SnoopyStyle Larry Hart (Mickey Rooney) is an energetic songwriter. Herb Fields brings in Richard Rodgers to play his song and becomes his writing partner. The movie is told through Rodgers' eyes. Hart is taken with singer Peggy Lorgan McNeil. Fields gains some success and brings in his friends for a new Broadway show. Rodgers proposes to older leading actress Joyce Harmon but she turns him down.This is a fictionalized account of the music writing duo. The real story is nowhere to be found and shouldn't be expected especially during that era. It does feel scattered following both guys. Tom Drake doesn't have quite the charisma. Rooney and Garland have a final pairing. It's old fashion including the musical performances. At least, it has the songs. It's old fashion in many different ways.

DKosty123 After watching this one, the main reasons to watch this are the musical moments. Those moments are topped by -Lena Horne is great doing 2 numbers.Judy Garland with and without Mickey Rooney is great in 2 numbers.Perry Como is excellent too, though today's generation is wondering who Perry is pretty much?As far as the story, yes it is creative fiction making Mickey Rooney act depressed when the real reason for being depressed is that the real person he is based on is gay, but that fact can not be revealed in 1948. Actually Rooney is the only person in the cast to get an acting role pretty much. Everyone else is kind of just there.The party reveals this as you see a bunch of people hanging out until 4AM and then going home. They appear to be a bunch of aimless vagabonds who are just at the big party to be seen.This is a great power cast, and Norman Taurog is a solid director who did some interesting work with a lot of films. Here though, it is a sequence to sequence driven film with music carrying the day and night.This film proves entertainment can be produced with just music but a classic film needs a better script. Since Gay is taboo in 1948, that could not happen. Maybe in a guts check move, a major studio could try to do the true story in one of these from back then? No, I do not think a studio will try to do that unless they can find a way to make money. In today's films, making money is the story.This big budget MGM film is all about making money by using a super star cast and great music to celebrate peace, but does not have the freedom to tell the true tale.

MartinHafer If you want to see a good bio-pic about Rogers and Hart, it apparently doesn't exist. Instead, MGM did what studios often did during that era...they whitewashed the folks' lives and used a semi- fictionalized bio-pic as an excuse to present a myriad of song and dance numbers. These numbers feature a little of everyone from MGM...Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Ann Sothern, Cyd Charisse, Perry Como and many others. The overall result is a rather bland and episodic film. So, if you'd like to know about the real Lorenz Hart (he was gay after all...but oddly really likes girls in this film), you might want to skip this film and read about him instead. The same could be said about "Night and Day", Warner Brothers bio-pic of Cole Porter that stripped away the gay and presents a very, very sanitized version of his life.So am I saying that "Words and Music" is a bad film? Yes and no. As a bio-pic, it stinks even though the actors try their best because it's a lie. But you might enjoy the production numbers...they are often very colorful and lovely.

weezeralfalfa Lary Hart wasn't around when this pseudobiopic was made, but Richard Rogers reportedly disliked everything about it, except Janet Leigh as his girlfriend-wife. That's not a good recommendation, but no doubt Rogers was much harder to please than the average viewer. I certainly find quite a few musical numbers I liked, but the choice of which numbers to include and exclude, and who should sing certain numbers certainly could have been improved.Why was wooden, sleepy-eyed, Perry Como featured more than anybody else? Presumably, MGM got him cheap as a loan from Fox, because his wooden acting in his several Fox musicals was not well received. Everyone else got a maximum of 2 musical numbers, but Como got 3, plus 2 more that were deleted! His "Blue Room" number, with Cyd Charisse as dancer and lover, was OK, but only because of Cyd's presence. His long "Mountain Greenery" number, with extensive chorus help, could have been deleted as ordinary. His near ending encore of the standard "With a Song in my Heart" was OK, but mostly because it was abbreviated.On the other hand, Como's best song "My Heart Stood Still" was deleted!(Hear it as an audio outtake on the 2007 DVD release). It would have made a great finale song for the film!Betty Garrett just wasn't right to sing "There's a Small Hotel". She gave it no life. I'm sure Rooney would have done much better job. MGM also had Sinatra under contract. Of course, he later sang this in "Pal Joey". On the other hand, "Way Out West" was perfect for Garrett, as evidenced in the audio outtake on my DVD. But 90% of her rendition was cut from the final film! Why was she cast as Hart's on and off girl friend , being much taller than Rooney? Jane Powell was available at MGM and was shorter than Rooney, besides being a great singer and passable dancer. I guess the point was to make Hart more self conscious of his short stature, by pairing him with a fairly tall woman.The elaborate June Allison-starring "Thou Swell" was OK, if a bit long. Like Gsrrett, she didn't have the greatest singing voice for straight romantic ballads, being best with comical, satirical and novelty songs, with light dancing back and forth across the stage, where she looked good.The Gene Kelly & Vera-Ellen "Slaughter on 10th Ave." was an interesting arty ballet number, though I didn't like the ending. But why was their number "Falling in Love with Love" deleted? Certainly, this standard should have been included. It could have replaced the rather ordinary number "Where's That Rainbow", featuring an expendable Ann Southern. Also, it would have been nice to see a classic Kelly-Cid dance number, especially since they costarred in several musicals.Perhaps they could have danced to the conspicuously absent "Bewitched", "Falling in Love with Love", or "I Feel at Home with You" Cyd's duet rendition of "On Your Toes" could have been deleted as ordinary. However, the follow up "This Can't Be Love" extravaganza, with many pink ballet dancers, and featuring Cyd plus a blond companion, was visually spectacular.Judy Garland's two numbers, with or without Rooney, were among the best productions. Mel Torme's rendition of "Blue Moon", trying to cheer up Hart, was also excellent.We could have used another Torme ballad: one of the missing standards mentioned above. Lena Horne's two numbers were OK, although she's not my favorite singer. Rooney's "Manhattan" was also good. Rooney did the best job he could trying to portray Hart's pluses and minuses, but the audience mostly had to read between the lines to get the probable real reason for his self-destructive behavior and early death.