In The Golden Age Of The Musical-Miss Judy Garland And Mickey Rooney’s “Babes On Broadway” (1941)- A Film Review

In The Golden Age Of The Musical-Miss Judy Garland And Mickey Rooney’s “Babes On Broadway” (1941)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Zack James

Babes On Broadway, starring Miss Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, 1941

I don’t want to get into how I wound up doing this review since I am neither a fan of Broadway musicals nor much into older black and white movies but I do feel the need to mention that I mentioned to Greg Green, the current site manager, that somebody should do a review of a Miss Judy Garland film in light of what Allan Jackson has recently said about one of the reasons that he went to San Francisco among other places out West after he was disposed of in an internal fight at this publication in 2017. That reason Allan had wound up in that town was to borrow, if possible, since he still had pressing alimony and college tuition payments due some money from Madame La Rue or Miss Judy Garland two people he had helped in the pass to tide him over until better times.

That Miss Judy Garland part was not the real song and dance Judy Garland but a drag queen, a gay guy, Timmy Riley whom he had known in the old growing up days in the Acre section of North Adamsville where they grew up. Where I grew as well knowing these guys only through my oldest brother, Alex, who was friends with all of them in high school. Timmy too although he had only found out about Timmy being gay and being a drag queen (not necessarily the same thing at all) quite recently since Timmy had flown the old town in the late 1960s a few years after high school when he could no longer suppress his real desires once his parents disowned him and kicked him out of the family house (and went to their respective deaths cursing his unhallowed devil name with specific requests that he not be allowed to attend their funeral Masses or anything else when they passed). On that basic I made my suggestion to in a way honor Timmy and his early travails and to see why he gravitated, as other drag queens have, toward the character of Miss Garland on the runway. I didn’t volunteer for the job but here I am with it nevertheless.

The late 1930s, 1940s really were the golden age of the musical, the song and dance centered genre as witnessed here and as witnessed in the slew of films done by Fred Astaire with a few dance partners. One would be hard-pressed to think of such an array of talent doing song and dance stuff much pass the 1950s with Gene Kelly and his various partners. Now such doings come as a surprise after some smash hit on Broadway begs to be taken to the silver screen. Part of it is that Tin Pan Alley folded long ago as did the treasured art of serious songwriting for popular non-teen  consumption. Names like Cole Porter, the Gershwin Brothers, Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern, of course, Irving Berlin and the like (although this musical production songwriting cohort was anchored by Brother, Can You Spare A Dime writer Yip Harburg who would later take serious heat when the Red Scare scalp-hunters were in vogue looking under every bed for commies).        

This film moreover in the time-honored Hollywood tradition (emulated by others when Hollywood ruled the roost alone) was part of a trilogy dealing with this same subject matter-mainly star-struck kids trying to make it on the Great White Way and never having to return except in triumph to Hoboken, Peoria, Winnemucca, Richmond, Albany and all points east and west. Let’s face it the song and dance part is what 1941 audiences paid good money for not some has-been half-assed script which wouldn’t hold together on its own without the music. So Tommy, Mickey’s role is the ball of fire (literally if on name only) ready to bring Broadway to her knees if can only get a “hook,” something to hang his hat on for an idea. See even though he thought he was a ball of fire there were twelve million others as well and, well, the producers weren’t looking for untried young kids from nowhere.

Lightbulb idea. Perform a show on their own. For a cause, for charity (helping inner city kids get some fresh country air for a few weeks the hook). The thing got off the ground no problem especially when the romantic interest Penny, Miss Garland’s role, comes on board after deep-sixing the big freeze she had for old Tommy at first. Needless to say after the twelve necessary snafus that threatened to cancel the show were cleared the thing worked and all aboard went to real Broadway and the big lights. For today’s audience though the last segment, the last bright idea would not go down well, not at all. Tommy, Penny, and a whole lot of white breads don blackface to perform a minstrel show. WTF. 

WTF as well is why Timmy Riley who I barely remember but who was at our house many times decided that he would hitch his star as a drag queen to that of Miss Garland. She could sing and dance but there was something not there there that I could not quite put my finger on but was scratching my head over when I thought about it later. In any case as Allan Jackson told me Timmy is running the number one drag club in Frisco and turning away tourist business dying to see the show like crazy. And yes Timmy lent Allan the money to keep the wolves from his door just like Allan did when Timmy was on the ropes.

On The 100th Anniversary Of American Entry In World War I (1917)-The Golden Age Of The Musical-Judy Garland And Gene Kelly’s “For Me And My Gal” (1942)-A Film Review

On The 100^th Anniversary Of American Entry In World War I (1917)-The Golden Age Of The Musical-Judy Garland And Gene Kelly’s “For Me And My Gal” (1942)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Si Lannon

[Although a few regular readers has asked when this bracketed insert below the name of the writer will be curtailed we feel that given the dramatic internal shake up at American Left History with the ouster of the now gone missing Allan Jackson (who used the moniker Peter Paul Markin which Zack James explained in a recent film review of   Paris When It Sizzles see April 2018 archives) we should continue to do so as long as we are giving each writer full sway to discuss his or her take on the matter. So as mentioned previously as of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website (and through that on-line site linked to the American Folk Digest, Progressive American and Modern Book Library sites), brought in to shake things up a bit.

