Listen, Darling

1938
Approved
1h 15m

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

899

YOUR RATING

Judy Garland, Mary Astor, Freddie Bartholomew, and Walter Pidgeon in Listen, Darling (1938)

Play trailer2:54

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11 Photos

Comedy Drama Family Musical Romance

Young Pinkie Wingate and her friend, Buzz, will do anything to stop her widowed mother from entering into a loveless marriage with the town banker - including kidnapping.Young Pinkie Wingate and her friend, Buzz, will do anything to stop her widowed mother from entering into a loveless marriage with the town banker - including kidnapping.Young Pinkie Wingate and her friend, Buzz, will do anything to stop her widowed mother from entering into a loveless marriage with the town banker - including kidnapping.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.5/10

899

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

User reviews22

Featured review

8/10

Raining Ten Pins In the Sky

Judy Garland is concerned that mom Mary Astor might be marrying prim and proper banker Gene Lockhart for all the wrong reasons. She concocts a scheme with friend Freddie Bartholomew to kidnap mom and little brother Scotty Beckett in a motor home and head for the open road so she can see what's out there.

I know it sounds like a crazy plot, but it actually is both funny and charming. Judy gets to introduce one of her standards, Zing When the Strings of My Heart and later on during a thunderstorm she comforts Scotty Beckett with the song It's Raining Ten Pins in the Sky. Of course that is a total ripoff of what Bing Crosby sang in the exact same situation in Pennies from Heaven, but who cares.

On the road the family meets both Walter Pigeon and Alan Hale, both more acceptable choices for the widow Astor. Who does she choose. You'll have to sit through Judy Garland singing some really nice songs in her inimitable style to find out.

Not a bad trade, not a bad trade at all.

bkoganbing
Mar 27, 2006
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Trivia
Mary Astor fondly remembered working on "Listen, Darling" with the 16-year-old Judy Garland. "She was so young and vital - it was no act. Something would strike her as funny, and her face would get red, and 'There goes Judy!' would be the cry. And we just had to wait until she got over it. She was a kid, a real kid. It didn't take long for her to get over that."

Goofs
About 38 minutes into the film (halfway through the movie) Buzz has a somewhat long talk with Richard (Walter Pidgeon) in his trailer. Just before leaving, Buzz invites him to have dinner at Dottie's trailer. As Buzz walks out of Richard's trailer, a moving shadow of the boom microphone is visible above the doorway.

Quotes
'Pinkie' Wingate: [sings] I've got you. You've got me. Who cares how rough the road may be? We'll go bumpty, bumpty, bumpty, bump. On the bumpy road to love.

Connections
Featured in Hollywood... Hollywood ! (1976)

Soundtracks
Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart
(1934)
Music and Lyrics by James F. Hanley
Played during the opening and end credits
Played by the school orchestra and sung by Judy Garland (uncredited)