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18 reviews in total

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18 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
An Essential For Garland-Rooney Fans, 31 March 2005

Author: gftbiloxi (gftbiloxi@yahoo.com) from Biloxi, Mississippi

In the 1939 Mickey Rooney was among the top box office draws in the world. Judy Garland had appeared as a supporting player in several Rooney films, and the two had significant chemistry--more over, Garland had just completed photography for THE WIZARD OF OZ--a film that MGM rightly expected would launch her to international stardom. The time was right to costar the two, and MGM did it with BABES IN ARMS. The film was an immediate hit, one of the most admired musicals of the year. But time has a way of changing our perspective. Seen today, BABES IN ARMS feels a little strange, a little strained, and at times just downright, well, ODD.

BABES IN ARMS was originally a Rogers and Hart show that proved a smash on the New York stage--a slightly satirical script with one of the most powerful scores of the 1930s. MGM specifically purchased the property for Rooney and Garland and then promptly threw out the script, most of the score, and transformed the thing into the tale of young teenagers who decide to put on a show in a barn.

Although well performed, the songs that replaced the original score simply do not measure up to the play's original score, and viewers are likely to be startled by a minstrel show number that finds Mickey and Judy romping in blackface. In justice to the film, it should be remembered that while minstrel shows remained popular well into the 1950s, and such great stars as Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor performed in full blackface well into the 1930s. While the number is stereotypical, it is not meanspirited, and if nothing else it offers a glimpse into a now dead theatrical tradition.

But weirdest of all is the grand finale "In God's Country," a strange mixture of Hollywood ballyhoo, patriotism, and fear of the European war that would soon engulf the world. In its original form, the number also included Rooney and Garland doing a take off of FDR and Eleanor; although cleverly performed and quite mild in content, this was later cut in re-release, for MGM worried it might be construed as disrespectful during wartime.

The film has a number of distinct flaws. Director Busby Berkley was most at home with big-budget musicals that had scope for the elaborate dance numbers he favored--he's something of a fish out of water with this more intimate material, and his approach feels heavy handed. Although much admired at the time (he actually received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for this film), Mickey Rooney's performance is absurdly manic by modern standards, and Garland's more natural performance is too often overshadowed by his excesses. The script is as weak as the score, few of the supporting performers are memorable (Margaret Hamilton is an exception), and the whole thing has a awkward quality to it.

Even so, it's still possible to see what all the fuss was about. The film does capture an inkling of the famous Rooney-Garland chemistry--a chemistry that would fuel three more "let's put on a show!" musicals, each one more more effective than the last. It is there in every musical number the two perform, in every line, in every scene, a very real and very powerful thing. While casual viewers would do better to select either BABES ON Broadway or GIRL CRAZY, in spite of all its flaws, Rooney-Garland fans will likely find BABES IN ARMS an essential.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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11 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Bought An Idea, 16 September 2007

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

For Mickey and Judy fans, Babes in Arms is an absolute must. It's the only one of their films in which one of the two got an Oscar nomination. Mickey Rooney was nominated for Best Actor, personally I think as an afterthought because his competition was Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind, Laurence Olivier for Wuthering Heights, James Stewart for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the winner Robert Donat for Goodbue Mr. Chips. Not that Mickey's bad, but he really didn't belong with this field.

What he and Judy do, they do better than anyone else, put on a show. In fact in this case the 'put on a show' gambit did originate in the original Broadway Musical. Babes in Arms was one of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's best shows it ran for 289 performances in the 1937 season and boasted such Rodgers&Hart classics as Johnny One Note, Way Out West, My Funny Valentine, I Wish I Were in Love Again all of which were discarded for the film. The Lady is a Tramp is only heard instrumentally, my guess is the Code frowned on that lyric. The title song and Where or When are retained. In fact when you come right down to it, only the basic idea the songs mentioned and a couple characters names came over from Broadway.

Still Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed wrote Good Morning which is better known from Singin' in the Rain, but it was Judy and Mickey who introduced it here. And a whole lot of other Brown&Freed songs from MGM musicals got interpolated into the score.

