Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows

There have been a lot of show business biographies put on film, but for the most part, they are sketchy and fictionalized. Judy Garland was a show business legend, who even though much has been written about her, a definitive film biography has alluded us. An NBC TV movie was made in the 80's called RAINBOW, but it only covered Garland's childhood to the time she was cast in THE WIZARD OF OZ. At long last, we finally were gifted with a surprisingly factual and lavishly produced TV movie called LIFE WITH JUDY GARLAND: ME AND MY SHADOWS, a two-part mini-series which chronicles Garland's life from her first audition for MGM to her tragic death in 1969. Most show biz biopics tend to fictionalize material for dramatic effect or lack of knowledge of the facts, but I trust the facts presented here because there are several events recreated here that I have actually heard Garland herself talk about in interviews. Some things are omitted and/ or glossed over (Her first marriage to David Rose is barely mentioned), but when you only have 2 hours and 45 minutes to tell the story, some fact-trimming is necessary. The filmmakers wisely chose two actresses to play the teenage and adult Garland. Tammy Blanchard and Judy Davis both won Emmys for their work as young Frances Gumm and the adult Judy Garland. Davis, in particular, is astonishing in a powerhouse performance that just gets richer and more complex upon repeat viewings. Another wise decision to dub original Garland recordings for Davis' singing voice further enhances the power of the piece. I read that prior to shooting, Davis watched every movie Garland made and as much concert footage as she could get her hands on and her homework pays off in spades here. Her recreations of "The Trolley Song" from MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS and "The Man that Got Away" from A STAR IS BORN are positively spooky. Victor Garber gives the performance of his career as Judy's volatile third husband, Sid Luft. Hugh Laurie is a little too masculine as Judy's 2nd hubby, Vincente Minnelli, whose rumored bisexuality prior to meeting Judy is part of Hollywood folklore. There is also solid work from Sonja Smits and John Benjamin Hickey as Judy's good friends, Kay Thompson and Roger Edens and by Dwayne Addams as a young Mickey Rooney. There is also a memorable turn from Marhsa Mason as Ethel Gumm, Judy's hard-nosed mother. A hauntingly accurate look at the tragic life of, arguably, Hollywood's greatest creation, whose very human troubles never allowed her to live up to the creation.

Me and My Shadows is an above average TV film that tells an average story of Judy Garland's life. The acting, particularly by the two Judy's, Tammy Blanchard and Judy Davis, as well as Victor Garber as Sid Luft, is outstanding. The producers did an outstanding job of recreating decades of history. But this telling of Judy's life, based largely on Lorna Luft's recollection, would have been much better told with Get Happy or a more personal account of Judy's life.

Again, this is a pretty good film. The acting is outstanding, and the recreations of the musical numbers from some of Judy's films, particulary "Meet Me In St. Louis" and "A Star is Born" is incredible. The bit players, like Mickey Rooney, Louis Mayer and Vincente Minelli were also superbly cast.

However, this production is bogged down with a number of problems. First and foremost, Judy Davis takes over the role WAY too early. The filming of Meet Me In St. Louis started in 1943, when Judy was 21 years old. Judy Davis is 45. You do the math. Now, drugs and other factors did cause Judy to age pretty badly, but that really didn't happen until the fifties, when Judy hit her 30's. Twenty one year old girls do not have horribly visible wrinkles. Tammy Blanchard did an outstanding job, and should have held the role until 1950's Summer Stock, which isn't covered in the film.

Which leads me to another problem I had with this film: important parts of Judy's life/career are not covered, Summer Stock being one of them. After "Over the Rainbow", "Get Happy" is probably Judy's most well known song. And the story of how that number gets into the film was worth being told. The film, without commercials, is about 2 1/2 hours, and too much time is spent beating us over the head about Judy's pill problems. There are other aspects of Judy and her life that needed to be mentioned, as well, such as her promiscuity with characters such as Artie Shaw, her wild teenage years, and World War II, which all get absolutely no mention. Practically the last half hour of the film is more about Lorna Luft than Judy. Who cares about Lorna Luft???!!!

