Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Steineded How sad is this?

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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.

gkeith_1 Let's put on a show. Did that phrase originate with this movie? At any rate, I watched it and am reviewing it.I loved it. I have some peeves, but they will arise later. Right now, I am missing dear Mickey because he passed away last year, 2014. In his interviews, he used to literally cry about missing the dear departed Judy and about the way she was mistreated by the studio system. Judy's career would go on hot and heavy for about another ten years after this movie, before her star began to fade off. Her adult movie career was rather short, if you measure the years of her successes, but power packed with all of her cinematic productions and private life stories in between.Re Mickey: Night in/at the Museum, eat your heart out. Older actors have to eat, and earn money to afford that SAG card membership.You look at this film, Babes in Arms, and you see young, energetic Mr. Mickey Rooney, slim, quick-footed and fast with impersonations of Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was trying to direct and teach the other teenagers his way of acting properly on stage. Mickey was first-listed as star of this movie; he was all domineering and screechy but probably deserved all of the hype.Judy was excellent, and her Eleanor Roosevelt My Day number was superb and nostalgic. Yes, Judy's swing vs. opera number reminded me very much of her 1936 Sunday in the Park (was that the name?) with Deanna Durbin. In real life, IMO Deanna was siphoned off in favor of Judy as a future star.Another actress IMO who was shoved under the bus in favor of Judy was (hold your breath) Shirley Temple. Shirley didn't get Wizard of Oz, but Judy did. Temple's career was about over soon after The Little Princess, I feel, 1938. In this movie, Babes in Arms, the June Preisser character is a has-been child actress who has starred in such previous filmers in particular as "The Baby Colonel"/Baby General or something like that, that reminded me of Shirley's "The Little Colonel"/Littlest General (?). Was this a satirical innuendo?Some bad as follows, I feel, but I am still giving this movie a 10 for sentimental reasons and still loving Mickey and Judy in all that they did: a pox on the bonfire and related singing, ala Nazis and possibly even Hitler Youth: similar bonfire done in a later Judy movie Meet Me in St. Louis which is a creepy/pun intended Halloween scene, which I also despised along with the homemade stupid Halloween costumes in the St. Louis movie -- and also throwing the wooden furniture into the bonfire. Ugh.African American character in this movie: June Preisser's maid. Other than herself, here were white actors who "blacked up" in the supposed spirit of vaudevillian minstrelsy tradition -- could this type of blackface dance scene even be done today, 2015? Back to the good: Douglas McPhail I felt was one powerful singer, who outsang everybody else. He was maybe the only white performer in the blackface minstrelsy scene, but I feel he helped carry it off.IT WAS THE GREAT DEPRESSION. No wonder the older actors were broke. Moviegoers who had the ten cents or whatever it cost, could see talking films way cheaper than to see live vaudevillians of the old days. How could the former performers afford all the houses in that community, and pay for all the churches, etc.? Hardly any could have been real headliners, and most statistically could barely afford to even stay in rooming houses much less pay for permanent real estate.FINALLY, POST-WAR BABY BOOM. You have to realize that most of these actors were born, say, around 1920 (like Mickey) or 1922 (like Judy), and that they were teenagers when making this movie. This means that they were born right after World War One ended. The irony is that in real life some of these teen actors would go into World War Two and have post-war baby boom babies themselves.Mickey Rooney went on to serve in World War Two, he of the seven wives (I think) and maybe even countless babies? Yes, it was child real-life Mickey in the tap dancing film clip interspersed into the life of the movie's child Mickey Moran. This was no imposter playing Mickey Rooney/Mickey Moran.I am a theatrical historian and movie reviewer. I have a Bachelor of Arts Degree in American History, which includes close to a minor in performing arts studies in theatre, dance and voice, plus fine arts. I took the American History major in order to study more the decades surrounding much of our theatrical/stage and movie/cinematic history and actors and actresses thereof. I also studied cinematic techniques and theatrical censorship and critiquing.In my historian and theatrical coursework, I wrote scripts and portrayed actresses such as Sophia Loren (speaking Italian), Mae West (in a boa), and Lucille Ball (screaming at Ricky Ricardo that he's a fancy bandleader while she's a homebound wifey).At any rate, you know from my other reviews that song and dance movies are my absolute favorites. Some people say that some of these movies are plot-less or slim of plot, but so what? Who cares? This movie is a classic. Yes, it talks about Der Fuhrer and Il Duce, and Douglas McPhail does a cool goose-step. God's Country reminds one of the huge patriotic dance scene in the later 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy.Critiquing this movie through today's lenses (2015), RIP Mickey Rooney, and even with the aforementioned sadder parts, I still give this movie:10/10

mark.waltz Warner Brothers took the Dead End Kids and taught them the law. MGM simply gave their teen brigade and gave them tap shoes. Those teens are lead by the rambunctious Mickey Rooney and the peppy but vulnerable Judy Garland who sang and danced their way into the hearts of the world with this schmaltzy but energetic musical. Loosely based upon the 1937 Broadway hit, it lacks many of the original Rodgers and Hart songs in favor of an original score by Roger Edens. The basic plot remains concerning the children of traveling vaudevillians who decide to put on their own show in order to avoid reform school. In the process, buddies Garland and Rooney discover adolescent love in spite of his distraction by a perky former child star. The duo's real life starts in vaudeville correlates with their character's, giving it a bit of irony. Rooney received his first Oscar Nomination for this, basically a continuation of what he had already been doing with the Andy Hardy series. The only difference is here, he sings and dances, quite remarkably, yet with all of the incredible performances in 1939, his inclusion really gives me this reaction: ? As for Garland, she gives a truly versatile performance, combining tenderness and spunk, never hamming it up yet winning attention by commanding it, not demanding it. She truly steals your heart when she sings "I Cried for You", a solo equal in power to Over the Rainbow from the same year's "The Wizard of Oz". In an odd historical note, Garland was not nominated for an Oscar for either film, although a supporting performance by Greer Garson in "Goodbye Mr. Chips" was.Musically, only the title song and "Where or When" remain from the stage show which is on rare occasions still revived. A studio cast album shows that the cut songs deserved better recognition than they got here. Obviously, Garland didn't get to sing the show's most famous song, "The Lady is a Tramp" which is still heard as background music without the racy lyrics. Lena Horne did perform it in the Rodgers and Hart bio-pic, Words and Music. The title number is a highlight, although in retrospect, the group seems self serving, unrealistic and destructive in starting a bonfire. The over-stuffed minstrel show has raised eyebrows with its black-face segments, while the patriotic finale is like something you'd never see on Broadway, let alone in a small-town barn. Elements of both numbers are very dated. The constant close-ups of diaper clad tots may make you gag after a few seconds. Garland and Rooney are a fine team and certainly share much chemistry. Douglas McPhail and Betty Jaynes provide noble support, while June Preisser is the Kristen Chenoweth of her era. Guy Kibbee is a kindly judge and Margaret Hamilton is a well- meaning town matron who only a few months later would taunt Judy once again, albeit in green make-up. Busby Berkeley takes the elaborate choreography and military like drill marching but lacks the camp of earlier musicals and a later banana clad Carmen Miranda.

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.