Douglas MacPhail and Betty Jaynes who were introduced in Sweethearts also are here and sing beautifully. They married, but the marriage and MacPhail's career fell apart and he committed suicide a few years later. He had a great baritone voice, what a shame. The following year he introduced my favorite Cole Porter song, I Concentrate On You in The Broadway Melody of 1940.

This was the film Judy Garland did right after The Wizard of Oz and coming along right with her is Margaret Hamilton playing another Miss Gulch like character. One of those spinster ladies who forever pry into other people's business.

Believe it or not there was still a lot of prejudice against theatrical people even in 1937. A lot of old vaudeville types like Charles Winninger, Rooney's father in the film, settle in the town of Seaport on Long Island and their presence apparently upsets the ruling families like Hamilton's. When times go bad and vaudeville goes to seed, things get kind of rough for them. The old timers try to take a last tour to raise some money, but instead it's the kids who are up to the latest trends in pop music who save the day.

Guy Kibbee is in this also, playing against type as a wise and sympathetic judge, usually the parts MGM reserved for Lewis Stone or Lionel Barrymore. A more typical Kibbee type would be the oafish tycoon in 42nd Street, but he's fine here.

Possibly director Busby Berkeley wanted Kibbee, maybe as a good luck charm from that other breakthrough musical of his from his days at Warner Brothers. Of course the musical numbers in the show are set with the usual Berkeley surrealism, a little tempered though from his high flying days at Warner Brothers. That same year Berkeley had done a surreal type number in the Jeanette MacDonald-Lew Ayres film Broadway Serenade and it laid an egg. Someone at MGM must have reined him in.

Babes In Arms retains all its charms from 1939 mainly because Mickey Rooney is infectious and Judy Garland's singing is eternal.

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7 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Mickey Rooney does it all!, 24 October 2005

Author: madformickey05 from United States

Babes In Arms is one of my favorite movies of all time. I will never forget seeing this film. In fact, it was the first Mickey Rooney film I ever saw. Mickey Rooney shows off all of his talents here, proving why he was Hollywood's biggest star. Also, earning a much deserved Oscar nominations. Mickey and Judy always charm the pants off of me. Hollywood will never know two more talented teenagers. If you want a good laugh just watch Mickey's impersonations of Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore. Very impressive stuff. Judy is simply gorgeous in this film as Mickey's girlfriend. The Rooney/Garland chemistry is unmatched to this day. For great music and fun, check out this classic musical.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Come, let's put on a show!, 7 March 2006

Author: jotix100 from New York

This 1939 musical reflects the tastes of the American public of that era. As such, "Babes in Arms", proved to be a favorite film that made a lot of money for the studio. The young stars of this film proved to be the main attraction for watching it more than sixty years after it was done.

"Babes in Arms" was a Broadway musical by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers. Like most of those movies of that time, the creative people in the studio took liberties, incorporating material that was not in the original theater work. Busby Berkeley, the genius of those musical films, was at the helm. It's easy to see his imprint all over the movie in the way he stages the big musical numbers and move his players to get a maximum result out of them.

Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland were two young actors at the time that were good in whatever they did together. The pair showed an amazing amount of charisma in their musical numbers as well as in the over all chemistry in all their scenes together. Mickey Rooney plays the earnest Mickey Moran, the son of vaudevillians, who wants to make a name for himself. Judy Garland is Patsy Barton, a girl-next-door type that is sweet, wise and patient, even when Mickey is dazzled by the film star that wants to back their show in order to have the lead in it.

The other players are excellent, which is not saying much, as MGM and the other studios were blessed with solid talent that went from film to film doing amazing work in whatever picture they appeared. Charles Winninger, Guy Kibee, Betty Jaynes, Douglas McPhail, and the wonderful Margaret Hamilton appear in supporting roles.

