Summer Stock

In the canon of MGM musicals of the Golden Age, "Summer Stock" is an overlooked and underrated pleasure. As relaxed as a summer day spent on a farm like the one in the film, this soft shoe of a musical doesn't aim for greatness, though it very nearly reaches it on one or two occasions. Filmed in sunny, bandbox Technicolor, the films opens on Judy Garland singing in her morning shower. She is Jane Falbury, the mistress of a New England farm going to seed. Sassy Marjorie Main is the maid and cook, pretty Gloria DeHaven is her irresponsible sister who has run off to New York to become an actress, and Eddie Bracken is Garland's hopelessly inept fiancee, manager of the local general store. Garland's wry way with a comic line is richly evident in this film, as she trys to deal with one exasperating annoyance after another. She is in superb singing voice, and most charming when she holds one long, belting note to the very end and then, looking into the camera, nearly collapses with mock-exhaustion. Into this bucolic chaos lands handsome Gene Kelly and his troupe of Broadway gypsies, promised by DeHaven that they can use her sister's barn for a summer stock production of Kelly's new musical. With sarcastic assist by Phil Silvers, Kelly sets about convincing a skeptical Garland that one hand can wash the other: if she consents to the barn being used as a theatre, the troupe will help save her foundering farm by performing the daily chores and harvest planting. Of course, all manner of of mishap and misunderstanding ensue; happily, none of them stand in the way of Garland and Kelly performing a handful of enjoyable numbers. After Astaire and Rogers, Garland and Kelly were surely filmdom's most sublime song and dance duo, and they perform one dance here, a jazzed-up "Portland Fancy", which nearly stops the show. Apart from their duets, they shine in solo numbers which are manna to fans of great talent. Both stars ascended greater cinematic heights after this film, Kelly in "Singin In The Rain" and Garland at Warner Bros. for "A Star Is Born", but here in this simple tale are found some of the most compelling examples of their style and grace: Garland singing the yearning "Friendly Star" in the summer moonlight, Kelly whistling "You Wonderful You" on a lonely stage with a discarded newspaper as his partner. But finally, the highlight of the film is to be had by Garland in the big finale at the end. Having been cajoled into joining the troupe for their pre-Broadway opening in her barn, Garland and a phalanx of chorus boys jump off the screen with the Harold Arlen standard "Get Happy". Heralded by the blare of the MGM Studio Orchestra brass section, Garland steps out from behind the black-suited line of men wearing only a tuxedo jacket, black pumps, and a man's hat set rakishly atop her head. Looking chic and sexy, dancing with the boys, she makes the Arlen chestnut her own, and uses her considerable show biz muscle to pull down one of the most memorable performances in musical history. Garland's electrifying number dominates the film's reputation, and deservedly so. It is for one to still marvel how this diminutive, talented actress could, for five or so minutes, turn a breezy, unambitious musical into a great one.

This was Judy Garland's last MGM film, and she had basically been a MGM lifer, being under contract there since 1937 at age 15. Judy was naturally always a little heavy, so MGM plied her with uppers to cause her to lose weight and then with sleeping pills at night so she could sleep through those uppers. The end result was a terrible substance abuse problem by the time she was 28 that MGM then fired her for. But I digress, mainly to let you know what she was working through in this final MGM musical film.

Jane Falbury (Judy Garland) works the family farm diligently, but she is in danger of losing it due to three bad harvests in a row, and then her two long time farm hands quit due to lack of being paid. Her younger sister Abigail (Gloria DeHaven) is due to come home to pitch in after failing in art school, and she does, but she brings with her the entire cast, crew, and props for her boyfriend Joe's (Gene Kelly) new musical show, which he plans to try out in her barn. Abigail somehow failed to tell her sister about that. At first Jane is going to make everybody leave, but then she changes her mind and lets the gang stay and put on their show as long as they pitch in on the farm. They have no idea how to do the simplest farming tasks, but they do their best, often with humorous results. And then Abigail abandons the show on a lark, leaving everybody in a lurch. Complications and a classic musical number starring Garland ensue.

This is not the best MGM musical out there, but it is enjoyable enough. Apparently Gene Kelly was instrumental in helping Judy Garland get through this, which is odd enough since he could be very harsh. After all he left Debbie Reynolds crying under a table after his withering criticism of her during the making of Singin' in the Rain. It's got a good cast including Phil Silvers shortly before he does so well on TV, and Marjorie Main steals every scene she is in as the farm housekeeper. Eddie Bracken is a good sport as he plays probably the most unappealing man in the history of the world as Jane's fiancee.

