns the rights to The Big Pond, and as many as 700 other Paramount products from the same era, decides to cut loose and either release these for television consumption, or push them out as DVDs on demand in the same fashion as the Warner Archive. We’re waiting.

The Big Pond (1930)

Directed by Hobart Henley

Starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert

Released by Paramount Pictures

Running time: 72 minutes.

Availability: Almost impossible.

Pal Joey (1957)

Damn you, Kim Novak, why can't I make up my mind about you? If ever there was a woman — an astonishingly beautiful woman at that — who photographed better than she filmed it was Kim Novak. There are photographs of Kim that stagger the mind, that grab you and force you to admit that this was one of the world's great faces. Those eyes framed with the too-thick painted on brows, lips always parted, and the platinum hair swept back from her face — If Monroe's approachable sexuality begged the photographer to step back and take her all in, Novak's did just the opposite, asking us to look closer, to zoom in, to try to unravel the mystery. It was a quality almost entirely lost in motion pictures — only Hitchcock truly understood how to use her.

Her first name was (I mean, is … Kim is still with us) Marilyn, but that couldn't be used for obvious reasons, so Columbia boss Harry Cohn landed on Kim. The studio brought her along slowly with the idea that eventually she'd replace Rita Hayworth as Columbia's resident "Queen of the Lot." Pal Joey, which is one of those movies that has backstories related to everything from the source material to each of the stars was meant to be the moment where Rita more or less passes the torch to the younger star. And while that seems to take place, the movie rests firmly on the narrow shoulders of Frank Sinatra.

I don't like Kim here. Pal Joey was her second film with Frank Sinatra after their success three years earlier in The Man with the Golden Arm. The role is simply too straight, and calls for an actress with more a more deft comedic touch than Novak had at that time, or ever. It's easy to criticize Hayworth as an actress, but, had she been younger she would have hit a home run in Novak's role. Kim is simply too much woman for the diminutive Sinatra, too sultry for her good-girl character, and she looks uncomfortable in almost every scene. Her very next film would be her most famous, and it's easy to understand what doesn't work about her and Frank together in Pal Joey by looking at what does work between her and James Stewart in Vertigo. The Hitchcockian restraint, the mystery, the elegance, and even the leading man suit her better.

Sinatra lovers rejoice, he's at the top of his game. (I know, you've seen this many times already.) And I don't mean as an actor, or as somebody hitting his marks and speaking the lines — it always seems to me that Sinatra mailed it in in that regard. I'm thinking of the musical numbers, especially the ones in which he appears on the nightclub stage. The guy really comes to life under the hot lights. He works the audience and looks like a man who knows what he's doing and loves it. Of all Sinatra's pictures I think this one gives the best impression of how he must have appeared on stage in one of his Vegas shows — albeit in a much smaller way. Watch Pal Joey and think swagger, without the bullshit rat packers hanging on his pant legs.

There's a melancholy feeling that one gets watching Rita Hayworth in this film. Although out of respect Sinatra conceded top billing to her, she has the smallest and least affable part of the three leads. She's the older woman — a gold digger who scored to boot — who plays sugar daddy to Sinatra's dream of owning his own club and consequently keeps him away from Novak, the girl he really belongs with. Rita loses out in the end, but she does it with class. There's one great moment early on when we are reminded of her signature number in Gilda, but it's fleeting. Instead we are left with the impression that this is an actress getting put out to pasture, and there's something in the pursing of her lips that lets us know she doesn't quite like it. She's as beautiful and talented as ever, but Hollywood was even more fickle in those days than it is now and the parts just weren't made with her in mind anymore. Like Kim, Rita's next film was a heavyweight, though admittedly Separate Tables is an ensemble film, and Rita would never again appear in a production of this magnitude.

Pal Joey doesn't add up to the sum of its parts, but it's an enjoyable musical and something of a minor essential.

Pal Joey (1957)

Grade B

Directed by George Sidney

Starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak

Released by Columbia Pictures

Running time: 111 minutes

Availabilty: Widely on DVD.

For Me and My Gal (1942)

Having spent a great deal of time in recent weeks watching and rewatching musicals made during the Second World War, I’ve come to the conclusion that For Me and My Gal might be the best of the bunch. Produced by Arthur Freed and ably directed by none other than Busby Berkeley, For Me and My Gal is probably most well-known for being the screen debut of Gene Kelly. Yet Kelly’s debut aside this is still a fine wartime musical, of which charming may be the most appropriate one-word description.

The film represents the first of three pairings [The Pirate (1948) and Summer Stock (1950) being the other two], of young stars Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Kelly left Broadway at the behest of David O. Selznick to come west as a replacement for the previously cast Dan Dailey, and he never looked back. The film is also evidence that Kelly didn't have much of a learning curve either — he looks almost as polished here as he does in any of his legendary fifties roles. Yet at age twenty Judy Garland was a screen veteran. But For Me and My Gal wasn’t just another film for her, it represented her first truly grown up role, and a testing of the waters away from her usual male lead, Mickey Rooney.

I’ve never considered myself much of a Judy Garland fan, but I have always clearly recognized the it that made her one of the screen’s great stars. And although I have always adored Deanna Durbin, Judy’s talent is such that you can’t hold Louis B. Mayer’s famous decision against him. Still, I usually struggle to hit the play button on a Garland film, but once it gets going I’m

always somehow inexorably pulled in. There’s just something charismatic about Judy — some vulnerability — that draws you into her performances, and unlike other stars she accomplishes this magic without being overtly sexual. It’s almost as if Judy comes across as a little sister whose happiness you desperately want to ensure. She has fine romantic chemistry with Kelly, and the young couple’s numbers together are tops. I’ve seen so many films that I hold every performer’s individual role against the arc of his career, so when Garland and Kelly sing and dance the title number of For Me and My Gal in a deserted coffee shop, the effect is marvelous. On its own merits it’s a great number, but attaching the weight of the careers and the great routines that this one portends leaves one with chills.

Unlike other rah-rah musicals of the War era, this one is something of a period piece: it’s set in the Great War. Gene and Judy are vaudevilleians who meet, fall in love, and set their hearts on playing the Palace on Broadway — the dream destination for those slogging and hoofing on the circuit. The dramatic tension comes after the US enters the war, and circumstances contrive for Judy to believe Gene a coward. They try to go their separate ways but are thrown together once again, this time overseas doing the USO thing (YMCA during WWI). Of course Gene’s no coward, but Judy has to learn it the hard way. The film is light on propaganda, which makes it moving moments all the more effective — and there are a few of them. By the fade out I was ready to load up on war bonds.

For Me and My Gal (1942)

Grade: B+

Directed by Busby Berkeley

Starring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and the sadly forgotten George Murphy.

Released by MGM

Running Time: 104 minutes

Availability: DVD, Netflix