Enjoy the infectious actors of this movie and the Rodgers and Hart music, as well as the other songs that were added to it. Busby Berkeley did a marvelous job with the film that shows a less stressful time in the country.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Judy Judy Judy! (And Some Others), 1 March 2001
Author: jamison-2

This movie was done right after "Wizard of Oz" and shows Judy Garland in a more appropriate role for her age. It is great to see her and Mickey-- the "Good Morning" duet at the beginning is just priceless! Watch the opera versus swing number she does with Betty Jaynes and you can almost imagine the short "Every Sunday" with Deanna Durbin being an influence. June Preisser plays a spirited Shirley Temple parody, which was weird because I could have sworn Shirley Temple was being signed, or soon to be signed to MGM. Unfortunately, they try to make Judy be the homely one, which mystifies me because she looked absolutely gorgeous in this film. Good songs, and good numbers throughout. Yes, the minstrel scene near the end will make your jaw drop, but if we didn't have things like this on film, we would never know how it really was back then, and therefore not know how hard it really was.

Oh, and Mickey Rooney was good, too. Hyper, but good.

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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
I admit, i'm a sucker for good song and dance., 30 January 2006

Author: jackhammer111 from United States

This is not good because it's a Busby Berkley film. It's not good because of the corn fed mom country and apple-pie sentiment. It's not good because of the Rogers and hart score.

This is great to watch because it comes from the hard years of the depression where even in hard times young people learned how to sing, or dance, or act, or sing dance and act.

This large cast of performers is packed with showbiz musical theater talent born of Vaudeville, that represents an era that was unparalleled and we will never see again. For all his goofiness Rooney does it all here. And Judy, oh dear Judy, she shines in absolutely every thing she does. Giving more than we have a right to expect in every thing she does.

Even with it's flaws as an over the top movie, the black face routine is not defensible even in it's own time, there are moments in this moving where if you don't see the awesome musical theater talent of the whole cast of "PERFORMERS", you are miserable indeed.

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7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
The beginning of the musical barnyard., 22 August 2003
Author: movibuf1962 from Washington, DC

I just saw it on TCM, after finally acquiring cable. It's sweet. I imagine the original stage score was sharper and more adult, but you must know by now that Hollywood has been tampering with the scores of stage musicals since the year 1. When they filmed GAY DIVORCE they eliminated the entire score- save one little song danced by Fred Astaire. There's been stage-to-screen tampering done with SHOW BOAT, ON THE TOWN, BRIGADOON, SWEET CHARITY, and A CHORUS LINE, to name a few. And Rodgers & Hart were decidedly more sophisticated, adult composers; they had to endure the wrath of the puritanical Hollywood image back then. This is why I've always preferred musicals originally created for the screen; no one looking for a stage predecessor would be offended. As it is, they did keep "The Lady is A Tramp" in the background and allowed "Where or When" to be performed as a slightly botched band rehearsal. But I love the staging of the title song: a march through the street, gathering more and more teens as they go, with its bonfire-rally finale; and Judy Garland's torch solo "I Cried For You" is a stunning piece of poignancy which makes you forget that she is only 17 years old. She does a magnificent job of grounding the overly ecstatic Mickey Rooney. As for dated film accusations- yes, it is dated; America just entered World War II at this movie's release, and it's probably no coincidence that the film's finale "God's Country" is an especially long, uplifting musical sequence. I mean, how ageless can it be with Mickey Rooney doing an impersonation of President Roosevelt?!

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Good, but not Great, 5 December 2004

Author: Garrett Morgan (gmorgan@nyu.edu)

This Busby Berkeley musical of the 1930s represents Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland at their best, which in the end really doesn't say "greatness." The film, which involves a recurring reminiscence on the "nostalgia" of the 1910s, is often over-acted, over-sung, and over-choreographed. Judy Garland's portrayal of a girl in love but shunned is reminiscent of almost all of the MGM musical roles in which she partook during her stint that lasted into the late 1940s. The minstrel act is a particularly interesting look at the virulent racism that still plagued American cinema during the Studio Age-Judy Garland in blackface is perhaps one of the most frightening images I have ever encountered.

Though, one cannot approach a film like this with more than a hint of cynicism: Busby Berkeley is arguably the greatest choreographer in the history of film, and though he does not show off the spectacle of his earlier films, like Gold Diggers of 1933 and Gold Diggers of 1935 (which he did not direct), his dance numbers are interesting (for instance, when the town's teenagers partake in a book-burning, throwing into the flames symbols of conformity). The film is sweet, fresh, and bright, and, as the first Arthur Freed musical, serves as one of his better (though certainly not his best).

