Watch Babes in Arms For Free

Please don't spend money on this.

People are voting emotionally.

I'll tell you why so serious

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

The children of struggling vaudeville stars decide to put on a musical show to save their homes. Yes, it's a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland "let's put on a show" musical. Their first such movie, I think, and probably their most famous. Mickey & Judy are great. Mickey does Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable impressions that are a hoot. He also has a fight scene in a drug store which is amusing. The supporting cast is made up of fine character actors like Guy Kibbee, Charles Winninger, and Henry Hull. Adorable June Preisser steals every scene she's in. Margaret Hamilton plays the villain, a busybody who tries to get the kids taken away from their parents. Garland & Hamilton filmed this right after Wizard of Oz, by the way. Interestingly, this was actually a bigger hit at the box office than Oz was in 1939.Most of the songs are nice but none wowed me. Several classic Rodgers & Hart tunes from the Broadway musical this was based on are either omitted altogether or featured too briefly to make an impact. An ear-splitting operatic version of "You're My Lucky Star" by Betty Jaynes is probably the worst song in the movie. Judy's "I Cried for You" is best. Salute to minstrel shows with cast members in blackface will upset some so prepare yourself if you're one of them. Directed by Busby Berkeley, as evidenced by his distinct touches on the "God's Country" closing number. Speaking of which, that number has Mickey & Judy satirizing FDR & Eleanor. After FDR's death this part was cut out of future showings and it remained that way until the '90s. It's a lively number and the added historical value is a plus. Good old-fashioned fun. Charming, innocent, and yes, a little corny, but an enjoyable movie overall.

Let's put on a show. Did that phrase originate with this movie? At any rate, I watched it and am reviewing it.I loved it. I have some peeves, but they will arise later. Right now, I am missing dear Mickey because he passed away last year, 2014. In his interviews, he used to literally cry about missing the dear departed Judy and about the way she was mistreated by the studio system. Judy's career would go on hot and heavy for about another ten years after this movie, before her star began to fade off. Her adult movie career was rather short, if you measure the years of her successes, but power packed with all of her cinematic productions and private life stories in between.Re Mickey: Night in/at the Museum, eat your heart out. Older actors have to eat, and earn money to afford that SAG card membership.You look at this film, Babes in Arms, and you see young, energetic Mr. Mickey Rooney, slim, quick-footed and fast with impersonations of Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was trying to direct and teach the other teenagers his way of acting properly on stage. Mickey was first-listed as star of this movie; he was all domineering and screechy but probably deserved all of the hype.Judy was excellent, and her Eleanor Roosevelt My Day number was superb and nostalgic. Yes, Judy's swing vs. opera number reminded me very much of her 1936 Sunday in the Park (was that the name?) with Deanna Durbin. In real life, IMO Deanna was siphoned off in favor of Judy as a future star.Another actress IMO who was shoved under the bus in favor of Judy was (hold your breath) Shirley Temple. Shirley didn't get Wizard of Oz, but Judy did. Temple's career was about over soon after The Little Princess, I feel, 1938. In this movie, Babes in Arms, the June Preisser character is a has-been child actress who has starred in such previous filmers in particular as "The Baby Colonel"/Baby General or something like that, that reminded me of Shirley's "The Little Colonel"/Littlest General (?). Was this a satirical innuendo?Some bad as follows, I feel, but I am still giving this movie a 10 for sentimental reasons and still loving Mickey and Judy in all that they did: a pox on the bonfire and related singing, ala Nazis and possibly even Hitler Youth: similar bonfire done in a later Judy movie Meet Me in St. Louis which is a creepy/pun intended Halloween scene, which I also despised along with the homemade stupid Halloween costumes in the St. Louis movie -- and also throwing the wooden furniture into the bonfire. Ugh.African American character in this movie: June Preisser's maid. Other than herself, here were white actors who "blacked up" in the supposed spirit of vaudevillian minstrelsy tradition -- could this type of blackface dance scene even be done today, 2015? Back to the good: Douglas McPhail I felt was one powerful singer, who outsang everybody else. He was maybe the only white performer in the blackface minstrelsy scene, but I feel he helped carry it off.IT WAS THE GREAT DEPRESSION. No wonder the older actors were broke. Moviegoers who had the ten cents or whatever it cost, could see talking films way cheaper than to see live vaudevillians of the old days. How could the former performers afford all the houses in that community, and pay for all the churches, etc.? Hardly any could have been real headliners, and most statistically could barely afford to even stay in rooming houses much less pay for permanent real estate.FINALLY, POST-WAR BABY BOOM. You have to realize that most of these actors were born, say, around 1920 (like Mickey) or 1922 (like Judy), and that they were teenagers when making this movie. This means that they were born right after World War One ended. The irony is that in real life some of these teen actors would go into World War Two and have post-war baby boom babies themselves.Mickey Rooney went on to serve in World War Two, he of the seven wives (I think) and maybe even countless babies? Yes, it was child real-life Mickey in the tap dancing film clip interspersed into the life of the movie's child Mickey Moran. This was no imposter playing Mickey Rooney/Mickey Moran.I am a theatrical historian and movie reviewer. I have a Bachelor of Arts Degree in American History, which includes close to a minor in performing arts studies in theatre, dance and voice, plus fine arts. I took the American History major in order to study more the decades surrounding much of our theatrical/stage and movie/cinematic history and actors and actresses thereof. I also studied cinematic techniques and theatrical censorship and critiquing.In my historian and theatrical coursework, I wrote scripts and portrayed actresses such as Sophia Loren (speaking Italian), Mae West (in a boa), and Lucille Ball (screaming at Ricky Ricardo that he's a fancy bandleader while she's a homebound wifey).At any rate, you know from my other reviews that song and dance movies are my absolute favorites. Some people say that some of these movies are plot-less or slim of plot, but so what? Who cares? This movie is a classic. Yes, it talks about Der Fuhrer and Il Duce, and Douglas McPhail does a cool goose-step. God's Country reminds one of the huge patriotic dance scene in the later 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy.Critiquing this movie through today's lenses (2015), RIP Mickey Rooney, and even with the aforementioned sadder parts, I still give this movie:10/10

