120: Babes in Arms

            1939 is often cited as one of the greatest years in the history of Hollywood.  John Wayne broke through as a major A-picture star in John Ford’s Stagecoach.  Jimmy Stuart took center stage opposite Dietrich in a different type of western, Destry Rides Again, and turned in his classic performance as beleaguered Senator Jefferson Smith in Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  Cary grant made two spectacular action pictures, Only Angels have Wings and Gunga Din, while Laurence Olivier embodied Bronte’s Heathcliff in William Wyler’s Wuthering Heights.  Garbo gave her last great performance in Ninotchka.  There were also those two Victor Fleming films, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.  Reading through that list, many might just figure that it’s no wonder Busby Berkley’s Babes in Arms got lost in the shuffle.

            The musical director had fallen out of favor with Warner Bros. and made his way over to the MGM lot, where they were just beginning to stake their claim in the genre.  The resulting picture stared Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, another star hitting pay dirt multiple times in ’39.  This was the height of the studio system, both artistically and politically, and stars were under contract to make as many pictures as the studio heads saw fit for that agreement’s duration.  Reliable character actor Thomas Mitchell played in no less than four of the notable films listed above during the year.  Garland and Margaret Hamilton, Wizard’s Wicked Witch, were paired up again here in Babes, in roles that fit their over the rainbow typecasting.

            Rooney plays Mickey Moran, the son of a fledgling vaudeville entertainer who is ambitious to make his own splash in show business.  When his parents and their variety show friends go on tour to make one last play at some much needed finances, Mickey bands all the showbiz kids together to do what they can on the home front.  These adolescents are encouraged by their parents to avoid the stage and learn skilled trades, but most will have none of it.  The business is in their blood.  Garland plays Moran’s loyal girlfriend who lends her voice to the songs he writes.  They’re set to star together in the show he’s writing for the kids, but when a former child star comes to town he asks her to understudy for  the bankable headliner.

            The musical sequences here are impressive, with the title number decrying the adolescents status as helpless “babes in arms” harkening back to earlier Berkley.  Both Rooney and Garland show off their full range of talents, though Rooney admittedly isn’t the best crooner.  There are also a few “kids” in the group that are clearly in their late 20s.  The script can get hooky in a hurry at some points, but overall this is an entertaining picture.  It’s not on par with the unquestioned masterpieces of that prolific year, but I don’t think that is why it’s been lost amongst them.

            Films of this era often survive a fading in popularity due to their showing on television during the late sixties and seventies.  The Wizard of Oz and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) both gained new life as staples of American culture by their introduction to a whole new generation of television viewers, and indeed still find perennial exhibition on cable and network programming.  Babes in Arms has no such opportunity.  The climax of the picture, the much anticipated Moran-produced show, includes a nearly ten minute “blackface” sequence that renders it all but unmentionable on networks such as AMC and TCM.  Unlike similar sequences in pictures such as Holiday Inn (1942), without this scene the movie wouldn’t play well.  Thus it remains in semi-obscurity.  I will refrain from comment here on the wisdom of such a choice by the programming heads of these networks, except to say that to bury history, however unpleasant, is to be doomed to repeat it.  All politics aside, this film is worth a Saturday evening viewing.

Language: English

Runtime: 94 Minutes

Available through Netflix.com

Grade: 2.5 Hats Off