1h 34min | Comedy, Musical | 13 October 1939
Director: Busby Berkeley
Stars: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger.
Eddie Larkin ... assistant dance director (uncredited)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031066/
54th credit of 171 ('27, '32-2014, '17?) for MR (b. 1920, d. 2014); 8th of 34 ('36-'63) for JG (b. 1922); their 3rd of 10 pairings but their 1st musical together.
So they're young, but not really children at this point. Some of the kids putting on the show are indeed kids, but the show doesn't rest on their shoulders as it does on MR & JG.
JG again refers to herself as an ugly duckling. (I forgot to comment on The Wizard of Oz (8'39) that she looked really pretty: good makeup (adult but fresh-faced) despite the gingham dress, and the pigtails were more long ringlet than braid, so not really farmgirlish.) She's made to look younger here than in Oz, or maybe it's the lack of color.
Two of the songs are brought from the Rodgers & Hart stage musical of the same name/plot, but the rest are Brown/Freed, one Arlen/Harburg, and a bunch of Stephen Foster in the Minstrel medley. That Minstrel number is not very good, very much NOT worth the grease paint on which it relies. They do a big (non-minstrel) production number near the end, but it doesn't last long enough.
The 2 R&H songs are Babes in Arms, presented as a rallying cry/march. The other is Where or When, one of their best, sung by the boring operatic 2nd leads. Don't know who my ideal singer for this would be, but not them.
This is Arthur Freed's first producer credit; he was associate producer on WofO.
In the Tap! Appendix for Mickey & Judy.
In the Tap! Appendix for Mickey & Judy.
MGM, dir. Berkeley; 6