In addition to those things, I also have a problem with the way "facts" are dropped throughout the film. The characters don't speak the way people normally speak. It sounds awkward to hear Judy Garland tell Vincente Minelli that he and Gene Kelly are whispering all the time. She would have called him "Gene" or "Kelly", not "Gene Kelly". Or the way Judy and her friends throw out generic insults to the other Best Actress nominees Judy is up against in 1954 (Incidentally, Grace Kelly totally deserved that Oscar). There are silly speeches made by the characters to help move the script along where they would have been better served actually adding the scenes that they refer to. Judy's problems with Bubsy Berkeley were well documented, and he caused her an inordinate amount of grief over the years. A major part of Judy's early career that's just sort of swept along by a quick shot of Berkeley having a mild tantrum and Judy making an all encompasing speech about it. The film neglects many major characters in Judy's life, but for some reason, bothers to introduce some of them, only to never be heard from again. The scene where Judy meets Lana Turner is pointless if they're not going to show Judy's competition with Lana and her affair with Artie Shaw that ended with Turner taking him away from Judy. Same thing with Berkeley. Either tell the whole story, or don't bother introducing the character. Even major characters in the film are underdeveloped, Sid Luft being an example. This is a guy with a serious gambling problem and a very bad temper, who is pretty much angelically played by Victor Garber.

This production really should have been 4 or 5 hours. But as a 2 1/2 hour production, they should have cut some of the redundant scenes (pill popping), dug deeper into what they underdeveloped, and moved the film along with shots of newspaper and magazine headlines and radio and movienews voiceovers. They actually did do that in one part of the film; I don't know why they didn't do it throughout. One place in particular that something like this was needed was after Judy's first show at Carnegie Hall, which was considered a legendary perfect masterpiece by everyone who saw it, and one of the high points of Judy's entire career. The magnitude of this event is not conveyed in this film.

My final problem with this film is the passive way in which Judy and "her shadows" are filmed. This was a very emotionally unstable woman with a lot of serious issues. Judy Davis's portrayal of THIS woman, especially in the later years, is very shallow and too driven by incidents that occur than by whatever torment Judy Garland was actually experiencing.

It's hard to expect too much from a TV movie. Especially since they have to be designed to appeal to the masses and the short attention spans of people. But who was this film made for? Certainly not the big fans of Judy Garland, who like me, I'm sure wanted more depth and accuracy. This film was targeted to a general audience and assumes people have little or no knowledge of Judy, and don't want to find out too much. But there is plenty of good here, and it's entertaining. "B-"

What starts out as a slightly better-than-average Hollywood biopic becomes sheer dynamite when Judy Davis takes over the role of the talented, tormented "Rainbow Girl" herself, Judy Garland. She perfectly conveys all the professional and personal highs and lows of a unique show biz legend. Garland herself was always something of a dichotomy. Professionally, at her best ("Oz," the Palace, Carnegie), no one could touch her; as a human being, no one in their right mind would want to BE her. Davis conveys this every step on the way. Even when her vocals are dubbed by the original Garland recordings, you're watching a true pro at work.

Not that she's the only reason for seeing this film by any means. Victor Garber brings his usual understated but powerful presence to the role of Sid Luft, Hugh Laurie is a solid Vincente Minelli, and the late Al Waxman, who died just before the film was aired, makes a good L.B. Mayer.

It would seem that Judy Garland would be just too big of a subject to bring to the screen. But the producers, and a lady named Davis, have done so, brilliantly.

Arguably the single greatest talent to emerge from golden-era Hollywood, Judy Garland continues to fascinate us even more than four decades after her untimely death. As a singer, she was incomparable; as an actress, she was exceptional; as a star, she was perhaps the most brilliant celebrity of her generation. But behind the brilliance there was a deeply troubled woman who began her career as a child in the hands of a driven mother and an all-powerful studio, who raced through five husbands, who fought a losing battle with chemical dependency throughout most of her life, and who self-destructed again and again--only to arise, phoenix-like, from her own ashes time and time again. It was an extraordinary life.

So it should come as no surprise, really, that this three-hour television falls a bit short. Realistically, it would take a talent of Garland's own scope to bring her fully to the screen. But what the film does right, it does extremely, extremely well--and the centerpieces of the film are the remarkable performances of Tammy Blanchard and Judy Davis. Both give extraordinary performances. That said, however, both performances are flawed due to the age of the actresses. Blanchard, who plays the teenage Garland, is clearly too old to be thirteen-ish when the film begins; Davis, who plays Garland from her twenties until her death, is clearly too old to be Garland in her twenties.

