1938: Judy Garland in "Love Finds Andy Hardy"

by Nick Taylor

Love Finds Andy Hardy is the fifth of sixteen films made about the life of its titular character, and one of three Andy Hardy films released in 1938. It's also first of threeto feature Judy Garland as Betsy Booth, the shy out-of-towner girl nursing a crush on Andy. This marks the first Andy Hardy movie I’ve seen, and given my severe allergy to Mickey Rooney I might leave it here for now. That being said, my dislike of Rooney pales in comparison to my adoration of Garland's lovely, roseate performance. 

Our story begins in early December. Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) has just learned from his girlfriend Polly Benedict (Ann Rutherford) that she’ll be visiting family for Christmas, meaning she won’t be able to attend the town’s dance. Andy is distraught, but an unexpected opportunity arises when his friend Beezy asks him to date his girlfriend Cynthia (Lana Turner) for a few weeks. He doesn’t want some other guy making the moves on his girl while he’s gone...

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1938: Mary Astor in "Listen, Darling", "Paradise for Three", and "There's Always a Woman"

Before each Smackdown, Nick Taylor considers alternates to Oscar's Best Supporting Actress roster...

Thank you to everyone who recommended performances from 1938 to look into! And a big thanks, especially, to joel6, whose suggestion inspired today's write-up. 

Mary Astor made five movies in 1938. Three of them - Listen, Darling, Paradise for Three, and There’s Always a Woman - are still relatively easy to track down online. One of these missing titles, Woman Against Woman, barely seems to exist anymore. I also couldn’t find No Time to Marry anywhere, which is a shame since it sounds like an actual leading role. But the three titles one can easily find all provide a snapshot of this endlessly talented actress doing her thing across a wide range of genres and archetypes...

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Adrian, God of Glamour

by Cláudio Alves

Born Adrian Adolph Greenberg, the designer best known as Adrian was one of the most influential costumers in Hollywood history. After working in his family business of millinery, Adrian went on to study costume design in New York and Paris and later found work dressing the starlets of Broadway. His talents soon took him to Hollywood, where he found a home from the mid-1920s to the 1940s, designing the costumes for many an MGM classic. Throughout his tenure in Tinsel Town, Adrian perfected the on and offscreen looks of such great divas as Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Vivien Leigh, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, and others. Among them, his most essential collaborator and muse was the one and only Joan Crawford…

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If you want to honor Judy...

by Cláudio Alves

Within the realm of Oscar races, there are few campaign strategies more annoying than the "honor the movie, honor the man" variety.  It's reserved for biopics, putting forward the idea that to shower a certain production in gold laurels is a way to retroactively reward a dead celebrity. This same logic was somewhat utilized to catapult Renée Zellweger towards her second Oscar win. Let's make one thing clear, Renée's win for Judy is a prize for her bold performance but in no way does this victory actually honor the Oscarless Judy Garland. You don't get to pretend you gave Judy an award Academy -- you lost that chance long ago!

Still, we appreciate that Renée mentioned Garland in her speech and that her movie might inspire people to watch more of the late star's great roles. After all, there's no better way to honor her memory than to explore her wonderful filmography...

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Soundtracking: Judy Garland Takes Over The Criterion Channel

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...

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