I Could Go on Singing (1963)

Director:

Ronald Neame

Writers:

Robert Dozier (story)
Mayo Simon (screenplay)

Release Date:

11 October 1963 (Finland)

Genre:

Drama | Musical

Tagline:

IT'S JUDY! Lighting up the lonely stage in the singing-acting role of her life!

Plot:

Jenny Bowman is a successful singer who, while on an engagement at the London Palladium, visits David Donne to see her son Matt again...

Plot Keywords:

Singer | Opening Night | Epitaph | Tombstone | Cobweb

Cast

Judy Garland	...	Jenny Bowman
Dirk Bogarde	...	David Donne
Jack Klugman	...	George
Aline MacMahon	...	Ida
Gregory Phillips	...	Matt
Russell Waters	...	Reynolds
Pauline Jameson	...	Miss Plimpton
Jeremy Burnham	...	Young Hospital Doctor
Eric Woodburn
Robert Rietty
Gerald Sim	...	Assistant Mgr. at the Palladium
David Lee	...	Pianist
Leon Cortez	...	The Busker
Al Paul
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Paul Layton
Joey Luft	...	Extra on boat
Lorna Luft	...	Extra on boat

Also Known As:

The Lonely Stage (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:S | Sweden:11 | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, England, UK

Company:

Barbican Films

Trivia:

Originally, Judy Garland had prerecorded the tender ballad "It Never Was You" (music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson) with full orchestral backing arranged and conducted by Mort Lindsey. When filming on a mock-up of the London Palladium stage, Miss Garland chose to sing live on the set, accompanied by just pianist David Lee. Capitol Records, in 2006, released the star's initial version on a CD collection called "The Essential Judy Garland." Her rendition used in the movie has been brought back on the CD soundtrack from the Collectables label.

Quotes:

Jenny Bowman: I can't be spread so thin, I'm just one person. I don't want to be rolled out like a pastry so everybody can get a nice big bite of me. I'm just me. I belong to myself. I can do whatever I damn well please with myself and nobody can ask any questions.
David Donne: Now you know that is not true, don't you?
Jenny Bowman: Well I'm not gonna do it anymore. And that's final! its just not worth all the deaths that I have to die.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Chop Suey (2001)

Soundtrack:

I COULD GO ON SINGING

Garland as Garland

Judy Garland is magnificent playing herself; sorry, playing Jenny Bowman, an American singer of a certain age, in London for a series of concerts at the Palladium. The movie is a mostly mediocre tale of mother love but as a showcase for Garland, both as actress and as a performer, (her scenes at the Palladium were probably as close as the movies ever came to capturing her on-stage persona), is it exhilarating and indelibly moving. By the time she gets around to her drunken 'I can't be spread so thin' speech all traces of the character have been wiped clean and it's Garland, raw and emotional, up there on the screen. She was never to make another film, which is probably just as well. With this you can say she went out on a high.

Co-star Dirk Bogarde fights a losing battle, (and he gets some terrible lines to say). He's a prissy, fussy stuffed shirt and you can never believe that he and Garland could ever have been romantically involved. There is also a wonderful turn from that great and perpetually undervalued actress Aline MacMahon as Garland's dresser-cum-secretary-cum-companion. But it's Garland's show. The panavision frame can hardly contain her.