Judy’s Last MGM Movie

Miss Judy is back…

It’s no secret that Judy’s life got difficult towards the end of her time at MGM, which was an endless push-pull between her trying to take control of her health and well-being and the studio wanting her back at work. Judy was fired from two movies in 1949–Annie Get Your Gun and The Barkleys of Broadway, but on the other hand she had huge success with In the Good Old Summertime.

1950’s Summer Stock seemed like a reset film until it wasn’t, as it turned out to be Judy’s last movie for MGM. It also contains one of the biggest hairpin turns of possibly any musical committed to celluloid, and, naturally, the usual rumors about Judy’s mental state abound.

Things all open at what should be a typical day at the Falbury Farm in upstate New York. Jane (Judy Garland) is at a loss what to do because her two farmhands, Jeb and Frank have quit since she can’t pay them. Now it’s just Jane and the family housekeeper, Esme (Marjorie Main) and the harvest is coming up, but then she gets an idea: Buy a tractor for the heavy work.

Jane heads into town to the Wingate general store, where her fiancee, Orville (Eddie Bracken) is working at the counter. For some reason the idea of Jane buying a tractor is controversial, maybe because Jane is a woman, or maybe because the Falbury Farm is very much in debt.

Long story short, Jane gets her tractor, and after a happy drive back to the farm, finds an acting troupe taking over her barn. She’s not happy about it to say the least, and she’s even more put out when she finds all of these newcomers are with her sister, Abigail (Gloria DeHaven), whose fiancee, Joe Ross (Gene Kelly) needed a place to try out his new show. So why not the Falbury barn?

Jane is reluctant at first, but she finally relents, letting everyone sleep in the barn with Esme as chaperone. If anything, she plans on getting some free help on the farm from all the extra hands now at her beck and call, even if they are city helpless. Other than that, life becomes what usually happens when a show is being put on. Changes are made, actors are switched, and allegiences are altered. Orville, placid fellow that he is, figures out what being mad looks like and then things get really funny in a stampy-foot kind of way.

In the end, though, the film is a Judy Garland barnyard musical with Gene Kelly instead of Mickey Rooney. Judy gives a great performance. Marjorie Main basically plays herself and it’s hilarious. Phil Silvers is also hilarious. Eddie Bracken is hilarious as well although his part is pretty small. Gene Kelly is incredible, such as in this one number when he dances with nothing but an empty stage, a squeaky floor and a newspaper. Yep, there are a lot of great moments, but above all Summer Stock is a movie of contrasts, particularly when it comes to the musical numbers.

Some of them are mediocre, like “Friendly Star.” Some songs, like “Dig For Your Dinner” aren’t bad. “The Portland Fancy,” which is a dance duet between Judy and Gene, is fantastically simple. Towards the end, though, really, really good comes after really, really bad, and those who have seen the movie know I’m talking about.

The latter is “Heavenly Music,” which in my opinion might be one of the most annoying musical numbers ever put on the screen, big or small. It features Gene Kelly and Phil Silvers dressed as hillbillies, complete with blacked-out teeth, huge fake Hobbit feet, overalls and straw hats, surrounded by about a couple dozen barking dogs. Everything about it is awful. Apparently Judy was supposed to be included in the number but she was a no-show probably due to illness, so instead of doing the sensible thing and scrapping it, Gene and Phil forged ahead. Sigh. I don’t know about anyone else, but I always hit the “Forward” button when this thing comes up.

“Heavenly Music” is followed, of course, by Judy’s masterful “Get Happy,” which was filmed during Judy’s last few days at MGM, and so different from the other numbers in Summer Stock that people thought it was from another movie. If anyone hasn’t seen this modern dance tour-de-force, I can’t recommend it enough. I would even go so far as to recommend going straight to “Get Happy” and skipping the rest of the movie, but I’m not going to do that.

“Get Happy” has an interesting backstory and, as seems to be typical for certain so-called Judy biographers, some nasty unsubstantiated rumors. The song was written, appropriately enough, by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1929 and originally sung by Ruth Etting in the 1930 Broadway flop, Nineteen Fifteen Review. The song was a hit even if the show wasn’t, and it was initially recorded by Ted Wallace and His Campus Boys. Summer Stock was not the first movie “Get Happy” was featured in and it wouldn’t be the last.

So yeah, about those nasty rumors. I read a book years ago called The Golden Girls of MGM that claimed the reason Judy wore a chignon for “Get Happy” was because she’d had an absolute meltdown in her dressing room one day and tore out chunks of her own hair. The chignon was meant to hide the bare spots.

This could not be further from the truth. Judy’s outfit and hairstyle for the number were recycled from Easter Parade‘s jettisoned “Mr. Monotony,” which had been tossed because while the song was great and Judy was wonderful, a tuxedo jacket and not much else were very unsuitable for the time period the movie was set in. Hence, Freed and his team basically had a free outfit, and it all worked out extremely well.

What also worked out well were the box office returns, as Summer Stock pulled in $7.1M in 1950 dollars, competing with the likes of All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard. Not too shabby for a grown-up version of Judy’s barnyard musicals.

However, it was, still, Judy’s last movie at MGM. She started work on Royal Wedding, but Judy’s usual problems caused her to get fired from the movie, and in September of 1950, she was done at MGM. Biographers can’t seem to agree whether she was let go by the studio or her contract was terminated by mutual agreement, but either way, Judy was out. She was a free woman, at least from the studio that had helped her become a star.

As Judy herself said later, “Farewell, alma mater.”

For more of the great Judy Garland, please see Crystal at In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Kristen at Hoofers and Honeys. Thanks for hosting this, ladies–so glad Judy’s back! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you Monday for, of all things, a book review…

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Bibliography

Judy Garland: By Myself. Directed by Susan Lacy, narration by Harris Yulin. Thirteen/WNET, Turner Entertainment and 1515 Productions Limited, 2013.