Música y juventud

Despite the fact the Busby Berkeley finale was a minstrel show, I like Babes on Broadway just fine. If you want to see Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland as a team at their peak, this isn't the film. But I like it fine anyway

Mickey is a member of a trio which also consists of Ray McDonald and Richard Quine singing for their supper at a one armed spaghetti joint owned by Luis Alberni. One of the three customers in the joint one night is Broadway girl Friday, Fay Bainter who loves the act and Mickey especially. She spends the rest of the film trying to get ulcer ridden producer James Gleason to hear him and the rest of the talent Rooney collects for that inevitable show he wants to put on.

Of course one of those talents is Judy Garland, another eager young hopeful and the musical highlight of the film is their singing the famous Vernon Duke song, How About You. It's not one of Berkeley's big production numbers, it's done with Mickey and Judy at a piano in her place, but their infectious enthusiasm will grab you immediately. How About You was later done in the fifties with a really fine arrangement by Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby in one of their joint albums.

The other highlight for me is the surreal number done when Judy and Mickey arrive at a long closed theater for their show and are transformed by the spirits of the performers of long ago who headlined in the place. What has to be remembered is that several of these people were actually still alive when Mickey and Judy are imitating them, people like George M. Cohan, Harry Lauder, Blanche Ring. Faye Templeton, Sarah Bernhardt, and Richard Mansfield were long dead or retired by then. Still people in the audience remembered them and Mickey and Judy's reverential treatment to these stage stars of long ago must have struck a chord in movie audiences we can't appreciate today.

The minstrel show finale of course isn't good, yet even that is salvaged somewhat by Judy's singing of Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones. She also recorded it for Decca and the number still plays well today. When Judy does it even in blackface, somehow instead of degrading, it comes out as a tribute, like Fred Astaire in blackface imitating Bill Robinson in Bojangles of Harlem.

My favorite of their joint projects has always been Girl Crazy, still Mickey and Judy are as alive and fresh in Babes on Broadway as ever and it's a great example of matchless chemistry and teamwork.

Mickey and Judy want to put on a show (surprise) to help orphans. Only Mickey has an ulterior motive -- to impress a big shot producer and get a gig on Broadway. When Judy finds out, it looks like splitsville for the duo. Nice Busby Berkeley musical although it's way too long to have such a thin plot. But the musical numbers with Judy and Mickey are what people care about and most of those are energetic and fun. Film debut of Margaret O'Brien in an adorable bit. Donna Reed has a small part as a receptionist. Mickey and Judy are both perfect, playing parts similar to many others they played. By the way, I love the posters the kids create to advertise the show. One slogan reads: "Do you want rickets on your conscience? Get the kids to the country." Certainly sounds more sincere than some celebrity-endorsed causes in recent years.

What seems to get the most reaction here on IMDb is not surprisingly the minstrel number at the close of the show with all of the actors in blackface. Yes it's dated and offensive but some of the comments here are way over the top. One imbecilic individual even said Mickey Rooney shouldn't have been allowed to work again! Put the Kool-Aid down, kid.

This is one of those Hollywood 'Let's put on a show!' movies that were so popular in that bygone era. Such ha sense of sadness, though, when you realize that so many of the stars died young(Judy Garland-47, Ray McDonald-34, Virginia Weidler-41). Mickey Rooney, always a little high-strung, outdoes himself here, as he seems a 78RPM record, while everyone else is moving at 33 1/3. The minstrel number at the end is really quite embarrassing by today's standards, but it was the sort of thing they could get away with in those days. Quite a few of the standard 'view from above' shots common in Busby Berkeley films. I found it interesting as a look back at a bygone time that never really was.

Ahh, musicals. A tough genre; mostly unwatchable except for certain show-stopping individual numbers (which is the reason compilation films like 'That's Entertainment' are so much more enjoyable). Obviously a minstrel finale is in itself cringe-worthy, but this movie has so much more to cringe about. There's that, now comically risible, putting-on-a-show-in-our-backyard story line; and of all people to direct such a set-up you get Busby Berkeley. The "kids" have no money and pull strings right and left to get that show they just got to put on (sure, it's for orphans and rickets and whatnot, but the sweaty desperation of the would-be talent is all about the need to show off in front of an audience) and when they do put on the show it is GIGANTIC with what looks like a hundred hoofers and singers, all tightly choreographed in that elaborately tricky Berkeley style. And, in the hope-you-ignore-it category, these poor kids somehow manage to scrape together hundreds of matching costumes for every number (I guess that old theatre they have access to is a treasure trove of perfect fit, mint-edition clothing, from hoe-down jeans to tuxedos). Sure, it's all fantasy, and the plot is mostly non-existent, but the writers could have tried a little harder considering the enormous amount of energy on screen... or should I say the enormous amount of Mickey Rooney on screen. Woo-wee! The young Rooney has a dynamo inside his dynamo! He all but comes out at you in 3-D to grab your throat and demand that you be impressed. It's a nitro of prodigious talent and a glycerin of overwhelming ego that nearly explodes the film to Rooney-flavored smithereens. And so only a giant talent like Judy Garland can compete with him, and that's possibly why they appear together so often in films. She looks great, sounds great and charms in her usual wistful manner. She wears well, unlike Rooney, who captivated audiences at the time with his ham-fisted theatrics but now repels for the most part. But the film does contain some notable features: like the first appearance of the truly talented Margaret O'Brien, all of age four, and on camera for all of one minute. There's also a young Donna Reed in a bit part, and even Rooney's father, Joe Yule, gets a bit as James Gleason's assistant. It also features future director Richard Quine ('Bell, Book and Candle', etc.) in a rare, though colorless, acting role as a part of Rooney's performing team. And once-famed popular culture critic Alexander Woollcott, part of the famous Algonquin Round Table, has a bit at the beginning. Garland sings "How About You" which became a hit song in 1942 (for Tommy Dorsey, not Garland). It was written by Harburg & Lane, who had only recently worked together. In 1947 they would create the smash musical 'Finian's Rainbow' on Broadway (which coincidentally, has racist components to it that also makes it hard for audiences today to take, much like the minstrel stuff in 'Babes on Broadway'). So, there are some things to gather from this otherwise dated hash. And dated doesn't just mean the story line or minstrel theatrics, but also the heavy dose of British wartime material, including a number extolling their prideful "stiff upper lip" attitude and presented with re-settled English children crying into the camera. And with Garland crying and Virginia Weidler crying and Rooney always ready to burst into tears, this film almost suffers from dehydration!

This movie CANNOT be reviewed in terms of current times. It is ridiculous to even think it can. Of course NOW to see a black face routine would be totally unacceptable (and that is as it should be) but you have to remember WHEN this movie was made and base reviews on that. The musical routines for the most part are excellent. Mickey DOES overact horribly but you can't really blame all that on him. Busby Berkley was the director and he should have toned it down. It is obvious that one young person who said that Mickey should never have had a career has obviously never seen the TV movie BILL. With good direction, Mickey is a fabulous actor. Judy shines in anything and everything she ever did, even when it was hokey (and this movie definitely had some bad jokes). I am just sorry that Virginia Weidler did not have a longer career and that she died so young. If you want to see her in something brilliant, watch THE PHILADELPHIA STORY where she plays Katharine Hepburn's younger sister.

This movie is a product of its times. But these times aren't much better. Which is worse, black face routines or movies with gratuitous sex and blatant violence, blood, and guts? Racism is a horrible thing but it goes on in movies even today (in films made by Caucasian and African-Americans). What makes the black face routine even worse is that it was totally unnecessary to the plot and they could have done something better.