Judy by the Numbers: "I'm Nobody's Baby"
Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at 7:45AM Anne Marie is tracking Judy Garland's career through musical numbers...
Today's clip is a plea for the importance of audio preservation. Unlike last week's short, which survives as only 3 minutes of grainy footage of Judy Garland singing to a statue, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante has been remastered and restored several times since its 1940 release. However, Judy completists who watch the movie may be surprised at what a musical it's not. That's because two songs are missing from the film.The Songwriters: Benny Davis, Milton Ager, and Lester Stanley
The Players: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Lewis Stone, Ann Rutherford, directed by George B. Seitz
The Story: Judy Garland only sings two songs in the entirety of her second Andy Hardy film. Unlike most Mickey/Judy pairings, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante does not follow the "let's put on a show" plotline. Instead, the film follows Andy as he goes further and further into debt trying to woo the heart of a New York debutante. This means two terrible things for Judy Garland fans: less Judy, and less singing. In fact, the movie was originally supposed to have four songs by Little Iron Lungs. Unfortunately, "Buds Won't Bud" and "All I Do Is Dream Of You" were recorded, but cut before being filmed. (Both were eventually reused in later films: "Buds Won't Bud" was sung by Ethel Waters in Cairo, while "All I Do Is Dream Of You" used as Debbie Reynold's excuse to pop out of a cake in Singin in the Rain.) Here's the good news: both Judy versions were saved as studio recordings, and have since been remastered and released. Sometimes even restoration stories get a happy ending.
previous highlights: "The Land of Let's Pretend" (1930), "Dear Mr Gable" (1937), "Got a New Pair of Shoes" (1937),“Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” (1938), "Over the Rainbow" (1939)
Reader Comments (2)
I knew that she had a couple of numbers cut from this film, which seems crazy now but she's so sidelined in the film I don't know where they would have crammed them in. She does look very pretty in the film and since she and Mickey spend most of the time in New York she's dressed less frumpily than was usually Betsy Booth's lot.
Considering the storyline of the picture it makes sense that she pops in and out but it's a waste of her and the last time at MGM she would be used as a supporting player. Since she did record these other tunes perhaps her part was originally intended to be larger. I hadn't heard them before so thank you Anne Marie for bringing them to light.
Metro may have foolishly not retained its backlot as Universal did when it had the chance but they were better at film, and apparently audio, preservation than many of the other studios. They did suffer a tremendous loss in the 60's when there was a huge fire in one of their vaults but they have a larger percentage of their releases that survive than most other studios.
On a small side note-I noticed looking at next month's TCM schedule that they have seven of Judy's early films, starting with Pigskin Parade, scheduled to run in a mini marathon on the night of April 1st.
I have all of these songs on CD and my ipod. I think it was called something like Collector's Gems from the MGM Vaults, so yes, I can confirm that MGM kept the audio recordings, but then Judy is probably the only recording star from the era with a sizable enough fan base willing to pay for preservation and release. I assume there are a lot of "lost" radio recordings out there that can/should be preserved as well.
Do we know if the missing two numbers were filmed and then cut? Or did they not even bother to film them at all? I imagine they weren't filmed because by now they would be widely seen and admired. Judy is at peak voice and appearance during these years.