The Harvey Girls (1946) Judy Garland Takes on the Wild, Glossy West

"Always please the cranks: Anything which suits a finicky customer is bound to be more than satisfactory to the great run of folks who take what is handed them without complaint."  This is one of the 12 points listed in an employee directive for the famed Harvey House restaurants which dotted the mid-west and western landscapes of late 19th and early 20th century America.  Developed by entrepreneur Fred Harvey, the chain of restaurants and lunch counters became the subject of a 1946 hit musical starring Judy Garland and sported a lively soundtrack which included the Oscar winning tune, On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

The Harvey Girls centers on Susan Bradley (Garland), a young Ohio lass who is traveling via the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe rail line to Sandrock, Arizona to marry H. H. Hartsey, with whom she has a shared correspondence for "lonelyhearts."  She finds his letters of the utmost in romance and poetry.  En route on the train she meets the "Harvey Girls," a group of fresh-faced young women from the east who are headed west to wait table in the Harvey House restaurant.



When Susan arrives in Sandrock (to much musical fanfare....it IS MGM you know), she finds Mr. Hartsey (Chill Wills) is far from the romantic figure she imagined by way of their poetic epistles.  In fact, she discovers that he didn't even write them and their original author was none other than Ned Trent, handsome owner of the local saloon and love interest of Sandrock's head "bad girl" Em (Angela Lansbury, gorgeous in full Technicolor).  She breaks her "engagement" (in a mutual understanding), tells off Ned Trent and joins up with the Harvey girls.  The rest is colorful, glorious musical hokem.

Based on a novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Harvey Girls was originally meant to be a straight dramatic picture starring studio blondie Lana Turner (be interesting to see how that would have turned out).  Roger Edens, an associate producer at MGM and a mentor of Judy Garland, wanted to change the venue after viewing a performance of the then popular stage show Oklahoma!  The angle was turned into a western themed musical comedy and Garland, after her success the previous year in Meet Me in St. Louis, was the natural choice to star.

She didn't want to do it, preferring to work with Fred Astaire in Yolanda and the Thief, which her soon to be husband, Vincent Minnelli, was directing.  She was persuaded to take on the Harvey project and in turn created one of the biggest hits of the year (Yolanda on the other hand lost money).  But it wasn't without problems on the set.  Judy was late almost 40 times and was absent 11 total days during production.  Deadpan comedienne Virginia O'Brien, who played Harvey girl Alma, was pregnant and the sense of urgency to get her scenes completed was eroded by Garland's absences, causing O'Brien to virtually vanish from the film's second half.



John Hodiak played Ned Trent, a role that was originally considered for Clark Gable, who had just returned from military service in World War II.  Aside from O'Brien, who did a splendid job as the man-hungry Alma, the top notch supporting cast included Ray Bolger, Cyd Charisse, in her first speaking role (though she did plenty of her signature dancing as well), the always entertaining Marjorie Main and the lovely young Lansbury as the tough talkin', hard livin' Em. (A press release from December 1944 proclaimed Garland, Hodiak and Ann Sothern as the film's stars, the latter in the role of Em.  Lucille Ball was also discussed for this role.)

But The Harvey Girls was first and foremost a musical and the musical numbers were a lively grouping of rousing ditties by Harry Warren and the great Johnny Mercer.  Rising to the top of the heap was the afore-mentioned On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, an energetic extravaganza of muslin, lipstick and tobacco juice. Several versions of the hit tune were recorded, including one by Garland.  The one to become the biggest hit however, featured the song's lyricist Johnny Mercer along with the Pied Pipers.  Just as full of pep are the numbers The Train Must Be Fed, and The Wild, Wild West featuring O'Brien's career defining deadpan.

Critic Bosley Crowther wrote in January 1946:  "Miss Garland, of course, is at the center of most of the activity and handles herself in pleasing fashion, up to and including the high notes. John Hodiak acts rather surly as the saloon proprietor and Angela Lansbury, pouty and pomaded, looks dazzling as the queen of the den. Everyone else enters lightly into this beefsteak and hors d'oeuvre opera. It may be a rather lofty tribute to Fred Harvey's girls, but it's a show."  And a show indeed it was.

Meet Me In St. Louis (1944): Have Yourself a Charming Little Movie

You like splashy color? With Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) you got splashy color! You also have one of the most charming, enduring and elegant classic musicals ever put to film. Developed by the MGM musical powerhouse of producer Arthur Freed and director Vincent Minnelli, it showcased the fragile songbird Judy Garland at the height of her fame and talent and became a box office bonanza for the mega studio in the winter of 1944-45.

Set in the Missouri burg of the title in 1903, the film centers on the Smith family, middle class and ready to see and celebrate the coming Louisiana Exposition of 1904 but instead of a straight narrative, St. Louis is really a set of colorful, sentimental vignettes set to some of the catchiest tunes and loveliest melodies to come from Hollywood in the 1940’s, with Garland of course taking on the bulk of the lilting tones. Along with “The Boy Next Door” and “Under the Bamboo Tree” with the precocious moppet Margaret O’Brien, Judy and gang belt out one of the most glorious four minute interludes of musical magic known to the golden age of American cinema with “The Trolley Song”. Written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, “The Trolley Song” was not only nominated for an Academy Award as the year’s Best Song (it lost out to “Swinging on a Star” from Going My Way) but had several very popular renditions that hit the airwaves during the decade. The most enduring song to come from the St. Louis musical resume however, was Judy’s poignant holiday signature, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. Hauntingly beautiful in its delivery both visually and audibly, “Christmas” has become a standard on Yuletide play lists.

