The Harvey Girls isn't really anything special, cinematically speaking. This run-of-the-mill Judy Garland musical is notable mostly for its Oscar-winning song, "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe."[10 May 2002]
It may be a rather lofty tribute to Fred Harvey's girls, but it's a show.
70
The New YorkerPauline Kael
The New YorkerPauline Kael
The central conceit of glorifying progress and moral uplift in a musical comedy set in New Mexico in the 1880s is certainly a strange one, but it worked out surprisingly well--though the charm is mostly heavy.
60
Time Out
Time Out
A likeable but aimless musical which doesn't know what to make of its plot (designed to cash in on the pioneer spirit of Oklahoma) about the Harvey House restaurants which followed the railroad into the West, bringing demure waitresses into the domain of rowdy saloon girls.
A curious blend of Technicolor wild-westernism, frontier town skullduggery and a troupe of Harvey restaurant waitresses who deport themselves in a manner that's a cross between a sorority and a Follies troupe.