Wow, I just finished watching "Babes in Arms", and my head is spinning. We old movie fans are used to seeing ethnic humor and even the occasional bit of blackface in early Hollywood films; but what "Babes in Arms" gives us is outrageous by any definition: an entire cast of a "show within a show", numbering at least 50 to 75 people, including Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, every one in blackface, performing not just a minstrel skit, nor a single musical number, but an entire 20 minute full-blown minstrel show in spectacular MGM full-production mode. It goes on and on and on. Dialect jokes. Banjoes and songs about Alabammy. And finally, Judy Garland, having removed her blackface, comes out and performs an additional number ("I'm Just Wild About Harry") as an only slightly darkened black woman. Wow.On the other hand, is it really possible that the manic Mickey Rooney was only 19 when he made this? He really shows why he may be the single most talented American performer of the last century. He dances, he sings, he does drama, he does comedy, and he has incredible control over his every move and muscle. And he does unbelievable and hilarious impressions of Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore. And Franklin Roosevelt.A few quick notes: June Priesser, who plays "Baby" Rosalie, was a terrible actress. But watch out for her stomach-churning contortionist back-rolls when she first comes out on a stage.The child actor who plays Mickey Rooney at age 5 dancing on a Vaudeville stage for a few moments early on really does look like Mickey Rooney! I think Judy Garland actually has some of the same lines in this movie as she does in "Wizard of Oz", done in this same year. Watch out for when Mickey Rooney feints early in the film; Garland reacts to this exactly, and I mean exactly, as she does in Oz when the Lion feints. Eerie! When Judy Garland, as Eleanor Roosevelt, sings "My day, my day", she is referring to an actual long-running newspaper column written by E.R. from 1936 to 1962.Finally, the final song and dance number is the most mind-numbing, over-the-top tribute to America, dancing, how we are not Nazis, American Indians, Asian Indians, dancing, the Roosevelts, and dancing, that I have ever seen. Yes, it was early WWII, but still, you wonder if anyone even in 1939 thought this was a little too much? Recommended for its high energy, its Rooney and Garland, its more Rooney, its offensiveness, and its too much of everything. It is history, and should be watched by all.

For Mickey and Judy fans, Babes in Arms is an absolute must. It's the only one of their films in which one of the two got an Oscar nomination. Mickey Rooney was nominated for Best Actor, personally I think as an afterthought because his competition was Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind, Laurence Olivier for Wuthering Heights, James Stewart for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the winner Robert Donat for Goodbue Mr. Chips. Not that Mickey's bad, but he really didn't belong with this field.What he and Judy do, they do better than anyone else, put on a show. In fact in this case the 'put on a show' gambit did originate in the original Broadway Musical. Babes in Arms was one of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's best shows it ran for 289 performances in the 1937 season and boasted such Rodgers&Hart classics as Johnny One Note, Way Out West, My Funny Valentine, I Wish I Were in Love Again all of which were discarded for the film. The Lady is a Tramp is only heard instrumentally, my guess is the Code frowned on that lyric. The title song and Where or When are retained. In fact when you come right down to it, only the basic idea the songs mentioned and a couple characters names came over from Broadway.Still Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed wrote Good Morning which is better known from Singin' in the Rain, but it was Judy and Mickey who introduced it here. And a whole lot of other Brown&Freed songs from MGM musicals got interpolated into the score.Douglas MacPhail and Betty Jaynes who were introduced in Sweethearts also are here and sing beautifully. They married, but the marriage and MacPhail's career fell apart and he committed suicide a few years later. He had a great baritone voice, what a shame. The following year he introduced my favorite Cole Porter song, I Concentrate On You in The Broadway Melody of 1940. This was the film Judy Garland did right after The Wizard of Oz and coming along right with her is Margaret Hamilton playing another Miss Gulch like character. One of those spinster ladies who forever pry into other people's business.Believe it or not there was still a lot of prejudice against theatrical people even in 1937. A lot of old vaudeville types like Charles Winninger, Rooney's father in the film, settle in the town of Seaport on Long Island and their presence apparently upsets the ruling families like Hamilton's. When times go bad and vaudeville goes to seed, things get kind of rough for them. The old timers try to take a last tour to raise some money, but instead it's the kids who are up to the latest trends in pop music who save the day.Guy Kibbee is in this also, playing against type as a wise and sympathetic judge, usually the parts MGM reserved for Lewis Stone or Lionel Barrymore. A more typical Kibbee type would be the oafish tycoon in 42nd Street, but he's fine here.Possibly director Busby Berkeley wanted Kibbee, maybe as a good luck charm from that other breakthrough musical of his from his days at Warner Brothers. Of course the musical numbers in the show are set with the usual Berkeley surrealism, a little tempered though from his high flying days at Warner Brothers. That same year Berkeley had done a surreal type number in the Jeanette MacDonald-Lew Ayres film Broadway Serenade and it laid an egg. Someone at MGM must have reined him in.Babes In Arms retains all its charms from 1939 mainly because Mickey Rooney is infectious and Judy Garland's singing is eternal.