Babes in Arms

The children of struggling vaudeville stars decide to put on a musical show to save their homes. Yes, it's a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland "let's put on a show" musical. Their first such movie, I think, and probably their most famous. Mickey & Judy are great. Mickey does Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable impressions that are a hoot. He also has a fight scene in a drug store which is amusing. The supporting cast is made up of fine character actors like Guy Kibbee, Charles Winninger, and Henry Hull. Adorable June Preisser steals every scene she's in. Margaret Hamilton plays the villain, a busybody who tries to get the kids taken away from their parents. Garland & Hamilton filmed this right after Wizard of Oz, by the way. Interestingly, this was actually a bigger hit at the box office than Oz was in 1939.

Most of the songs are nice but none wowed me. Several classic Rodgers & Hart tunes from the Broadway musical this was based on are either omitted altogether or featured too briefly to make an impact. An ear-splitting operatic version of "You're My Lucky Star" by Betty Jaynes is probably the worst song in the movie. Judy's "I Cried for You" is best. Salute to minstrel shows with cast members in blackface will upset some so prepare yourself if you're one of them. Directed by Busby Berkeley, as evidenced by his distinct touches on the "God's Country" closing number. Speaking of which, that number has Mickey & Judy satirizing FDR & Eleanor. After FDR's death this part was cut out of future showings and it remained that way until the '90s. It's a lively number and the added historical value is a plus. Good old-fashioned fun. Charming, innocent, and yes, a little corny, but an enjoyable movie overall.

It's an early Freed Unit picture, and among other Freed staples it has the work of Roger Edens, snatches of "Singing in the Rain" and "Good Morning," plus a whisper of "Broadway Rhythm." But it's kind of cuckoo. The director is Busby Berkeley, who wanted everything BIG even when the movie was supposed to be SMALL. Thus BB encourages the Mickster to go into his full Eugene O'Neill mode and he out-shouts everyone in the movie, including the hurricane! That is, when he's not on the verge of tears. If a woman had so over-heated, you'd say it's her time of the month; I can only guess Mick's ego went nuclear and BB wasn't interested enough to rein him in. He may not have even noticed. The most absurd stroke is that Rooney clearly believed he was a great impressionist too, and BB let him do crude impersonations of Gable and Barrymore, among others, that seem pointless and self- congratulatory. Judy is early Judy: shy, more Dorothy Gale than the windstorm of talent she'd become in later Freed masterpieces like "Meet Me in St. Louis" and so forth. Some other oddities, or at least they seem odd now: a big number in which Mick and the "kids" march through the streets of a Long Island coastal town, carrying torches and proclaiming that they are the future has an odd Nazi vibe to it. Creepy. Then there's baritone Doug McPhail who was five years from suicide; he's the next Nelson Eddy except there was no next Nelson Eddy which may be why he poisoned himself. Johhny Sheffield, later to be "Boy" to Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan, is briefly glimpsed and such MGM regs as Guy Kibbee and Margaret Hamilston are around to ground the movie in solid professionalism. It's sure watchable, even today, but now you think: these people thought they were riding the wave and the wave was coming in to crush THEM.

For Mickey and Judy fans, Babes in Arms is an absolute must. It's the only one of their films in which one of the two got an Oscar nomination. Mickey Rooney was nominated for Best Actor, personally I think as an afterthought because his competition was Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind, Laurence Olivier for Wuthering Heights, James Stewart for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the winner Robert Donat for Goodbue Mr. Chips. Not that Mickey's bad, but he really didn't belong with this field.

What he and Judy do, they do better than anyone else, put on a show. In fact in this case the 'put on a show' gambit did originate in the original Broadway Musical. Babes in Arms was one of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's best shows it ran for 289 performances in the 1937 season and boasted such Rodgers&Hart classics as Johnny One Note, Way Out West, My Funny Valentine, I Wish I Were in Love Again all of which were discarded for the film. The Lady is a Tramp is only heard instrumentally, my guess is the Code frowned on that lyric. The title song and Where or When are retained. In fact when you come right down to it, only the basic idea the songs mentioned and a couple characters names came over from Broadway.

Still Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed wrote Good Morning which is better known from Singin' in the Rain, but it was Judy and Mickey who introduced it here. And a whole lot of other Brown&Freed songs from MGM musicals got interpolated into the score.

