SnoopyStyle
Mickey Moran (Mickey Rooney) was born in 1921 to vaudeville stars but vaudeville itself fails in 1928 with the arrival of the talkies. Mickey writes "Good Morning" and plays the piano with singing partner Patsy Barton (Judy Garland). With his parents going on the road by themselves, Mickey proposes for the kids to put on a show themselves.This has the great pairing of Rooney and Garland although they're not always together. It has great songs including "Good Morning" which would hit much bigger in the musical "Singin' in the Rain". I do have to warn about some full-on blackface minstrels due to its era. It's generally Rooney at his youthful height. It has some great song and dance although a big one is the minstrels.
Byrdz
"The Wizard of Oz" had been filmed by this time but not released. Judy was no longer the little girl in OZ but on occasion we can hear Dorothy in the farm yard talking to the three farm hands. And who is that there as the evil busybody trying to take the "kids" away from their parents? Why, it's Margaret Hamilton herself.All that aside ... it's an OK film. Not GREAT, but OK. One of the more amazing things is that Mickey Rooney was Academy nominated as Best Actor for this one... 'tis a puzzlement, that ! He does some really good impressions including Gable and Lionel Barrymore tho.Busby Berkley seemed confused and not at all his usual dizzy choreographing self.Am used to the "kids" being cast by actors too old to be seen as teens and this film has plenty of those. The outstandingly good singer Douglas McPhail was 25 when he was in Babes. He seemed particularly out of kilter age and talent-wise. His voice is SOOOO trained and good that he seems a bit out of place next to the movie voices of the rest of the cast... reading his IMDb biography was particularly sad.The less said about the notorious minstrel number the better. The child orchestra and arm waving conductor is also better not even brought up...and the diapered kids in the finale ... urk ! All in all... not the best of the Rooney-Garland "Let's put on a show" films but it was a start and there have been worse films made.
Michael_Elliott
Babes in Arms (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) MGM musical was clearly produced to try and show off their young talent. Kids of vaudeville families need to raise some cash because the talkie's are killing their parents careers. Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland play two of the teens who decide to put on a show to raise money and show that vaudeville can be popular like it once was. I had heard a lot of great things about this film but in the end it was rather middle ground more than instant classic. There's a lot to enjoy here but in the end the story itself is rather weak. I guess you really can't blame the studio too much as they were clearly just using this as a way to check their young stars and see who could cut it and who couldn't. The funny thing is that we've got Rooney acting just like he did in BOYS TOWN and Garland acting sweet and innocent, which would become her staple. There's also Margaret Hamilton playing the same type of character that she'd also play in THE WIZARD OF OZ. Rooney and Garland do great work together and their chemistry really jumps off the screen and that includes the film's greatest moment where the two sing "Good Morning". "Oh, Susanna" makes for a very strange moment near the end where we get a minstrel show with Rooney and Garland in blackface. This sequence really stands out and is quite strange to watch today but if you watch enough of these old movies you'll see that many A-list stars appeared in blackface. Guy Kibbee, Charles Winninger, Henry Hull, Grace Hayes and Joseph Grehan round out the cast. One of the more interesting scenes is one where Rooney acts out a scene and impersonates Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore. In the end, this is a pretty nice film that fans of the stars will want to see but this certainly isn't the masterpiece some make it out as.
Rob-120
Mickey Moran (Mickey Rooney) and Patsy Barton (Judy Garland) are teenage sweethearts and children of longtime vaudeville families. But vaudeville has suffered since the introduction of talking pictures, and their parents are out of work. When Judge John Black (Guy Kibbee) threatens to send the children of the actors off to a work farm, Mickey and Patsy lead the vaudeville kids in a rebellion. Using that old reliable stand-by -- "Hey, let's put on a show!" -- the vaudeville kids decide to prove that they are capable of supporting themselves. They develop a show that they hope to take to Broadway.As usual for screen musicals of this time, the Broadway-to-Hollywood transition does not go well. The Broadway version of "Babes In Arms" was a fairly-successful and watchable musical. But when MGM bought the rights to it, they threw out the script and most of the songs and started all over again. They tossed out classic songs like "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "Johnny One-Note," in favor of mediocre songs like "Good Morning" and "God's Country." Rooney gives a decent performance, and Garland is well on her way to becoming America's Sweetheart. But this movie has NOT held up well over time. There is a nerve-grating "Minstrel Show" number at the end, with Rooney and Garland in blackface. Also, there is a disturbing scene where the vaudeville kids light a bonfire in the middle of town and use it to burn books of authority. (Didn't anybody in Hollywood watch the newsreels at this time, and see what was going on in Berlin?) But even more so than that, the plot is just a clothesline to string together musical numbers. Compared to today's musicals, where you have interesting things going on in between the musical numbers, the Rooney-Garland romance story in "Babes in Arms" is just marking time between songs.The movie is worth watching to see Garland in the prime of her teen sweetheart years, and possibly to check out the dance numbers. But overall, this musical is best forgotten.
AD