One reviewer claimed Judy Garland looked overweight and uncomfortable, and to some extent, I agree. She was poorly costumed in ridiculous looking overalls for much of the film. In the black/white show number, while most of the girls wore sleek showgirl outfits, Ms. Garland's dress looked like someone got it stuck in a sewing machine.

That said, I adored this movie because of the performances. Gene Kelly is absolutely stunning...a gorgeous man with a gorgeous voice and dance ability that would make the best Broadway "hoofer" jealous. His scenes and songs with Judy were top-notch.

I had never seen this film until recently, and I was delighted to see "Get Happy" was a part of this film. It's one of the highlights of the movie, along with a special tap dance routine Gene Kelly has with a creaky floorboard and a piece of newspaper (wow, is all I can say about that one).

See this movie because of the stars...they carried it. A truly fun and enjoyable film, despite its flaws.

Judy & Gene...what a wonderful Hollywood combination! It's great to see two all-around entertainers working together. Great movie, great songs and dance numbers. Plot was a little weak, but a great musical covers a multitude of sins. I had trouble in seeing Judy as a farmgirl from the country. She had already played this role, sort of, in "Wizard Of Oz", but she was younger then. Like I said.. a good musical makes it all okay. Marjorie Mains was great as always. She had done the "Ma Kettle" role so well for so long that she had taken to playing various versions of it the rest of her life. Eddie Braken as Orville, Judy's fiancee in the movie was good casting. Phil Silvers steals the show in scenes he is in but can be a little grating at times with his silliness here. It all leads up to Judy's performance in "Get happy" though, doesn't it? I mean, you see this glorious performance and the movie suddenly goes from good to "classic". "Get Happy" would soon become one of Judy's signature songs. It's very obvious that 1949-50 were hard times for Judy. Her weight was yo-yoing (Compare the scenes in the beginning where she is in overalls to her singing "Get Happy"), in a few scenes she does not seem fully present or focused. But as another writer here has said, she could do more on her bad days then most everyone else could do on their best. She seemed happiest when she was singing. Always.

Sadly, this is the last film before MGM fired Judy Garland. Its sad that her life was getting shaky around this time due to the toll her drug addiction was having on her. And I think it's even more sad that it was never Judy's fault that she got addicted to pills in the first place since it was MGM and Judy's mother that forced her to start and to keep taking these pills years earlier. They made her take these addictive stimulants so she could keep working long energetic hours at the studio. Then she became addicted to barbiturates cause the stimulants gave her insomnia. She and the other MGM stars were given some barbiturate pills half hour before bed, then fell asleep, then got woken up only 4 hours later and given their first stimulants of the day, a little breakfast (they were never allowed to eat that much so to keep their weight down), then back to work. Judy worked such long hours, slept those short 4 hour nights, and ate such a low calorie diet for so many years, that it all had taken such a toll on her by this time period, around 1950. And she wasn't as up to scratch at work anymore and was missing work all the time. That's why MGM fired her. Its all so unfair. Judy Garland was one of the most wonderful gifts we ever had in this world.

Anyway, this film was pretty good but it wasn't one of the best like many of Judy's earlier films, but it was not Judy's fault. Some of the script is rather corny with the whole "goofy actors barging unannounced into Judy's barn" deal. I didn't care that much for the Phil Silvers character since he was too goofy and sorta a "bull in a China shop" kinda character. He destroys Judy's tractor, but not to be destructive, it's because he's clumsy and not smart enough to stay off a machine that he didn't know how to operate. Gene Kelly was good here but not quite as good as he was in "Me and my gal", "Anchors aweigh", and "Singin in the rain". And he and Judy, even though they are good together, did not have as much wonderful chemistry and magic together that they had in "Me and my gal". He still had a very good dance number where he kept ripping newspaper on the floor into smaller pieces with his dance moves. Judy still had some wonderful shining moments, especially when she sang including a very good song " Howdy neighbor, happy harvest" while she was riding home on her tractor. And also great in her famous "Get happy" song. Judy was engaged to Eddie Bracken, who was also sort of a goofy character, who was always irritating his dad. I liked Gloria Dehalivand as Judy's acting school sister who was the one who had the idea to stage production in her and Judy's barn to begin with. I didn't care for Judy's short hairstyle in this film as much as all her hairstyles in her previous films, but I still love Judy Garland very much. She was really one of the greatest things in Hollywood's already golden golden age.