In all, I give it a 3 out of 4 stars (***).

On a side note, three of the songs that appear in Singing in the Rain appear in this film, predating the Gene Kelly musical by over 15 years: Good Morning, Good Morning, Singing in the Rain (which appears in a montage showing previous MGM musicals), and You Are My Lucky Star.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Enjoyable fresh musical., 5 September 2008

Author: Boba_Fett1138 from Groningen, The Netherlands

Former child-stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland both star in this movie about two young talented artist who try to make it in the world of show-business. It wasn't the first movie they appeared in together and it also wouldn't be the last. They appeared in several Andy Hardy movies together for instance, in which Mickey Rooney played the title role.

Judy Garland was actually still only 17 when she appeared in the movie, the same year she did "The Wizard of Oz" and also Mickey Rooney looked like he was 15, while he was actually around 19 years old at the time. Both also play young teenagers in this movie and it earned Mickey Rooney actually an Oscar nomination. There of course weren't a lot of musicals around at the time which purely had teenagers in it. In that regard this movie is a refreshing little entry in the musical genre.

It's an enjoyable and obviously light movie. But this of course also has as a result that the movie doesn't really ever reaches the a level of true greatness. The movie is enjoyable but just nothing more than that. It's obviously rather formulaic and predictable but this doesn't take away the entertainment value of it all. The movie is dragging in some parts but then again which '30's movie doesn't do so in parts? The movie perhaps also doesn't end in the way as it should have had, when some more sentimental themes start to kick in.

In all fairness, the movie features some good songs. I'm normally not particularly too fond of songs featured in most musical movies but this movie does form an exception. Nothing I would be singing along with but it's nice sounding and of course gets performed by some capable artist.

I enjoyed watching this movie simply for what it was.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Berkley's test movie with Garland, 10 March 2000

Author: Minty-5 from Sydney, Australia

The only purpose of "Babes in Arms" is to prove with the unlikely gathered support of the whole neighbourhood which happens to be manifested by budding vaudevillians, the war battle cry not to be upheld is 'Come on, let's put on a show!'

Yet what an interestingly talented field of teenage talent, not to mention an interesting case study of youth rebellion, pre "Rebel Without a Cause" period. It proves how easily Hollywood could provide ample entertainment in the Golden Era, and with all its simplicity, all the reasons in the world as to why Hollywood simply cannot do this today.

Although the predominance of Mickey Rooney is obvious throughout over Judy, he was nonetheless a delight to watch, comic, charming, musical and repressed talents and all, receiving a well deserved Oscar Nomination up against some of the biggest names of Hollywood in its greatest year. Judy, with little mention required, was once again brilliant in one of her earliest starring vehicles.

The supporting cast seems to be in need of a desperate stretch in order to keep up with a gold mine of talent. Usage of expensive looking dresses amongst the backyard setting doesn't assist, and neither do seventeen year old operatic divas. The older members of the cast, however, seem to be doing alright, despite the fact their competition is superseding them in real life as well. Otherwise, the rest of the supporting actors in unconvincing scenery settings, seem to be able to only follow Busby Berkley's direction with certain lines on repeat.

Music dominates within the Rodgers and Hart play, although much of the original score disappeared, leaving two songs contributed by the duo, including the title song. The highlight of the program is "Good Morning", which is probably also remembered for being reused with different lyrical arrangements in the MGM musical masterpiece "Singin' in the Rain". This, and most of the other songs remains the high point of the musical.

It is obvious that the intent of the movie, is not, plot. I can now pride myself on being successfully able to predict every occurrence ahead of time for the first time in my life, a fact I am usually oblivious to even in the most screamingly awakening of circumstances. What puzzled me was the reason as to why they didn't attempt "Broadway Melody of 1939". Or was there such a thing?

However, this continued to pave the way with gold for two of the best Hollywood stars. All in all, this is a great pleasure to watch. And for an evening in, it is great fun for the young at heart.

Rating: 8/10

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