With only three film appearances together, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland became a team with enough dynamite to blow memories of Judy and Mickey out of the barn. Fresh from Broadway, Gene never looked back as he took Hollywood by storm, and within a few years, was rivaling another dancer named Astaire who came back from a brief retirement to give Mr. Kelly, if I may, a run for his money. Here, Gene and Judy get a war story, timely for the time, even if the war they were fighting was the first World War, not the then current second one. They are members of separate vaudeville acts who come together as one, he replacing her old partner George Murphy (not a bad hoofer himself), and as fast as you can scramble to find a big yellow tulip, they are in love. But when their chance to hit the big time through the Palace in New York comes along, Gene is drafted, and his old selfish nature erupts which makes him not only unpatriotic but his own worst enemy.
Like "This is the Army!", this takes the audience out to view the entertainers on the front, sometimes in dangerous areas of combat, and after realizing the mistake he made, Kelly is desperate not only to fight but to make his girl proud and win her back. But will he find her on the French trenches? Can Judy belt? Can Gene tap? Will Leo roar? Along the way, there's Judy and Gene "Ballin' the Jack", turnin' out the title song and briefly singing the rousing "When You Wore a Tulip" which had a hit recording where the two addressed each other by their real names. "I wore a big red rose!", to which Judy replies "A big fat rose", a memorable duet truncated for the movie much to this Judy fan's disappointment.
Judy also gives a fantastic rendition of "After You've Gone", one of the best torch numbers of her career, showing all the emotion she would later empower with "A Star is Born". Gene's selfish character may have made certain audience members "boo" during the war, and it does seem as if he'll never turn over a new leaf or wake up and smell the chock full o' nuts. But MGM had "patriotism" on its mind in 1942, and there is no way it could let a leading man (especially a new one they intended to make a big star) remain "yeller". That old task masker Busby Berkley is once again at the helm of a Judy picture, and if he was taxing her as dramatized in her many biographies, it never shows. The chemistry between Judy and Gene is top dog and any indication of her teenage "Nobody's Baby" glamourless girl is totally gone. She's a star all the way from here, and Gene would rejoin her for two more musical ventures of varying themes where the memory of their first venture proved to be much more than a fluke.
Like "This is the Army!", this takes the audience out to view the entertainers on the front, sometimes in dangerous areas of combat, and after realizing the mistake he made, Kelly is desperate not only to fight but to make his girl proud and win her back. But will he find her on the French trenches? Can Judy belt? Can Gene tap? Will Leo roar? Along the way, there's Judy and Gene "Ballin' the Jack", turnin' out the title song and briefly singing the rousing "When You Wore a Tulip" which had a hit recording where the two addressed each other by their real names. "I wore a big red rose!", to which Judy replies "A big fat rose", a memorable duet truncated for the movie much to this Judy fan's disappointment.
Judy also gives a fantastic rendition of "After You've Gone", one of the best torch numbers of her career, showing all the emotion she would later empower with "A Star is Born". Gene's selfish character may have made certain audience members "boo" during the war, and it does seem as if he'll never turn over a new leaf or wake up and smell the chock full o' nuts. But MGM had "patriotism" on its mind in 1942, and there is no way it could let a leading man (especially a new one they intended to make a big star) remain "yeller". That old task masker Busby Berkley is once again at the helm of a Judy picture, and if he was taxing her as dramatized in her many biographies, it never shows. The chemistry between Judy and Gene is top dog and any indication of her teenage "Nobody's Baby" glamourless girl is totally gone. She's a star all the way from here, and Gene would rejoin her for two more musical ventures of varying themes where the memory of their first venture proved to be much more than a fluke.