But so exceptional are the performances that these are actually minor quibbles. When made up for the role and placed in period attire, both Blanchard and Davis have the look to an absolutely uncanny degree. More importantly, they match each other in their skill at playing Garland, who was one of the most uniquely idiosyncratic personalities of her era--indeed, Davis has been described by many as having "channeled" Garland, and I certainly wouldn't disagree. And the supporting cast is quite good as well, ranging from above average to extremely good, something of a surprise in a made-for-television movie. Equally impressive is the painstaking recreation of the world in which Garland moved; her wardrobe, both on stage and off, has been meticulously recreated right down to the hat she wore for her wedding to Vincent Minnelli. Be it sets, costumes, or props, the design staff did a truly miraculous job.

But the film falls down a bit in both script and detail. Part of this is due to fact that Lorna Luft's memoir was, naturally enough, based on what her mother told her about her life. Doubtlessly Luft accepted much of this as fact, but Garland was notorious for twisting the truth if it would make a good story--and consequently the film includes several depictions of events that by all other accounts didn't happen that way, assuming they happened at all.

When filming THE WIZARD OF OZ, SHADOWS shows Garland being crowded out of the shot by her co-stars, prompting director Victor Flemming to say "You three dirty hams, let that little girl in there!" It was one of Garland's favorite party stories--but it didn't happen. Garland was well known for her ability to perform complex musical numbers with little rehearsal in a single take, and SHADOWS offers her performance of "The Trolley Song" in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS as an example of her ability to do that--but while she certainly could and often did perform her numbers in a single flawless take, she didn't do it for that particular number. You need only look at MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS and count the cuts in the sequence for change of camera set up. Perhaps the most obvious gaffe in the film is when Garland is found dead in the bathroom of her London apartment; SHADOWS shows her husband going to the bathroom door and seeing her sprawled out on the floor, clearly dead. In reality, the door was locked and he had to climb out on the roof to look in the window--and from her appearance he was unsure of her condition until he actually got into the room.

Such details aside, the script does a superior job of showing Garland's racy, acid, and often self-mocking sense of humor and her often-hidden but powerful sexuality. It also does a fairly good job of displaying her love-hate relationship with her own talent. But it is extremely spotty, skipping over major events and focusing on considerably more trivial incidents. (Garland's first husband, David Rose, is never seen in the film--and indeed, scarcely mentioned at all.) It lacks flow. And were it not for the incredible performances of both Blanchard and Davis, it would often also lack drama--a pretty astonishing thing when one considers how electrically dramatic Garland's life was from day to day. Perhaps most frustrating, the film also has a certain aloofness from its own subject; we observe Garland, but the script itself never really allows us to get inside her.

In the final analysis, ME AND MY SHADOWS is a film that will most greatly appeal to casual viewers or to new Garland fans, for it does show the main outlines of her life and her career. Hardcore fans, however, will be frustrated by its covert inadequacies--and will be quick to spot the numerous moments when the script goes awry. Still, even with its numerous flaws, Blanchard and Davis are exceptional. And I strongly recommend it on that basis.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Judy Davis gets the Emmy for this one. Beyond belief performance. Not since Ben Kingsley in "Gandhi" have I seen anyone inhabit a real-life based character the way Davis does here. A career high note. Hate to say it..but this movie really deserved a theatrical release. It's almost too big for TV. Hats off to ABC either way. Great direction by Ackerman. The attention payed to the nuances is surreal. Blink..and you'll swear you're watching the real deal. Solid support from Victor Garber and Alison Pill as a young Lorna Luft. And Tammy Blanchard just bought herself a career. Wave bye-bye to "The Guiding Light", Tammy. Your boat has just sailed.

There has to be some sort of cosmic yin-yang Zen supernatural otherworldly force at work here that placed one "Judy" in the ruby slippers of another to this effect. There is no other handy explanation. A star is born (Blanchard) and another one goes into supernova (Davis). This is great moviemaking. Now, get this sucker to video where I can watch it without commercial interruptions.