Summer Stock

Judy & Gene...what a wonderful Hollywood combination! It's great to see two all-around entertainers working together. Great movie, great songs and dance numbers. Plot was a little weak, but a great musical covers a multitude of sins. I had trouble in seeing Judy as a farmgirl from the country. She had already played this role, sort of, in "Wizard Of Oz", but she was younger then. Like I said.. a good musical makes it all okay. Marjorie Mains was great as always. She had done the "Ma Kettle" role so well for so long that she had taken to playing various versions of it the rest of her life. Eddie Braken as Orville, Judy's fiancee in the movie was good casting. Phil Silvers steals the show in scenes he is in but can be a little grating at times with his silliness here. It all leads up to Judy's performance in "Get happy" though, doesn't it? I mean, you see this glorious performance and the movie suddenly goes from good to "classic". "Get Happy" would soon become one of Judy's signature songs. It's very obvious that 1949-50 were hard times for Judy. Her weight was yo-yoing (Compare the scenes in the beginning where she is in overalls to her singing "Get Happy"), in a few scenes she does not seem fully present or focused. But as another writer here has said, she could do more on her bad days then most everyone else could do on their best. She seemed happiest when she was singing. Always.