This shake-up, a major earthquake here given his longevity, after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Peter Markin was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, means the habit, Markin’s habit of assigning writers to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate which Markin instituted over the past few years as he brought in desperately needed younger blood as a “firewall” between him and anyone who might try to tip the increasingly bizarre balance of coverage to the narrow sphere of the turbulent 1960s. After a short-lived experiment designating everybody as “writer” suggested by a clot of older writers seemingly seeing the recent struggle as off-shoot, as an emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or more to the point given the political personal histories of some of the clot member, the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]

“For Me And My Gal,” starring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, George Murphy,  1942

[A number of reviews, commentaries and opinion pieces of late at this American Left History blog site have been prefaced like I am doing with the writer’s take on the recent shake-up at this site with the sudden ouster of the now missing Allan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin) at the direction of the newly installed Editorial Board and new day to day site administrator Greg Green. I don’t wish to belabor the points already made by both older and younger writers except as an old-time high school friend I am sure that Allan, as has been his nature since about fourth grade, as far as I know is off on a sulk and neither in forced exile in Siberia or its equivalent Utah (although if it had been rumored that it was Alabama  I would get out my old history book on the internal struggle in the Bolshevik party between “Uncle Joe” Stalin and torch-carrier Leon Trotsky). He will be back as always. See Allan lived in the shadow of the real Markin, who passed away many years ago and which we have written extensively about in this space, and never really felt he was as good as Markin which led to many problems back then. And now too I suppose.          

But enough of that since what I want to write about since I am reviewing this Judy Garland-Gene Kelly dominated musical is that Allan hated musicals or I should say musicals that were not from the 1960s. If you wanted to do a retro-review on Hair, Tommy, Jesus Christ, Superstar be his guest. Otherwise say you wanted to review Chicago forget it. Look at the archives, almost nothing earlier or later. The only way to get such a review through was as a re-post from say American Film Gazette and he had to honor our common commitment on publishing. My feeling, my gut feeling, since we are being candid here is that he did not like musicals because, well, because the real Markin hated them which I will go into a little when I actually get to the review. The only serious exception Allan would make was for Fred Astaire vehicles because of the dancing not because of the music even though that was created by the likes of Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin all of whom he loved as part of the American songbook. (By the way the real Markin loved them too so maybe I am on to something).               

Allan did let up a little of late but really only for Gene Kelly vehicles to demonstrate how much better a dancer Fred was against Gene. And truth to tell because he confided this to me while the internal struggle was going on since I supported his retention he relented a little to throw a bone to the younger writers. Enough for now.]

*****

When Allan, the real Markin ( I will just use Markin hereafter),  and I were just out of high school, maybe the summer after graduation we went down to Provincetown to see what was up with what we heard was a swarm of faggots, fairies, sissies, light on their feet guys, whatever, you know gays today. (Provincetown then and today as well Mecca for gays and lesbians mixing it up with the dwindling surplus of native Portuguese heritage fisherman.) Walking down the street we saw a poster-board or whatever they call them in front of Lazy Daisy’s which may still be their although the original owners must have long passed since they were old then announcing a talent night. Since it was getting dark we figured we would go inside and see what there was to see. Jesus, what we saw were “drag queens,” transvestites, cross-dressers, trans-genders although I know that was not a term of usage then. Whatever you called this scene and we settled on “drag queens” the talent in front was everything from Miss Patti Page, Miss Peggy Lee, and this is why I have started this review this way Miss Judy Garland. Christ half the acts were doing some song of hers starting from that old rubbish Somewhere Over The Rainbow from the Wizard Of Oz. Markin was in full grim after that one as much as I said he loved that part of the American songbook.  So Allan was in full grim too. I think, and the archives will bear me out, there is not one reference to Judy Garland in all the years this publication has been around. It might, at least I suspect that it might, have something to do with Markin’s own sexual ambivalence and thus Allan’s, but I will let the pyscho-scholars figure that one out.                

    

So it is actually for me a breath of fresh air to review a Judy Garland effort as here with For Me And My Gal although since it has a significant portion of the film extolling American entry into World War I with everything from war songs to war bonds to war-mongering which although I am not anywhere an American Firster like I was when I was a kid I retroactively have opposed as just another bum American government blunder. Since this year is the 100^th anniversary of American entry into that war it has a sense of poignancy which explains a lot of the naiveté about war that we one hundred years later have come to distrust with a vengeance.   

At bottom like half the film ever made, if not more, and many of the novels as well this is just another “boy meets girl” saga set to music and dance with the lead actors, Judy and Gene, bursting into song and/or dance every chance they get before realizing they were, ah, in love and chaise get ready to do something about the matter-get married.  Let me back up a little to give some background. This one is set in the days just before World War I when the main way to give the masses some entertainment out in the prairies, small towns and such were vaudeville shows. That’s is where “from hunger” Harry, Kelly’s role, is ready to do anything from stealing songs to ditching professional partners to get to the big white way, to get to Broadway and the real deal and Jo, dear sensibly warm-hearted Jo, played by Judy Garland meet and hate/love each other before the deal goes down.

The deal being that just before they are as a professional team  ready to hit the bright lights WWI gets in the way when Harry is drafted. Being a “main chance” guy he tries the old honored draft dodger special which guys have been doing since governments have been impressing soldiers for their needs-fakes and injury bad enough to get him out of the draft. That does not sit well with Jo whose younger brother had been killed in France early in the American intervention. She calls the whole thing off with this bum of the month and heads to Europe to entertain the troops with a YMCA troupe. Forget that bastard Harry and sing every possible WWI song that Tin Pan Alley could produce for the war effort from sentimental to super-patriotic. Remorseful Harry finally gets on that patriotic bandwagon and they meet again (don’t know where, don’t know when, oops that’s a Dame Vera Lynn WWII song) via the YMCA circuit. And love again.

Like I said boy meets girl out of uniform and in. Two points as hard as it to believe Judy out-dances Gene by a mile and you know now I see why all those “drag queens” were so crazy to do Judy Garland stuff. Sometimes you can learn like that something in this wicked old world.