moonspinner55 Review of Babes on Broadway

Babes on Broadway (1941)

"I like banana splits, late supper at the Ritz, how about you?"

[4/10 · 3 September 2007]

The third (and arguably least interesting) of the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney musicals directed by Busby Berkeley, this time featuring Rooney in the more prominent role of a penniless supper-club hoofer in New York City who organizes a benefit for unfortunate children in order to attract Broadway producers; Garland, playing a failed telephone operator and singer, falls for Rooney despite the fact he's a selfish heel (which she calls him on). Fantasy youths in a fantasy New York putting on a fantasy show, but if you're attracted to overeager, ambitious kids who sing and dance tirelessly, it might be enjoyable. Rooney, who constantly has one eye on the camera and never stops playing to the back rows, has one very fine scene where he shows Judy his new watch; otherwise, whether dressed up as a Scottish rogue, a farm yokel, or Carmen Miranda, Rooney is brashly predictable. He's comfortable on-screen, all right--too comfortable. His pandering for praise begins to strike one as inhuman, and when he tries for a quiet moment it isn't too convincing ('show-stopping' performances such as this caused Rooney to fall out of favor in Hollywood for years). Following 1938's "Babes In Arms" (for which Rooney got an Academy Award nomination) and 1940's "Strike Up the Band", Busby Berkeley seems to have fallen into a trap himself; the musical numbers have no lift (just empty cant), and the patriotic slant the story soon adopts is an uncomfortable match-up. One classic song, "How About You?", garnered the picture its only Oscar nod (it didn't win, which is a crime). Margaret O'Brien has a funny bit, as does a little boy pianist who is funnier than all the older kids put together. ** from ****