Strike Up the Band ***½ (1940, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Paul Whiteman and Orchestra, June Preisser, William Tracy, Larry Nunn) – Classic Movie Review 3611

Director Busby Berkeley’s pleasing 1940 musical is a pleasant re-run for the talented team from Babes in Arms (1939), keeping only George Gershwin’s title song from his 1928 Broadway show.

In a supposedly new story that is however virtually the same as before in Babes in Arms,  (as Jimmy Connors), who this time is putting on a school band show to win orchestra leader Paul Whiteman’s radio high school band competition – that’s the new bit.

This time round, there’s more enthusiasm than style, and the movie is not quite as good as its predecessor. But it is still a delight for the fans, and Garland and Rooney are again extraordinarily dynamic and just superlative together.

Garland and Rooney sing ‘Our Love Affair’ (by Arthur Freed); Garland trills ‘Nell of New Rochelle’ and ‘Do the Conga’. The title song Strike Up the Band is by George and Ira Gershwin. Also: ‘Nobody’, ‘The Gay Nineties’, ‘A Man was the Cause of It All’ and ‘Drummer Boy’.

Also in the cast are June Preisser, William Tracy, Larry Nunn, Margaret Early, Ann Shoemaker, Francis Pierlot, Virginia Brissac, George Lessey, Enid Bennett, Howard C Hickman, Sarah Edwards, Milton Kibbee, Helen Jerome Eddy, Lowden Adams, Richard Allen, Elliot Carpenter, Eddie Buzzard, Don Castle, Maxine Cook, Vondell Darr, Joe Devlin, Mary Jo Ellis, Roland Got, Lois James, Linda Johnson, Louise La Planche, Margaret Marquis, Mickey Martin, Harry McCrillis, Sidney Miller, Jack Mulhall, Wallace Musselwhite, Sherrie Overton, Dick Paxton, Naida Reynolds, Henry Roquemore, Virginia Sale, Helen Seamon, Charles Smith, Myron Speth, Leonard Sues, Billy Wayne, Douglas Wilson and Joe Yule.

Next for Garland and Rooney is Babes on Broadway (1941).

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3611
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Mickey Rooney died on April 6 2014, aged 93.