 

In an auburn wig with very heavy bangs, Garland had shed the “baby fat” much discussed by her studio boss Louis B. Mayer, but her trimmer figure could still pack a vocal wallop and did so. She is handsomely supported by a superlative array of MGM talent including the above mentioned O’Brien, Lucille Bremer, Mary Astor, Leon Ames, Marjorie Main, Harry Davenport and Tom Drake, as the “boy next door”. The entire cast charms its way from scene to scene evoking the feel and sound of turn of the century Americana via the MGM backlot.
 

Off-screen the film’s star found her own “boy next door” in director Minnelli. A confusing and tumultuous relationship, the two were married and begat Liza with a Z. However, whatever problems their future held, the two created a film musical masterpiece and the biggest financial hit MGM released since Gone With The Wind. There were many nostalgic period copy cats (Summer Holiday and Fox’s Centennial Summer) but none even came close to this jewel.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

For all the readers of Classic Movies Digest and classic film fans everywhere, here are a few reminders of the magic and glamour of Christmas past with a few of filmdoms most magical and glamorous stars. Merry Christmas to you all.

A peek at Betty Grable's fabulously famous gams as she spreads Yuletide cheer



Judy Garland and choir at MGM getting in the Christmas spirt in 1937

Who knew Bette Davis could be so colorfully festive at the holidays?

Beautiful Paulette Goddard by her tree....say, where's the mistletoe?

Judy Garland: Before the Yellow Brick Road

Today, Frances Gumm, or Judy Garland as she is better known, would have been 87 years old. So much has been written about her life, films, songs, marriages, addictions and death. Volumes have been written about The Wizard of Oz (1939), her most famous film, alone. But the time in Garland's life just before she became a superstar, just before she hit the big time in Oz, is the one most fascinating to this blogger.

Garland joined the MGM family as contract player in 1935. Before that she was "Baby" Frances, the youngest member of a singing vaudeville act with her two sisters called The Gumm Sisters, which had been performing since the mid 1920's. After changing their name to The Garland Sisters (supposedly by famed comedian George Jessel) and Baby Frances to Judy (supposedly after a Hoagy Carmichael song), the group started to wind down by the mid 30's and Garland's mother, Ethel, a notorious stage parent, focused all of her attention on her youngest child, who was by far the most talented. After several auditions at various studios in Hollywood, Judy sang "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart" for MGM head Louis B. Mayer and was signed by that studio in September 1935, to a contract that paid her $100 per week. Her excitement was short lived when her father, Frank, died in November. Judy was heartbroken, having been closer to her father than anyone else. She and Frank would be separated for long periods of time when Ethel would take the singing trio on the road to tour.

Though a contract player at the biggest studio in town, MGM was at odds as to how best to fit the 13 year old into its stable of stars. She wasn't a child and she wasn't a woman. She wasn't even a child/woman like her peer Lana Turner, who would join the studio two years later. With nothing set for her at Metro, Judy made her feature film debut on loan-out to 20th Century-Fox for a football folly called Pigskin Parade (1936). When she returned to her home studio, she was scheduled to sing "You Made Me Love You" to Clark Gable for his 36th birthday party, given to him at the studio. A special version of the song had been reworked by Garland's MGM mentor, musical arranger Roger Edens, as "Dear Mr. Gable." The performance and song were such a hit, a segment was integrated into the film Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937) with Judy singing the song to a framed photograph of the heartthrob.

Next she was teamed for the first time with child actor Mickey Rooney, who would become her frequent co-star and lifelong friend. The film was Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937) and sparked a certain on screen chemistry between the two youngsters that would be expanded on by the studio for several years. They were first re-teamed the next year in Love Finds Andy Hardy, one of the best installments of the family oriented Andy Hardy series. As her popularity and work schedule grew, medication began being prescribed for all aspects of her life. Uppers to wake her up for long and laborious days on the set, downers to help her sleep at night and amphetamines to control her tendency for weight gain. Louis B. Mayer would call the poorly postured, chubby and awkward teenager, "my little hunchback." All this went on with the approval and full cooperation of Ethel who wasn't going to rock the boat (in later years, Garland would call her mother the "real Wicked Witch of the West"). It was the impetus to her lifelong dependence on drugs and alcohol.

Garland's on screen persona became the plain and dumpy girl next door, the heartsick teen whose crush on a boy could be mortifyingly painful. Not exactly star making qualities. But when she opened her mouth to sing, which she inevitably did in most all her films, that was when the screen came to life and what MGM wanted to cash in on with the right film project. The soul wrenching voice which emanated such vulnerability and pathos, would wow audiences every time and the electrifying talent that was Judy Garland was on it way.

In 1937, Metro had bought the film rights to The Wizard of Oz, a children's story by L. Frank Baum. As pre production began, the top studio brass was set on getting child star Shirley Temple to play the heroine Dorothy for the $2 million + production. Temple, who was under contract to rival 20th Century-Fox, had been the #1 box office star in 1935, 1936 and 1937. It would have been quite a coup for MGM to be able to borrow her, but Fox refused. It wasn't going to share the bounty of its top star. So Metro went with its plan B: Judy Garland. Much more mature physically than Temple (at pre production, Temple was 9, Garland 16), Judy's budding breasts were bound with tape, her hair pigtailed and her make up very minimal, in an attempt to make her younger looking for the role of the Kansas farm girl.

Though not an immediate financial success (it would be many years before the film would recoup its production costs), The Wizard of Oz was a classic and made Garland a star. The film's Academy Award winning song "Over the Rainbow" would forever be associated with the actress. With all the trials and tribulations she would face in her tumultuous life, Judy Garland continued to sing and along with her massive repertoire of songs, she would always be remembered as Dorothy.