For Me and My Gal **** (1942, Judy Garland, George Murphy, Gene Kelly) – Classic Movie Review 2511

The bells are certainly ringing for director Busby Berkeley’s rousing 1942 MGM patriotic and romantic musical that pairs Judy Garland with Gene Kelly for the first time and also stars George Murphy as fellow hoofer Jimmy Metcalf.

Kelly, who had made his name on Broadway two years earlier in Pal Joey, makes his movie début here, apparently favoured by Garland for the role of her lover, though he was already 30. He lights up the screen with his charisma and virtuoso dancing, though top-billed Garland (in her first adult role aged 19) is equally energetic and appealing. They both team up to superlative effect for the hit title tune (music and lyrics by George W Meyer, Edgar Leslie and E. Ray Goetz).

It is a story of a hoofing threesome with ambitions to play New York’s Palace Theatre, which are going well until World War One gets in the way. Kelly plays Harry Palmer, whom pairs up with Jo Hayden as a couple of vaudeville artists. Palmer injures his hand to avoid being drafted to the army, but later makes up for this.

Tailored for an American World War Two audience, the script is sometimes sparkling and sometimes very sentimental. But this is a great show to treasure with the glossy production, the energetic Busby Berkeley direction (though the musical numbers were staged not by him but choreographed by Bobby Connolly) and of course the great songs – ‘For Me and My Gal’, ‘Oh You Beautiful Doll’, ‘Ballin’ the Jack’, ‘After You’ve Gone’, ‘When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose’ and ‘Pack up Your Troubles’.

It is appropriate, but it may disappoint some, that the film does not have any of Berkeley’s signature large-scale production numbers and that instead the songs are performed as they would have been on the vaudeville stage. It may disappoint some that William Daniels’s cinematography is in black and white.

The screenplay is written by Richard Sherman, Fred F. Finklehoffe and Sid Silvers, based on a story by Howard Emmett Rogers, who was inspired by the true story about real-life vaudeville players Palmer and Hayden.

It was one of its year’s big hits, making over $2,000,000 profit. Kelly and Garland went on to star together in The Pirate (1948) and Summer Stock (1950).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2511

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