Douglas MacPhail and Betty Jaynes who were introduced in Sweethearts also are here and sing beautifully. They married, but the marriage and MacPhail's career fell apart and he committed suicide a few years later. He had a great baritone voice, what a shame. The following year he introduced my favorite Cole Porter song, I Concentrate On You in The Broadway Melody of 1940.

This was the film Judy Garland did right after The Wizard of Oz and coming along right with her is Margaret Hamilton playing another Miss Gulch like character. One of those spinster ladies who forever pry into other people's business.

Believe it or not there was still a lot of prejudice against theatrical people even in 1937. A lot of old vaudeville types like Charles Winninger, Rooney's father in the film, settle in the town of Seaport on Long Island and their presence apparently upsets the ruling families like Hamilton's. When times go bad and vaudeville goes to seed, things get kind of rough for them. The old timers try to take a last tour to raise some money, but instead it's the kids who are up to the latest trends in pop music who save the day.

Guy Kibbee is in this also, playing against type as a wise and sympathetic judge, usually the parts MGM reserved for Lewis Stone or Lionel Barrymore. A more typical Kibbee type would be the oafish tycoon in 42nd Street, but he's fine here.

Possibly director Busby Berkeley wanted Kibbee, maybe as a good luck charm from that other breakthrough musical of his from his days at Warner Brothers. Of course the musical numbers in the show are set with the usual Berkeley surrealism, a little tempered though from his high flying days at Warner Brothers. That same year Berkeley had done a surreal type number in the Jeanette MacDonald-Lew Ayres film Broadway Serenade and it laid an egg. Someone at MGM must have reined him in.

Babes In Arms retains all its charms from 1939 mainly because Mickey Rooney is infectious and Judy Garland's singing is eternal.

This Busby Berkeley musical of the 1930s represents Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland at their best, which in the end really doesn't say "greatness." The film, which involves a recurring reminiscence on the "nostalgia" of the 1910s, is often over-acted, over-sung, and over-choreographed. Judy Garland's portrayal of a girl in love but shunned is reminiscent of almost all of the MGM musical roles in which she partook during her stint that lasted into the late 1940s. The minstrel act is a particularly interesting look at the virulent racism that still plagued American cinema during the Studio Age-Judy Garland in blackface is perhaps one of the most frightening images I have ever encountered.

Though, one cannot approach a film like this with more than a hint of cynicism: Busby Berkeley is arguably the greatest choreographer in the history of film, and though he does not show off the spectacle of his earlier films, like Gold Diggers of 1933 and Gold Diggers of 1935 (which he did not direct), his dance numbers are interesting (for instance, when the town's teenagers partake in a book-burning, throwing into the flames symbols of conformity). The film is sweet, fresh, and bright, and, as the first Arthur Freed musical, serves as one of his better (though certainly not his best).

In all, I give it a 3 out of 4 stars (***).

On a side note, three of the songs that appear in Singing in the Rain appear in this film, predating the Gene Kelly musical by over 15 years: Good Morning, Good Morning, Singing in the Rain (which appears in a montage showing previous MGM musicals), and You Are My Lucky Star.

This 1939 musical reflects the tastes of the American public of that era. As such, "Babes in Arms", proved to be a favorite film that made a lot of money for the studio. The young stars of this film proved to be the main attraction for watching it more than sixty years after it was done.

"Babes in Arms" was a Broadway musical by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers. Like most of those movies of that time, the creative people in the studio took liberties, incorporating material that was not in the original theater work. Busby Berkeley, the genius of those musical films, was at the helm. It's easy to see his imprint all over the movie in the way he stages the big musical numbers and move his players to get a maximum result out of them.

Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland were two young actors at the time that were good in whatever they did together. The pair showed an amazing amount of charisma in their musical numbers as well as in the over all chemistry in all their scenes together. Mickey Rooney plays the earnest Mickey Moran, the son of vaudevillians, who wants to make a name for himself. Judy Garland is Patsy Barton, a girl-next-door type that is sweet, wise and patient, even when Mickey is dazzled by the film star that wants to back their show in order to have the lead in it.

The other players are excellent, which is not saying much, as MGM and the other studios were blessed with solid talent that went from film to film doing amazing work in whatever picture they appeared. Charles Winninger, Guy Kibee, Betty Jaynes, Douglas McPhail, and the wonderful Margaret Hamilton appear in supporting roles.

Enjoy the infectious actors of this movie and the Rodgers and Hart music, as well as the other songs that were added to it. Busby Berkeley did a marvelous job with the film that shows a less stressful time in the country.