Ombre sul palcoscenico

I had never seen this film until tonight (Feb 2008) and have never been a Judy Garland 'fan', even though I am aware of her life and genuinely admire and champion films like THE PIRATE and A STAR IS BORN; so it came as quite a surprise to me to see this 1962 Brit production in Cinemascope get quite bad reviews and be regarded as 'not a success'. In fact the Variety review of the time is particularly mean spirited. I thought Garland was excellent and natural, the production values while a bit cheap offer great stage scenes and Dirk Bogarde plays a believable past lover. It is rare to see adult Garland play opposite a teenage boy as she does in this strong film and those scenes are particularly moving. I COULD GO ON SINGING is a very satisfying film, and the British setting, the Palladium scenes and the teen drama well achieved and resolved. It is very disappointing to see the bad reviews or the carping when this film is clearly well intentioned, particularly to Garland's career in 1962. No wonder it was her last film, she probable felt kicked in the teeth again like in 1954 after A STAR IS BORN. As a 'formal drama' in a British style, it fits and succeeds. I guess if you also like STAR! and the theatrical movies of this type you will admire this film, as I do. In 2008 this film is quite a time capsule of era production and Garland, and for that we should be grateful.

Though she didn't and couldn't have known it, I Could Go On Singing became Judy Garland's farewell to the big screen. In this role she's perfectly cast in a role that bears a lot of resemblance to the real Judy Garland, a famous singer with problems of custody who wants the son she gave up for adoption years ago.

Some twenty years before young medical student Dirk Bogarde, studying in America fell in love with singer Judy Garland just starting her career. That career is something she wanted more than him. But one thing couldn't be changed and that was the boy child Bogarde left with her.

Bogarde marries a girl from Great Britain and later on Judy who can't manage a baby and a career gives him up to Bogarde who adopts his own son with his wife and raises him. Now his wife is dead and Judy's back to lay a claim on her son played by Gregory Phillips.

Of course Bogarde has never told his son about his origin and therein lies the story. It's the kind of tale we've seen in hundreds of films and radio and television soap operas.

But of course what makes I Could Go On Singing special is the singing of Judy Garland. Giving this film which title could serve as her epitaph is Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg who wrote the title song and who wrote her famous Over The Rainbow.

Judy also sings By Myself which was sung and danced to by Fred Astaire in The Bandwagon. But a song I'm really glad she did was the Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson song It Never Was You. That song comes from the score of Knickerbocker Holiday and it didn't make the screen version. I'm glad that Judy Garland used it in this film, giving it the classiest interpretation possible.

A passable enough drama, but great singing and the best epitaph possible for a career which was one of the brightest.

. . . to a great artist: Judy Garland. At the end of her fabulous, unparalleled career, Garland made this swansong. Under-appreciated at the time of its release, it now grows in stature, like fine wine aging.

Medical experts warned Judy would never sing again in the early fifties before she made the astonishing "A Star is Born." Then she went on to her historic national concert tours, and fifteen years after "Star" she made "I Could Go on Singing."

Defying all predictions about her career, Garland triumphed. True, it wasn't easy, for her or her fellow actors and crew. Somehow, though, she just kept bouncing back, overcoming the most formidable obstacles.

Here she's supported by an excellent cast headed by Dirk Bogard in a very strong performance. Ronald Neame's direction is on-target, though the script is a bit uneven. Yet the film is looking better and better, and viewers are growing in their appreciation of this legacy of one of the 20th century's most talented and beloved artists.

Judy's last film ranks among her greatest as she lurches along as Jenny Bowman, grasping, insecure, and in life pretty much washed up. Echoes of Miss Garland's tragic real life cloud this film in places but that only serves to make it more effective. The three songs are superb and I only wish there had been more. Dirk Bogarde gives good support in a performance which by necessity is in the shadow of the tempestuous star. Seems better every viewing and highly recommended for Judy fans.

This film, Judy Garland's last, was panned at its premiere for being old-hat melodrama. The theme of secret mother love recalls "Madame X", with Garland as a Gladys George or Ruth Chatterton. Her big scene of renouncing her son over the telephone (white, naturally) recalls Luise Rainer in "The Great Ziegfeld". Aline MacMahon as Garland's acerbic confidante is like a Joan Blondell or Glenda Farrell. There is a show-must-go-on ending to gratify admirers of "42nd Street".

Garland's character, Jenny Bowman, is a thinly disguised self-portrait, down to the fluttery neurotic mannerisms (with hints of pill-popping) and the ability to turn around an audience kept waiting an hour past time for her show at the London Palladium- where Garland had sensationally headlined in 1960. After "A Star is Born" Garland, cheated of her rightful Oscar, had withdrawn to concerts and cabaret for almost a decade except for "A Child is Waiting" and her overheated cameo in "Judgement at Nuremberg". Here, for the last time, she essays full-blooded emotional acting against a worthy British opponent (for James Mason, think Dirk Bogarde) and carries it off pretty well, never becoming tiresome and often laughing at her own overwrought persona. She still looks pretty, too, not quite overwhelmed by the blowsiness of her last few years.

Bogarde, rapidly maturing after his daring role in "Victim", is a superb, challenging foil. Watch how he turns on a sixpence from the surgeon to the ex-lover after reassuring Garland that her throat is okay. His buttoned-up Britishness is never dull; like Ronald Colman, he radiates reliability and sensitivity in a coherent combination. He claimed to have rewritten all his dialogue with Garland during shooting; certainly their exchanges have a cut and thrust which prevents her from chewing the scenery. She has to react as well as posture.

The fans are given generous dollops of Garland's act in between plot scenes, but these reasonably complement and underscore the themes of defiance and sacrifice. Yes, it's soapy and lush, with daft interludes like the helicopter flight over London. But a touch of Limey stiff upper lip takes the saccharine taste away, and the Ronald Neame of "Tunes of Glory" and "The Poseidon Adventure" knows how to keep a story rolling along. File with contemporary efforts such as "The VIPs" and "The Yellow Rolls-Royce" as an enjoyable wallow, to be taken with boxes of paper handkerchiefs and chocolates.