L'allegra fattoria

Summer Stock was the third and last pairing of Gene Kelly and Judy Garland by MGM. It's sad to think that there were no others because of Judy's personal problems. She would have a breakdown and would not be before the cameras again until four year later with A Star Is Born.

Judy barely got through Summer Stock. She had been replaced in Annie Get Your Gun by Betty Hutton and had not started Royal Wedding yet, but was also replaced there by Jane Powell. It was Gene Kelly's patience with her that got her through this film. Interesting also because Kelly was not known as the world's most patient man when working.

It was worth it because Summer Stock contains some of Judy's best musical moments. Most of the score was written by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, but someone was inspired at MGM to give Judy Get Happy by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. That is half of the team that wrote Over the Rainbow for her. Get Happy became another song identified with Judy Garland the rest of her life and into her legend.

But a favorite of mine is Howdy Neighbor. I do so love how that number is staged with Judy riding on a tractor through the fields and on the road near her farm. Catch her at the very end of the song and you can visibly see her breathing heavy. She was obviously under a strain doing this number and in fact the whole film.

Kelly doesn't do too bad either with a song that became identified with him, You Wonderful You. I still remember him singing it to Miss Piggy when guesting on the Muppets.

Summer Stock is another variation on a backstage romance and the discovery of hidden talent. Judy's sister Gloria DeHaven invites the cast and crew of her show to stay at their farm in Connecticut. But Judy's not happy with it. Of course Kelly charms her and discovers along the way who has the real talent in the family.

The film holds up well today and the talent of Judy Garland and Gene Kelly is absolutely eternal.

Some moments of this otherwise B-level film are quite astonishing, like Gene Kelly's solo dance with the newspaper or the conversation between Gloria De Haven and Eddie Bracken which gently reveals their affection for each other. But the film, more or less, belongs to Judy Garland- she of the frequently strained health and nerves, who nevertheless made it all look very easy. That said, this is a good one, albeit a corny one. The hillbilly number done with Kelly, Phil Silvers, and the chorus is a bit much, but the film does show off Garland's talent for low-key, witty comedy. And "Get Happy" aside, the 'Portland Fancy' square dance which seamlessly turns into a swing duet with Garland and Kelly is probably the most enjoyable moment of the whole film. (Considering Garland's strength was singing, her dancing was quite impressive.) And my favorite Garland solo is the moonlit ballad "Friendly Star," done almost all in closeup, with the star's beautiful dark eyes on the brink of tears through the whole number. It's a pleasant swan song for her MGM era, but thankfully, her greatest musical (A Star Is Born) was still yet to come.

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.

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.

I actually made a point to see this film after reading about Miss Garland. The final "Get Happy" scene was shot weeks after the film wrapped and Miss Garland was sent to a "clinic"...she was called back only weeks later and fell into a deep depression and was, suppposedly, not in good good shape mentally as she shot that scene but if you notice, she is at least 20 pounds lighter in the scene than the rest of the film. I think this just shows how brilliant Miss Garland really was, to be so troubled but still nail the scene and song that would later be a staple in her act...she truly had something in her that few have ever and will ever possess.