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	Babes on Broadway Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland MGM (Video & DVD), 1992 average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This was one of the few movies starring Richard Quine (in a supporting role) before he reached his acting zenith (Brad Craig in 1943's "We've Never Been Licked"), and in was good to see this outstanding future director in FRONT of the camera.


This is amazing!

I thought I was a fan of Judy Garland. I thought Mickey Rooney was "just okay." Then I saw this. What fun!!! These poor kids never made the money they were worth - and they were worked hard! You don't see talent like this today! So many scenes! So many costume changes! So many vignettes!

But I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I actually saw Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in BLACKFACE! I'm surprised this video hasn't been banned! (And I'm glad it hasn't - even though I was conflicted by my own fascination!) This is music - this is talent - this is history! No, we don't do this anymore - but we did. We did at a time and in a place when we didn't know any better. And it's a fascinating look at who we were - where we were - and with 20/20 hindsight, where we were going.

If you like Broadway, if you like musicals, if you like Judy Garland and/or Mickey Rooney, if you could only get one video to represent their career, this would be the one.

Go for it!


Showboat

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Judy and Mickey Directed by Busby Berkeley

BABES ON BROADWAY is a lively musical featuring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland singing and dancing up a storm. Busby Berkeley directing these two in their prime is bound to produce an entertaining movie even if the plot is just a trite story about two young people trying to make it big in New York. The supporting cast includes Richard Quine, Fay Bainter, Virginia Weidler, Ray McDonald, Donald Meek and Alexander Woollcott.

Mickey does several impersonations such as one of the equally energetic Carmen Miranda. This film definitely deserves a better reputation and a release as a DVD except maybe for one infamous and politically incorrect scene.

BABES ON BROADWAY was nominated for an Academy Award in 1942 for Best Song ("How About You"). The winner in that category was "White Christmas" from HOLIDAY INN.

Busby Berkeley had a hand in creating several other great musicals including 42ND STREET.

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Singing For the Kids

Babes on Broadway is another one of the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland teamings, and because of their chemistry, the film is pretty good. Rooney plays a guy who feels it is his destiny to make it big on Broadway. Although Garland has similar ambitions, she is not willing to step on other people to get what she wants. The two team up to start their own musical extravaganza to raise money for some poor children to visit the country, a dream that though promised has never materialized. With lots of talent in their hands but many problems to face, they unravel a simple but fun story.

Garland is at her most beautiful in this film, a true joy to watch. Seeing this film would make you think she'd be soon jumping into films as a romantic lead, not struggling to grow up on the screen. Her magical voice was both an asset and her downfall; it kept her typecast in sunny musicals. Rooney is a ball of energy as always, but somehow even moreso than ever. His impression of Carmen Miranda is very funny. Some might find him annoying, but his love for showing off is really catching, like a puppy doing tricks. Virginia Weidler does a good job as well as a secondary character and Ray McDonald does a great job dancing. Busby Berkeley directs the musical numbers, which is obvious by some of the overhead shots and the choreography.

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Burning Down the Robert E. Lee

I saw this one last night after a long ride home from the airport, in teeming rain, and one of my shoes had split its sole so I was squelching puddles in every step on the pavement. What I wanted was to get warm and forget about my worries, and usually a good Busby Berkeley movie will do that for me. I noticed that this picture isn't among the Berkeley films featured on the upcoming boxed DVD set, but since that release concentrates on the Warner Brothers years, I assumed that was why. But no. I forgot there was a blackface number ("Waiting for the Robert E. Lee") that not only sneaks into BABES ON BROADWAY but in fact it forms the finale, so you can hardly skip it or avoid it. Maybe that's why it's not being rushed into DVD, especially during Black History Month!

People say that Busby Berkeley had every right to use blackface at the time he did, citing the example of Al Jolson and other white stars who rose to fame in blackface parts. But watching BABES IN BROADWAY you get the feeling that the kids playing rhe parts were all born after the heyday of blackface and that this discarded genre was deliberately revived especially for this film, and that's a puzzler. 1941 was not the heyday of blackface. Indeed Jolson had already become a hasbeen--his own revival would come after the war, with the blackface played down, down, considerably down. Perhaps the germ of the idea stimulated Berkeley's piotorial imagination: row after row of plinking banjoes, strutting harlequin costumes, haystacks and the churning wheels of the big riverboats. It's pretty hard to sit through, though I don't know (strictly speaking) if it's the absolute worst of all the Busby Berkeley numbers I've seen, for there are others that flirt with the absolute calamity of tastelessness. People say if it wasn't for that very lack of taste, I guess really it's whatever the opposite of taste *is,* there wouldn't be a Busby Berkeley, that having no inhibitions allowed him to come up with the surrealist inspirations for which we love him so.

I don't know about that. People say that Shirley Temple might have played the Barbara Jo part that here is played by MGM stalwart Virginia Weidler, whom you either love or hate in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, and don't ask me which camp I'm in. I think Shirley found out she'd have to smear black makeup over her face in the finale and something, perhaps the whispered advice of her mentor Bill Bonagles Robinson, still resonated in her ear and she just stuck out her chin and said, "Mr. Studio Driver, take me back to the Fox lot please."

Virginia Weidler does a fine job by the way. I'm just kidding about her untakeability in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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