121. Babes in Arms (1939)

Directed by Busby Berkeley

Synopsis

Some annoying kids put on a show. Black face FTW!

Review

Well there go one hour and a half of my life that I will never get back. As the clock ticks inexorably towards my death time starts lacking to watch crap films and that was what this was. I am truly sorry to say this because I love Busby Berkeley's work, hey I quite like Judy Garland (in a manly way) but this was horrid.

If you find The Jazz Singer to be an offensive film you ain't seen nothing yet. The black face number here is probably the most offensive thing I've seen on the list, Judy Garland and Mick Rooney go through a gamut of racial stereotyping like there was no tomorrow when they do the "My Father Was A Minstrel" act. From accents to singing Dixie and stereotyped "Negro" laughters it was really appalling, at least there were no fried chicken jokes... must have been cut at the last minute.

Also uncommonly for Berkeley the musical numbers aren't that good. The best one is Babes In Arms near the beginning with it's inventive music. Music isn't bad actually, there is Where Or When and Good Morning which are great tracks. Garland comes across as annoying however and Mick Rooney, to borrow a line from some Portuguese comedians looks like a "cross between a pig and two pounds of carrots" while not being very funny and making a terrible impression of Clark Gable.

When films have a young cast and the people who make the film think that that will be enough to endear the film to an audience you know it's going to be shit. In this case you would be right. Don't bother watching it, I'm not even giving you the link to Amazon.


Final Grade

4/10

Trivia

I'd like to know why the fuck this was on the list. Will someone tell me? Please make an intelligent defence of this film, if you can.

Thankfully the film seems to have fallen into oblivion and therefore there is not clip for you. But you get a portrait of Huey P. Newton of the Black Panthers just to balance having watched this film: