Soundtracking: Judy Garland Takes Over The Criterion Channel
Wednesday, November 6, 2019 at 8:35AM by Chris Feil
Forget Disney+, this month we have Judy+. For those of you not already subscribers to the streaming platform, The Criterion Channel has (in addition to a slew of other old studio musicals) added seven classic Judy Garland musicals to the platform for the month of November. Spanning a decade of Garland’s film career, it’s a treat from more famous titles like Meet Me In St. Louis to other oddities such as The Pirate. To entice you to binge as I did, let's run down one of Judy's songs from each of the films available...
For Me and My Gal - 1942 - "For Me and My Gal"
Sometimes we forget the times in which Judy was able to play tougher ingenues instead of her more famous delicate ones. Here she is initially gruff to Gene Kelly before indulging his notions of the two starting an act together, stumbling into this title song and getting caught in the feeling. One of her most remarkable gifts was her incredible emotional access that could take us on the journey with her character. This isn’t just a showstopping song and dance; part of the joy we feel is us witnessing her fall in love in real time.
Meet Me in St. Louis - 1944 - "The Boy Next Door"
We’ve already gone at length here on Soundtracking about this masterpiece, one of the songs we didn’t really discuss is “The Boy Next Door”. It’s the quintessential second-song-in-a-musical “I want” song, striking in its youthful ease when you compare it to the maturing broken heart of Garland’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” later in the film. As Esther, Garland plays a really subtle emotional arc and it begins with this sense of uncomplicated longing.
The Harvey Girls - 1946 - "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe"
The Harvey Girls feels, especially in its many large ensemble numbers, like a star vehicle where the star might have been there for half of the filming. This Oscar winning ensemble number is one of the many sequences that keep her out of sight - but it saves her however for the big finish. In a way, it feels all the more reverential to the size of her talent: surrounded by a horde delivering a pristine classic song, but she’s the big finish, the main event.
Easter Parade - 1948 - "I Want to Go Back to Michigan"
Perhaps it was Dorothy’s Kansan afterglow, but there was something about Garland’s open-hearted aura that always had her playing midwesterners. This number puts her in something of a midwestern anthem - well, certainly if you’re a Michiganite. But that homegrown naivete that she had always projected was starting to morph into a weariness of flashier worlds at this point in her career, intentional or not. “...Michigan” may be upbeat, but her showgirl reads ever so slightly as bruised before Fred Astaire attempts to polish her up.
The Pirate - 1948 - "Mack the Black"
The Pirate is one of those old studio musicals that is not-so-secretly bonkers. Here in this number, Garland plays the heroine Manuela (oh, it’s also one of those musicals that goes heavy on the cultural appropriation) sings “Mack the Black” while being... hypnotized and/or possessed. The musical numbers in this Vicente Minnelli film feel more like diversions away from the very silly plot, but what is most notable about Garland here is how she proves she had the magnetism to pull that distraction off. She’s obviously a delight but this movie is cuckoo.
In the Good Old Summertime - 1949 - “I Don’t Care”
Speaking of songs that side step the plot for the sake of a brassy musical number. Excluding St. Louis, this may be Judy's single greatest vocal on the Criterion Channel lineup, all brassy chutzpah to make this an athem for fed up people everywhere. This number also feels closer to Garland's noteworthy blunt wit that would accompany her performances once she left the role of the ingenue.
Summer Stock - 1950 - “Get Happy”
The utter visual iconography and essentialness to the Judy Garland songbook! Summer Stock was to be Garland's final musical with MGM after turmoil behind the scenes, but she really went out with a bang. "Get Happy" would become one of the most revamped and revisited songs in her repertoire, but this trademark version presents the legend as an icon of song, dance, and especially style in a way that still inspires. Perhaps it's the trite thing to say, but watching it, it's impossible to not get happy as intructed.
All Soundtracking installments can be found here!
Reader Comments (12)
Wonderful selections of some of her fantastic film performances. Get Happy is iconic of course but out of the songs in Summer Stock I've always been more partial to her beautiful rendition of Friendly Star. It's so full of longing and a yearning that her character can't express except in song.
I want to just live in this post.
I just got The Criterion Channel and now I’m never leaving my house ever again.
Brad - Isn't it great? But now I hardly ever watch anything else.
Meet Me in St. Louis deserves to be considered one of the best films of all-time. Best songs (not a dud in the bunch), best star, best director, best supporting cast. I love it so much. And Summer Stock is an underrated gem.
The Criterion Channel is like manna from heaven—a much-needed balm after the defunct FilmStuck. I'm loving the Garland collection, although it's startling how worn out she appears in Summer Stock, just eight years after her winsome, youthful turn in For Me and My Gal. (Don't do drugs, people!)
Garland was an amazing performer-
surely there's a behind the scenes movie or a tv series to be made about a gaggle of mgm chorus boys
i'd watch it...
Judy Garland's unmatched talent and charisma. She was such a good singer that they never took her seriously as an actress.
Os filmes são coloridos e alegres e invariávelmente têm final feliz, como deveriam ter, mas as estórias de bastidores são tristes, de dor e sofrimento. Uma alma talentosa e torturada, a de Judy Garland. Muito da emoção que Renée Zellweger provoca, para os fãs de Judy - alguns como eu -, vêm do conhecimento das dores da verdadeira Judy.
Orry, here is my comment in english:
The movies are colorful and cheerful and invariably have a happy ending, as they should have, but the behind-the-scenes stories are sad, painful and with suffering. A talented and tortured soul, Judy Garland's. Much of the excitement Renée Zellweger brings to Judy's fans - some like me - comes from the knowledge of the pains of true Judy.
Par that is a great idea !!!
First Vivien Leigh ... Now Judy Garland ... What a great November we're having!